Frankie had jumped off the stool and was looking at Dominic with his hands in his pockets and his face wearing a bullish expression that Mattie recognised. He had never once raised his hands to her but he had been involved in enough bar-room brawls for her to know when he was tensing up for a fist fight.

The knowledge that he would lose to the powerful man glowering at him was enough to make her position herself very squarely between them.

„Nothing‟s going on, Dominic,‟ she said coolly. She had never seen him like this.

Murderously angry.

„You‟re Frankie, are you? Well, if you want to stay in one piece then I suggest you clear out of my apartment before I throw you down all four flights of stairs.‟

„Try it, mate.‟ But his voice sounded less confident than the words suggested. „I was just going, as it happens.‟

„Did you ask him over?‟ Dominic‟s brilliant black eyes focused on Mattie‟s white face and she nodded. He looked past her to where Frankie was still doing a good impression of a man who wasn‟t going to be pushed around even though his eyes were flitting anxiously to his discarded bomber jacket. „Get out. Now. And don‟t even think of ever coming back here because you won‟t be invited a second time. Will he, Mattie?‟

Mattie found herself just nodding, and by the time her senses had returned to normal Frankie had gone and Dominic was staring at her with blazing eyes from across the width of the sitting room. At which point she flared into anger.

„Did you have to act like a thug?‟ were the first words she could think of, which galvanised him into immediate action and had him standing inches away from her in the matter of a few seconds.

„He should be grateful I didn‟t break his neck!‟ Dominic grated, glaring savagely down at her. „What the hell were you thinking, asking your ex-boyfriend over here? While the cat‟s away the mice will play? Couldn‟t wait to see the back of me so that you could pick the phone up and invite him around?‟

Assailed by a tirade of accusations that made such little sense when added together, Mattie just remained silent and stared in bewilderment at Dominic, who threw her one last, scathing look before disappearing towards his bedroom.

Remaining where she was did not constitute an option. She found herself half tripping in his wake and reached the bedroom door as he was in the process of divesting himself of his shirt, which he proceeded to tear off his back and hurl onto the bed.

„I thought you were going to be away,‟ she said, mesmerised by the flexing of muscles in his shoulders as he moved. When he turned to face her, she hurriedly looked up and adopted her crispest I-will-not-be-bossed-around-by-you expression.

„Well, sorry to disappoint you, darling.‟

„I know what you‟re thinking, Dominic…‟

„I know what my eyes told me.‟ He unbuckled his belt and pulled it smoothly through the loops of his trousers, then it joined the discarded shirt.

„This is exactly why we can‟t get married!‟

„And why would that be? Because you wouldn‟t be able to keep your hands off your ex-lover?‟

„Because you‟re an arrogant swine!‟

„I don‟t consider it arrogant to expect you not to invite old lovers into my apartment!‟

„I…I needed someone to talk to.‟

„You can talk to me!‟ Dominic bellowed. Every word leaving his mouth was wrong. He knew it and he couldn‟t help himself. She would never know what it had taken not to lunge at that loser and beat him to a pulp. Just seeing them with their arms around one another had been like a physical blow to the gut.

He was heading towards the bathroom. Now he stopped, turned around and said with savage grimness, „Talk! You want to talk—well, talk!‟

„Not when you‟re like this, in this mood.‟ Mattie turned her head away and he groaned softly as he saw the glimmer of tears. To walk away now would be the end of them. He knew it just as he knew that the end of them would be the end of him so he took a deep breath and walked towards her, expecting her to push him back, prepared to subdue her until she was willing just to let him hold her.

Instead, Mattie turned into him with a sigh of weary defeat and buried her head against his bare chest. She could hear his heart beating like a drum and when she put her palm flat against him she could feel it as well.

„I‟m not in a mood.‟ He curled his fingers into her hair and pressed her against him.

„Correction. I am in a mood. I‟m in a foul mood because I can‟t stand the thought of you having anything to do with that man. I can‟t stand the thought of you thinking of him, I can‟t stand the thought of you seeing him and I definitely can‟t stand the sight of finding you wrapped up in his arms.‟

„Because you‟re jealous?‟

Dominic gave a ragged laugh. „Me? Jealous? Of someone like Frankie? Did you notice the way he started backing off when he thought I might go for him? Did you? He knew I could thrash him in seconds.‟ He smouldered for a while and then muttered savagely, „But to answer your question, yes, I was.‟

Mattie felt her heart melt as she acknowledged how much it would have taken for a man like Dominic to admit to that weakness. Except it didn‟t sound like weakness to her. In fact, it made her mind take flight and this time she couldn‟t bring it back down with prosaic internal lectures about common sense and cool, hard reason.

She wriggled free of him and stared up into his eyes. „What are you trying to say, Dominic?‟

„Nothing.‟ He turned away, his face darkly flushed.

„Oh, right. I had hoped…‟ Her head drooped and she walked towards the bed and sat down.

„Hoped? What…?‟ Dominic prompted, following her but, instead of sitting next to her, standing over her and seeming to hover. „You were saying…?‟ he insisted, until Mattie raised her eyes to his.

„I don‟t love Frankie, in case you were afraid of that.‟

Dominic half smiled foolishly, looked away, looked back at her. „Of course you don‟t,‟

he swaggered in a way that made her want to smile.

„Which doesn‟t mean that I approve of your behaviour, although…I guess I understand. I shouldn‟t have asked him over. It was stupid of me.‟ She idly plucked at the duvet cover and sighed.

„He shouldn‟t have come.‟ She didn‟t love Frankie. He felt like a kid in a toy shop suddenly given a fistful of dollars. „I suppose he was gutted when you told him about my baby?‟

„The opposite, actually. Because he‟s going to be a father too.‟ Mattie lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling with her hands behind her head. „He‟d been having an affair for the last few months we were together.‟