The Golden Locket (Unbreakable Trilogy, Book 2) by Primula Bond Page A

tipped and rattled. ‘It looks like an heirloom.’
    ‘I don’t have any of those left, thanks to Pierre. So it’s brand new. Yours and only yours.’ He threaded the chain round my throat. ‘And when people see it resting on your beautiful breast they will know that you are mine, and only mine.’
    ‘Monsieur Gustav you are really spoiling me!’ His fingers tickled my neck, my hair, as I sensed rather than heard the tiny click-lock of attachment. The chain was just too short for me to lift the locket over my head, even if I had wanted to. ‘But what’s that tapping inside?’
    ‘My darling, another priceless symbol locked away, which you have yet to earn.’
    I giggled and twisted myself quickly so that I was straddling his lap where he sat beneath the Christmas tree. I ran my tongue suggestively over my lips before biting his ear lobe, hard. ‘Show me how to earn it, then, lover. Tie me and take me.’
    A tinny ringtone from the other room pierces my reverie and the sudden quiet space between music tracks. Pierre answers his phone and Polly makes some high-pitched complaint.
    I curse under my breath and wrench open the huge fridge.
    Now it’s my mobile phone as well clamouring for attention. I clutch a bag of ice and a new bottle of champagne and charge back out of the kitchen. Pierre has apparently finished his call and to my surprise he has risen from the sofa and is over by the windowsill, watching my phone singing and dancing with skittish energy on the ledge.
    Pierre glances at the caller name and presses the decline button on my mobile, looking at me with an odd expression on his face. ‘Big brother’s too late. We’re outta here.’
    ‘I’ll check my own phone, thanks!’ I thump the ice bucket and the bottle down on the table. ‘Let me call him back. You have to give him a chance, Pierre.’
    ‘He could be calling from Switzerland! Who knows when he’ll arrive! He gave me ten minutes back in London, and now he can’t even be here on time. Oh, you’ve tried your best, girl. You’re a real Trojan. Everything Polly has told me about you is true. But Gustav? He doesn’t deserve you.’
    Polly tugs at her skirt and sits on the edge of the seat. ‘Pierre? What’s got into you? You were perfectly chilled all evening. Something happened? Who was that calling you just now?’
    He doesn’t reply, but rudely starts texting. I pick up my mobile, but my fingers are trembling too much to press the recall button.
    ‘Everything is Gustav’s fault according to you. You’ll never meet him halfway, will you? Just remember you were way out of order five years ago, too!’ I stammer the words, trying to work out what has shifted in the air. What has changed. ‘He has said how sorry he is that you had to witness him whipping his ex-wife. He has told you he only ever wanted to keep you safe, and he’s even admitted that he failed in that one simple task. But Margot wasn’t innocent. She wasn’t even unwilling. She was a professional dominatrix who punished people for money. It was all part of life’s game to her, and you were the next prize.’
    Pierre sends the text, taps the phone on his smiling mouth. ‘And what a prize, eh? The young blood, snatched from the older brother.’
    I lean back against the window. ‘Don’t you think you should at least apologise for that instead of crowing over it? Fucking his wife and running off with her?’
    ‘If he hated her so much surely I was doing him a favour!’
    My face heats up, throwing me off balance. ‘If you won’t back down, either of you, then let’s hope focusing on the future will work. A light flicked on inside Gustav when you walked back into his life. Don’t snuff it out.’
    Pierre chuckles. ‘It’s you who has flicked his switch, I reckon.’
    My grip on the windowsill tightens. My mobile starts vibrating. I don’t recall putting it on silent. I grab the phone, but the voicemail has clicked in.
    ‘We all want this resolved. But