I disclaim. A rather different story but one with what may seem like a familiar storyline.

Mr. Steel Guitar

Chapter One

I can’t believe this is really us, after all this time, that Isabella Black is in my arms and we’re kissing madly, passionately, as we will today, tomorrow and every day until we die.

Life doesn’t get much better than this.

She’s beautiful, my Isabella, Belle means beauty of course. Perfect name for her. There isn’t anything else you could call a girl who looks like that. Except the little loving nicknames I give her. None of this ‘honey-bun’ rubbish. The real deal, loving you forever, hold me tighter, syllables to make you shiver words.

"Angel," I whisper in her ear as she breaks our kiss and I find her staring into my eyes, her beautiful blue orbs half full of tears, tears of joy because we’ve waited so long, and at last, we’ve overcome the odds and are together. "You know that you’re my angel, don’t you Belle?"

She smiles at me, and my heart launches from my chest to my mouth. This is the woman I’m going to marry. Parents be damned.

"I know," she whispers into my ear, her hot breath tickling the little hairs on the back of my neck. "You’ve been so good to me."

"I love you, Belle," I tell her, running my fingers through her soft blonde hair and loving the feel of it. It’s soft, and silken, and it flows over my hands and down her tanned bare back. Her skin is a little cool, probably because the street outside the Brady Pub isn’t the warmest place to be standing, but I know she doesn’t care, and I offer her my jacket.

"Thank you," she lets me glide it gently over her arms and up onto her shoulders. She looks so small in it. Like a Christmas angel, only much prettier. She kisses me gently, not on the mouth, but the cheek, as if we were children, and I put my hand gently under her chin, and kiss her back, more firmly.

Breathless, we pull apart and smile as Mimi comes rushing up.

"Oh, God," she gasps, "I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt."

She’s smiling broadly, obviously pleased that Belle is over the past, and moving on with me. You gotta love Meems. There’s no one quite like her.

"It’s OK," my Isabella says, leaning back into my chest and presenting her left hand, the hand that displays my diamond engagement ring so beautifully. Mimi squeals in ecstasies of delight. I never knew a human being could make that noise until I heard Mimi.

"So it’s true? You two are really tying the knot?" She’s hugging Belle now, and kissing me on the cheek, bouncing up and down so happily that I have to smile at her.

"Yes," Belle answers her, barely containing her happiness. She turns around again, and I’m greeted by those fantastic eyes. "It’s OK that she knows, isn’t it baby?"

"Of course, Belle," I smile down at her, and my heart is warmed by the vision before me. "That’s what we’re here for. We’ve waited for so long, let’s not wait any longer."

Mimi hugs her again, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, and Belle kisses me, passionately this time, with her heart and soul behind it.

"Let’s go inside," she murmurs, and, hand in hand with Mimi just in front of us so she can take the photo of our families’ delight, we go into the Brady Pub to announce our engagement. I’ve never been happier in my life. After everything that’s happened, the Island and its aftermath, Chloe and Brady’s relationship hitting the skids just as everything seemed to be going perfectly for them, all the troubles my parents have been through, everything that happened with my brother, I finally see light at the end of the tunnel. This is it. Happiness, here I come, and I have my Belle at my side. So this is what joy feels like.

"Everyone," she’s still holding my hand, but Belle’s a foot or so in front of me, standing by the bar, and looking around at all the expectant faces. One is noticeably missing, but no one expected Chloe to come here after all her trouble with Brady, and the way she cheated on him. I don’t think she would be welcome if she did come. Belle has always been so protective of her older brother. "We have an announcement to make."

We wait while things settle down, and we have their full attention. Everyone we care about is here. Everyone we love. Everyone we need. Belle’s father leans forwards, staring hard at us, and I have to work hard not to blush. He’ll be giving his daughter to me, and I have to make sure he never regrets it. John Black after me is not an enticing prospect. Not that I would ever hurt my Belle. Not again.

She leans back to me, "Say it with me, please."

How can I refuse?

