to breathe,’ Pinn added, unable to resist joining in. Malvery silenced him with a glare.
‘I see,’ said Rilk, examining Pinn. ‘And how is it a dock worker knows a thing like that?’
Pinn looked lost. ‘I just do.’
‘Lot of pilots come to the dockside bars,’ Malvery said with forced offhandedness. ‘People talk.’
‘Yes they do,’ said Rilk. He walked up to Bess, put his face to her face-grille, and peered inside. ‘Hello?’ he called. The word echoed in the hollow interior.
‘He thinks there’s somebody in there,’ Malvery grinned at Pinn, giving him a nudge. Pinn chuckled on cue. Rilk withdrew, his pale face reddening.
‘Box it up and load it on!’ he snapped, then made a quick note in his logbook and stalked away.
‘Why did you bring me here, Darian?’ asked Trinica Dracken.
‘Why did you come?’ he countered.
She smiled coldly in the light of the lantern overhead. ‘Blowing you out of the sky after all this time seemed a little . . . impersonal,’ she replied. ‘I wanted to see you. I wanted to look you in the eye.’
‘I wanted to see you too,’ said Frey. He’d scooped up the cards that were laid out on the table.
‘You’re a liar. I’m the last person you ever wanted to see again.’
Frey looked down at the cards and began to shuffle them restlessly.
‘I had people watching you,’ said Trinica. ‘Did you know that? After you left me.’
He was faintly chilled. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘The day after our wedding day, I had the Shacklemores looking for you.’
‘It wasn’t our wedding day,’ said Frey, ‘because there wasn’t a wedding.’
‘A thousand people turned up thinking otherwise,’ said Trinica. ‘Not to mention the bride. In fact, everyone seemed to think they were there for a magnificent wedding right up until the moment the judge called for the groom.’ Her expression became comically sorrowful, a sad clown face. ‘And there was the poor bride, waiting in front of all those people.’ She blew a puff of air into her hand, opening it out as she did so. ‘But the groom had gone.’
Frey was rather unnerved by her delivery. He’d expected shrill remonstrations, but she was utterly empty of emotion. She was talking as if it had happened to someone else. And those black, black eyes made her seem strangely fey and alien. A little frightening, even.
‘What do you want, Trinica?’ The words came out angrier than he intended. ‘An apology? It’s a little late for that.’
‘Oh, that’s most certainly true,’ she replied.
Frey settled back in his seat. The sight of her stirred up all the old feelings. Bad feelings. He’d loved this woman once, back when she was sweet and pretty and perfect. Loved her in a way he’d never loved anyone since. But then he’d broken her heart. In return, she’d ripped his to pieces. He could never forget what she’d done to him. He could never forgive her.
But an argument would do him no good now. He couldn’t take the risk that Trinica would storm out. The object of this meeting was to keep her here as long as possible, to let his men do their job on the
