‘She’s safe,’ Ben snarled, his lip curling with contempt, as relief flooded my whole body. ‘God, I can’t believe you would think for one minute that I would hurt her! You’re disgusting!’

I didn’t care what he called me. As long as Elodie was alive and well, he could throw whatever insults he wanted. I nodded and took a deep breath. ‘So where is she, then?’

Ben’s eyes glittered with tears in the moonlight. When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. ‘All you need to know is that she’s safe. From now on, we’re both safe. From you. Come anywhere near either of us again and I will kill you.’ He thrust the blade forward to emphasize his words. ‘I know you don’t think I’d do it. That I’m too much of a wimp. But believe me, I would. I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe and get you out of our lives.’

A mixture of shock and relief had once again turned my legs to jelly and I briefly thought I might faint, but I took another deep, calming breath and tried to think clearly. ‘Ben, tell me where Elodie is … Please, Ben, I need to see Elodie.’

Ben’s face contorted into a look of contempt. ‘You need to see Elodie?’ He gave a half-laugh and rolled his eyes. ‘Well, that’s strange, because you didn’t seem to need to see her earlier tonight when you were in your lover’s bed!’

My mouth dropped open in disbelief. How could he possibly know about Leo? In the few seconds I had to collect my thoughts, I decided that he couldn’t know for sure and that it was just a lucky guess. I needed to brazen it out. ‘I wasn’t …’

‘Stop fucking lying!’ Ben yelled. ‘I know you were with him because I called Leo …’ He rolled his tongue around the word to emphasize the name. ‘And Leo told me that you’d left nearly two hours ago!’

I opened my mouth to reply but no words would come out. I was frantically trying to assimilate my thoughts but they were tumbling over each other and I couldn’t seem to hold onto anything concrete. He knew. He knew everything.

Ben took a step closer to me and squeezed hard on the shaft of the knife. A muscle pulsed furiously in his cheek and beads of sweat trickled down the side of his face, mixing with the trail of tears. He had a crazed look in his eyes that I had never seen before. ‘You promised me that you’d stopped seeing him but you were lying, like you lie about everything.’

‘How …?’ I managed to gasp. ‘How did you call him?’

‘Really? That’s what you’re most concerned about? How I got Leo’s number?’

I didn’t reply, fear rendering me mute. The terrifying look in Ben’s eyes was even scarier than the knife he was holding.

Ben shook his head in disbelief. ‘OK,’ he began in a sing-song voice. ‘So remember that night, when I saw the messages on your phone between you and him?’