Together, as the one person we are going to become, we say, "We’re getting married," just as the Pub door swings open and the one person Belle and I’d hoped never to see again comes striding in.

The collective congratulations and cheers are interrupted as they turn to see the newcomer. He always did have a taste for the dramatic, and he couldn’t have timed his entrance more perfectly if it had been rehearsed.

Belle is standing very, very still, and I can tell she’s restraining her anger, stopping herself from hurting him as he once hurt her.

"Belle." He nods to her, realising now is not the moment for a smile. His eyes are cold and wary. There’s been a lot of water flowing under this bridge since he was last here, and he is, understandably, nervous. "Philip. So, what did I miss?"

And with that, Shawn Douglas Brady is back in our lives.

Chapter Two

He’s always been wild. The phase in his late teens when he seemed to settle down was just an act. I know the truth. That boy is as dangerous as they come.

Yet it is a man who stands before me, a slight smile of contempt dancing over his lips, and a man who stares at Belle, my fiancée, with an expression I cannot read though I have known the boy my entire life. He is a man now, and perhaps I judge him too quickly on what he was, not what he is.

"What no welcoming kiss?"

Perhaps not.

His voice sounds as if he’s trying to be jolly, but it comes out sarcastic and harsh. I see Belle flinch, and feel her small body move back to be resting more fully against mine. She didn’t expect this. He has no right to be angry with her for moving on with her life, even if it is with his once best friend and still uncle. This is supposed to be a happy day, and he’s going to ruin it because he can’t cope with the jealousy of knowing that the woman he once betrayed and almost destroyed is capable of living without him, worse, living with me.

"What are you doing here?" It’s Belle who speaks, the first one who does. No one is quite sure whether to welcome him back as a long lost son, or run him out of town for hurting us all so badly, and one worst of all. The people in this town have long memories, and Shawn hasn’t been gone long enough for any of us to forget what happened the last time he was here. I know I’ll remember it until my dying day.

"What do you think?" His mouth is half curved into a snarl, but his voice is calm and cold. Of all the things I expect from Shawn, coldness is not one of them. I’m used to the passionate boy. Perhaps his time away has turned him into the controlled man.

"To wreck my life again," Belle chokes out.

He grins at her, not his old ‘trademark’ grin of his teenage years, but the toothed smile of a predator watching its prey. "Guess again. I see you’re keeping well. Tell me, how long did it take you to agree to marry your prince," Who, me? Well thanks, Shawn. I think. She certainly is my Princess. "was it an hour, or did you miss me for a whole day?"

I may need to think again. I’ve never seen Shawn more angry in my life. I’m about to say something, to defend my fiancée, but she gets there first.

"At least I waited, Shawn. I didn’t jump into bed with the first tramp who came my way while I was still with someone else," she is so mad, but I can sense the tears behind her barked words.

What he says next astounds me. He has nerve, you have to give him that, but he seems to use his nerve to hurt people.

"I never did," and the words are low and pain filled, as if he is staring back across a crevasse of hurt and can only see Belle, stuck on the other side with my arm around her shoulders, comforting her. "But that didn’t stop you, did it? I would have died for you, Belle, but I guess you didn’t feel the same way."

Then he’s gone, the Pub door crashes shut, and the aftermath kicks in. I don’t know why he’s back, and I don’t particularly care. I just want him gone. He destroyed so many lives the last time he was in Salem. I won’t let him do it again.

I begin planning what I can do to keep her safe, and it’s then it happens.

Bo storms into the Pub, face as dark as a thundercloud, and raises his voice so we can all hear. "I’ve got some bad news."

"Like your son is back?" I hear Belle mutter under her breath, and I rest a restraining hand on her shoulder. She still thinks of Bo as a third father (after Roman and John), but it doesn’t stop her from hating his eldest child.

"Paul Mendez has died. Someone just found his body down by the docks. It looks like murder." There is a gasp from my one time stepmother, Nicole, now married to my half brother Austin, but that's a situation too complicated to explain right now. Like most Salem families, we qualify for our own edition of the Jerry Springer Show. We could even supply our own audience.

