Eli Bell is the only son of a police chief inspector and a forensic scientist. He's grown up wonky in a world that only deals with the straight and narrow -- and his new boyfriend isn't helping. Rob Hawkes is six feet of muscle, tattoos, and arrest warrants. A career criminal and a former guest of Her Majesty's Prison Service, he'd rather hit Eli's parents than sit down to dinner with them. One wrong move, and Rob could destroy Eli -- and his family -- without a second thought. But this isn't what it looks like. Rob's not in control here -- and Eli's the one to blame.

What It Looks Like

Left to his own devices in the flat, his anger had started to cool. At his core, he’d not really expected the dinner to go well in the first place, and when he sat back and scrutinised it properly, it had actually—from Rob’s side—gone better than Eli had hoped. He’d nearly won Jenny over, and little Flora loved him, as much as the tiny psycho loved anyone. And if Jenny and Eli agreed on anything, it was that the way Dad had treated Eli growing up hadn’t been fair.


So, really, it boiled down to the clash between Mum and Dad, and Rob. Which was what Eli had expected.


Putting himself in Rob’s shoes, he found that the evening didn’t much change. Rob had, in the end, spoken out in Eli’s defence, not really his own. Yes, he’d attacked, but Dad had been attacking Rob from day one, and at least Rob’s attack was a challenge to Dad on how he’d treated Eli—which was the whole reason Mum and Dad hated him, their belief that Rob was mistreating Eli, and—


Chapter 38