Then she felt his hands sneaking under her dress, tickling her thighs as he searched for her underwear, and came back down to earth. This was moving too fast. She pushed him away. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, sounding exasperated. ‘I told you, Zadie won’t care. It doesn’t matter.’ But Chloe couldn’t do this, even if that were true. Could it be true? Was she so insignificant that sleeping with her would mean nothing? ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and slipped out from under his arm. He muttered, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ under his breath and turned away. She heard his footsteps go towards the master bedroom. Where should she go now? She gripped her way down the stairs, along the corridor. The dining room still had a couple of candles burning, thankfully. She sat for a moment, listening to the noises of the house, the loud silence. She searched for a water glass then took a candle from the table. She’d take it with her upstairs so that she could manage the spiral stairs without tripping and breaking her neck. And tomorrow she would pretend that she had been just as debauched as the rest of them, keeping silent out of modesty.

Afterwards, she tried very hard to remember what made her stop outside Max and Zadie’s room. She tried to find some internal excuse for it, something less perverse than wanting to see Max and Zadie together. Something less desperate than hoping they might ask her to join in. But both of those things were true, however hard she pretended to herself that they weren’t. The door was ajar and she paused when she heard soft groaning. Holding up the candle to see who it was, she almost dropped it.

Lying on the floor, looking like a fallen angel, was Zadie. Her dress was torn. Chloe moved lightning quick, raising the candle, trying to assess the damage. Zadie’s lip was split and bleeding, dripping on to her ripped silk neckline. Her eye was turning purple, matching similar bruises on her arms. The ring on her finger was bloody from a cut on her knuckle, as if she had tried to fight back. Her eyes were moving under the lids and she was breathing, but she looked half dead. ‘Zadie,’ she whispered. ‘Zadie, what happened?’

‘Max,’ Zadie whispered.

27

Now

Chloe’s blood was up. Should she turn around and run? Why was he here? And should she be scared? She knew Max could be nasty. Look what he had done to Zadie. Was he still like that? Did a person ever really stop being like that?

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked after what felt like an hour.

‘Very rude. Aren’t you going to come in?’