Nicole is visibly upset, and Austin is trying to comfort her as best he can. Paul may have been her father, but even she admits he was a dangerous, evil son of a bitch rapist. She hated him more than anyone else in this world. Except perhaps Jan.

"I thought he was dead," it’s Mimi, and she’s visibly shaking. The tremors cause her to look like she’s in the middle of a personal earthquake. Her voice is cracked and low, thinking of what happened the last time Paul was around. "He’s meant to be dead."

"He is now," Bo says, and no one is sorry. Why should we be? In life, he was cruel and practically the spawn of the devil, though for once Stefano was not to blame. He has caused enough suffering, and if he had died from natural causes, we would all be celebrating, but it wasn’t natural causes, it was murder. That means somewhere in Salem, there is a murderer on the loose.

We all think back to the last murder here, and who just came striding through the Pub door. The connection is obvious. The last time is too fresh in our minds. It caused Shawn to leave us, and the very night he returns, another body is found. Bo won’t like it, but he may have to arrest his older son on suspicion of murder… for the second time.

I shudder at the thought, and hug Belle closer to me. No one is going to hurt her while I’m around.

No one.

Chapter Three

The storm that no one realised was coming has broken over our heads.

Bo is striding up and down the pub angrily, though no one has dared tell him that Shawn is back yet. He’s worried because Paul is dead. That means there’s another nasty son of a bitch (or possibly daughter of a bitch) out there capable of murder, and he doesn’t know where Hope and JT are. If they were my family, as they sort of are, I’d be worried too.

Bo is nearly out of his mind, Belle’s sitting in the corner, trying very hard not to cry, John is cracking his knuckles and looking for someone to hit, Austin’s holding Nicole’s hand, and trying to stop her from breaking down entirely, and Mimi is still shaking. Everyone else is too shocked to do much but talk and wave their hands in the air.

"Calm down everybody." It’s Abe, his gravely voice loud and harsh intermingled with the confused talk of everyone else. I have to say, he got over Lexie surprisingly quickly and moved on with a beautiful woman called Virginia. I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her. The only beautiful woman I really trust is my fiancée. In Salem, it pays to be suspicious. It’s how you make it to your next birthday alive, but even now that philosophy is on the skids. If we don’t find the person who killed Paul, some of us may not see our next birthdays anyway.

"Do you have any news?" Doug asks from his place by Julie’s side. Both look distressed, worrying about Hope and JT no doubt. I don’t think they’re thinking of Shawn. He’s proved time and again that he can look after himself. Sometimes a little too well. None of us have forgotten the violence he showed himself so capable of before he left. None of us can.

Abe turns and replies, "Yes, we’ve heard from the coroner. It’s definitely murder. He says there’s no chance that Paul killed himself or that it was an accident."

"Has anyone seen Hope?" Bo asks as soon as Abe finishes his last syllable. His eyes are wider than usual, his hair disarrayed and you can practically feel the fear and worry coming off him. Abe shakes his grizzled head and I can almost see my half brother’s heart break. He doesn’t know where Hope and JT are anymore than I do, and he’s afraid of what will happen to the family of a man who was arrested for murder on the very night that he returns and another murder is committed.

I don’t know what Belle is thinking about, but it’s making her shiver. I take her in my arms, and clutch her to my chest. A few minutes ago we were so happy, and now we’re afraid. Shawn is in Salem and someone lies dead, murdered. She hasn’t forgotten the last dark and stormy night that was true. I don’t think she ever will.

"No, the APB for them we put out hasn’t been answered yet." He ran a heavy hand over his face. "I’m telling you, Bo, don’t worry yet. It’s still early, she’s probably just in the Java Café or a clothes store, holed up out of this storm. Have you called her cell phone?"

I thought of that too. He has. It’s switched off. I’m just glad Belle’s by my side and not out in that weather. I don’t think I could bear it if she was out there with a killer on the loose and both Brady and John were in here with me. I’d be terrified for her. She’s my life, my world, my everything. I think I’d die if she was killed. I just wouldn’t be able to bear it. Not after everything we’ve been through together. Not now.

