‘Yes.’ She held out her hand until he reluctantly placed a £10 note in it.

‘I’ve been hearing some interesting rumours about you, Grace,’ Nathan said as she was handing him his change.

‘Have you?’ She sighed, in no mood for conversation with him.

‘Yes. Very interesting,’ he persisted.

‘Okay, Nathan. I’ll bite, What sort of rumours?’

‘That you’re not quite as lily-white as you used to be.’

‘Well you’ll know I’m not the same idiotic girl who used to think the sun shone out of your arse then? You can’t push me around anymore.’

He started laughing. ‘Is that so?’

‘God, you’re such a prick,’ she replied.

‘Aw come on, you know you still love me really.’ He grinned before he took a sip of his whisky. ‘Anyway, tell me, why is Patrick Carter always hanging around here? Every time I come in here, he’s skulking around.’

‘He is not skulking around. He’s a paying customer. He’s very welcome here. Unlike you.’

‘You’re not fucking him, are you?’ he asked, his face contorted in disgust.

‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she hissed. ‘But no, I am not fucking him. He’s a friend of mine, and besides, he’s old enough to be my dad.’ She glared at him. If he registered the veiled insult about his relationship with Kayleigh, then he didn’t show it.

‘Who are you fucking then?’ he asked, his tone suddenly serious.

She stared at him. Who the hell did he think he was? ‘None of your damn business, that’s who,’ she snapped.

‘It will always be my business, Grace. You’re my wife.’

‘I’m your ex-wife, Nathan.’

He ignored her correcting him. ‘So, there is someone then?’

She leaned in close to him and said quietly in his ear: ‘You were enough to put me off men for life, sunshine.’

Turning her back on him, Grace went to serve another customer. She smiled and made polite conversation, but her stomach churned and her heart pounded in her ears. Nathan knew exactly how to push her buttons. The way he treated her like she was his property made her skin crawl. There was a time, when she was an idiotic, love-struck teenager, that she’d thought his possessiveness was quite endearing and his jealousy simply an outward display that he loved her just as much as she loved him. What a fool she’d been.

Chapter Twelve

Twenty Years Earlier