"No answer," Bo looks on the point of a nervous breakdown. I feel sorry for my half brother, I really do, but I’m even more worried about Belle. She’s had two bad shocks tonight, when we were supposed to be in an ecstasy of delight,

I step forwards to tell Bo about his son’s return, and for the second time tonight the door swings open and interrupts me, but this time I’m pleased to see the Brady standing in the doorway.

"Hope!" Bo cries, running forwards and hugging her tightly. He ruffles JT’s hair, evidently relieved.

"I haven’t been gone that long, Brady," Hope is suspicious. She’s spent too many years married to a police man (and involved with the police generally) not to be when her husband acts this way. "What’s going on?"

"Do you want the good news, the bad-or-good depending on your point of view news, or the definitely bad news first?" I ask, not really joking, but with a pathetic attempt to lighten the mood. I shouldn’t have tried. She shoots me the look I’ve been afraid of since I was small. Hope can be one scary lady.

At the same time Bo says, "What?"

Hope answer stiffly, "The bad news." She’s gripping JT’s hand a little tighter as she speaks. The kid winces and scowls, but I know he loves her more than anything. I once felt that way about my mother too. That was before the Vincent in Paris incident and the Coronation massacre. I’ve learned not to trust beautiful women, and in Salem, there isn’t any other kind (unless you count Nancy as a woman and not a captive balloon, which I don’t). That’s one reason Belle is so important to me, I can trust her as I can trust no one else. She would never hurt me, but now, I can’t think of our great love. I have to protect her, and the best way to do that is to catch Paul’s murderer, even if he is my own nephew. God knows he’s proved he’s capable of it.

"Paul Mendez is dead," I tell her, watching her wait for the finale. This isn’t enough for her. She knew he was dead, so it sounds strange that I reiterate long established facts. I elaborate. "He was alive earlier today, and then he was murdered out on the docks. The depending news is that Shawn’s back. He was here tonight." I don’t mention what he said. I can’t imagine his mother would approve, and I’m sure she’ll hear all about it soon enough. The town gossips are good at their job.

It’s the news of Shawn’s return that elicits the gasp, though that is hardly surprising.

I decide to drop the final bombshell at once. Belle has returned to my side, tears of joy and not fear now glinting in her eyes, and she takes my hand in her little delicate one. She shows Hope the diamond engagement ring, and I tell her, "The good news is we’re engaged."

Hope doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t even look that shocked. She’s staring at Belle, but after all of these months, she must have known. It’s not like our relationship has been a secret. Perhaps telling her like that wasn’t fair, but she needed to know. If nothing else, she needs to be careful. There’s a killer out there, whether it be her son or not.

"He’s back?" It’s Bo who grabs me by the arms, forcing me to look at him. "My boy is back?" He keeps repeating, and I see tears glisten in the brown eyes that have been familiar to me all my life as warm and gentle, not sad and worried as they are now. I feel pity for my half brother, my favourite family member. He doesn’t deserve this. Not after everything he and Hope have been through first with Billie, then with Lexie and finally with Jan, and everything that happened with Shawn before he left.

"Yes," I tell him, gently pulling my arms from his grasp and draping one over Belle’s slender shoulders, feeling the tension flow out of her. "and as cocky as ever."

Hope is about to cry. "Just like you were, Bo," she whispers to her beloved husband, and for a moment we are all dragged back to when Bo first came back from the Merchant Marines, a young rebel with an attitude problem and a heart for the prettiest girl in Salem. Shawn may be like his father, but he isn’t getting Belle. I don’t care how pretty she is or how often history repeats itself. She is mine, not his. He gave up any right to her when he became the father to Jan’s baby. Bo never did that. Except kind of with Billie, but she’s my half sister. I think. She might be my aunt. I’m not really sure. Damn. I know I’m not dumb, but this whole family thing is more confusing than the tax returns for Titan after Mickey has been at them.

Belle turns around, wrapping her arms around my waist, and looks up at me so I feel like a million dollars. Or rather, twenty million. I’m already worth a million at least. Back to Belle…

"Philip," I love it when she says my name, but now it is uttered with desperation to be gone, not love, "take me home."

"Already?" We’ve only just announced our engagement. I suppose it all depends on that little word ‘home’. Mine or hers, I’m wondering. Hey, I’m a guy, aren’t I?

"To the penthouse," she takes her hand off my waist and gesticulates in the air. "You know, home?"

"Sure, baby," oh well. I’ll be the only warm body in my bed tonight. Again.

"Bye, everyone," she grips my hand and practically drags me out of the Pub door.

I want to stay with her tonight, and I do, until her father comes home and I leave the penthouse with the definite feeling that if I’d stayed longer, we might not be getting married.

What happened in those hours is between me and my Belle. Let’s move on to where I’m in bed - alone if you must know.

I’m daydreaming of my wedding to Belle, of Bo as my best man, Mimi as Belle’s Maid of Honour, and Belle walking down the aisle on her father’s arm, smiling that smile she keeps especially for me. The smile that dimples her cheek and brightens her eyes to sparkling sapphires. The smile that turns my soul into a quivering pool of adoration, that…

There’s a knock at the window, and I think about calling Henderson to get it, but decide it would be faster if I answered myself. Anyway, I’m intrigued. It’s not every night a guy gets a visitor three floors up via a pair of French windows.

Out of the cold, the dark, the distinctly wet night, climbs an all too familiar figure.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing here?" I snarl at Shawn. I suddenly feel rather unsafe. I may be in a legally, and physically, precarious position. This guy was arrested for murder, and even if he is my nephew, I don’t feel too safe in his company. I’ve seen him when he’s angry, jealous, and, worst of all, worried about Belle.

"I came to see Belle," he answers coolly, glancing around my richly furnished bedroom and noticing the complete absence of short beautiful blonde girls, or girls of any kind for that matter.

"She’s not here." It’s a sore subject, so I snap the words at him. This is getting weirder by the minute.

He gives me this smirk, like he knows something I don’t, and says, "I can see that."

I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. So much.

"Can you leave now?" I don’t add please. I wouldn’t be so polite to such a wanton bastard as stands before me. "I was trying to sleep."

"I can see that too," he glances down to my pyjamas, which are of some very nice blue silk. Another knowing smirk. I want to smack it right off his face, but I think I would come off worse in any fight. This guy has muscles like you wouldn’t believe. If they weren’t flexing six inches from my face, I wouldn’t believe them.

I really hate him.

"So where is she?" He’s settling himself against my dresser, and crossing his arms.

"That’s none of your business," I snap, trying and failing not to take his bait.

"The penthouse then." That smirk crosses his face again and I want to smack it off, but the sight of his bulging muscles close to my face is still fresh in my mind. So is the barbed wire tattoo around his upper arm. I wonder where he got it. Then I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. This man, for he is no longer the boy I once knew, could well have killed someone tonight and I’m wondering where he had his tattoo done. "I wanted to ask you something."

"If I answer you, will you leave?" I throw myself back onto my bed and stare at him, not letting him know how much he unnerves me.

"Yes."

I wait, get bored and add, "Fine. What’s the question?"

His eyes are cold but intense. I feel like he’s trying to freeze me into telling him truthfully what he wants to know. "Where was Belle at half past six tonight?"

It’s such a simple question I almost laugh in his face, but there’s something about his expression - or possibly just his muscles - that stops me. "With me. Eating dinner at Tuscany’s. Why?"

"No reason." But I know there has to be a reason. Otherwise, why did he ask me? "That’s all I wanted to know." He’s climbing back out of my window, and I notice there’s something dark red and wet on his jeans.

"What’s that?" Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, but I point to his leg and stop him leaving.

"Blood," he grins at me and pulls up his jeans, showing one tanned, muscled leg with a scratch in it, fresh and surprising deep for him to walk without a limp. "I took a corner too fast on the bike and ripped my leg open on a piece of metal."

He swings both legs over the sill and prepares to jump to the tree that grows beside my room. I suddenly decide to use one of the guest rooms, at least for tonight.

"Oh, and Philip?" I lift my head, but I have not taken my eyes off of him since he entered my room. "Nice pyjamas. Real sexy," and with that damned annoying smirk, he leaps from my window with practised ease and is out into the night.
"Bye Shawn. Have a nice life somewhere out of Salem and away from me!" I shout after him, not willing to antagonise him no matter how crazy he drives me. There is a thud and I hear his footsteps echoing across the grounds. He’s gone.

I release a breath I didn’t even know I was holding in. I still don’t know if he’s a murderer, but I know he’s dangerous. There are people in Salem who still bear scars from the wounds he gave them, physical as well as emotional.

I lock my window and reach over to the phone that sits beside my bed, my private line. I’m calling Belle. I need to hear her voice, to hear her say my name, and to tell me that it will be all right. That we won’t soon be back in that terrible courtroom watching Shawn sit in the dock and answer questions about where he was the night of the murder. That’s when we fell in love, I think. Watching Shawn, and knowing that whatever he was saying, it wasn’t the complete truth, knowing that he wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t telling everything, knowing that the boy we had once considered a friend might have killed someone.

When she answers, her voice is a little groggy, and I realise how late it is. I feel instantly sorry for calling her at this hour, but I know I couldn’t have gone another minute without hearing her voice, drugged with sleep as it is.

"Hey, Angel," I say, and I hear her sigh, not with boredom or distress, but with contentment.

"Hello, darling," she murmurs back.

"I just called to say I love you," it’s an old joke between us, almost stupid, but ever since I called her while she was listening to the Stevie Wonder classic, she laughs whenever I say it to her.

She laughs now, and the tight feeling in my chest that has been there since we first saw Shawn was back eases a little, but not all the way. "I love you too, Philip."

Flame shoots through my body, and the thought that this is the girl that I am going to be married to, love and honour for the rest of my life, makes it ease even more.

"Are you OK after tonight?" I whisper, knowing she wasn’t but not wanting to push her.

"I guess so," her voice is small, and the pain in it rips into my heart.

"You know, Belle, we never really talked about what happened last time." I cross my fingers, hoping that some of the mystery will be explained.

"Philip," she sighs tiredly, I think. "I don’t want to talk about it over the phone."

"Fine, I’ll come over." I answer firmly. Something about seeing Shawn earlier has made me edgy. I want her where I know she is safe: in my arms.

"OK," she doesn’t argue and I know she wants me there too.

"Give me fifteen minutes." I dress hurriedly, not even glancing in the mirror as I customarily do. Belle needs me. She needs me. I need her. Shawn may be back, but she doesn’t want him anymore. In a selfish way, that makes me happy. She wants me, she needs me, she loves me. Not him.

I get in my car and drive to her place. She opens the door in the short pyjamas I love so much, her mascara has run and I can tell she’s been crying. I take her into my arms, and she starts to sob.

"Why? Why did he come back now?" She repeats over and over again. "I’m over him, he must know that by now." I can feel her lips resting against my neck, giving me tiny kisses of comfort, consolation almost. She needs me the way I need her, urgently, physically, and desperately.

"He knows, Belle," I answer her, kissing her forehead with all the tenderness in my soul. "And if he doesn’t, he’ll soon realise."

"Darling," she kisses me, and if the world was on fire all around us, I wouldn’t notice. God, I love this girl.

If this was a TV show, I’d cut to an ad break here, but as it isn’t, just stare at the wall while we have a few private moments, OK?

And we’re back.

"Philip," she leans her soft blonde head against my chest, and I feel like some kind of medieval knight, with his fair lady needing his protection, and what’s more, it’s a good feeling.

"Yes?"

"You wanted to talk to me about something." Her voice is low, and a little sad. I want to joke her out of it, but I need to talk to her seriously, so though it hurts me, I don’t.

"I wanted to talk about Shawn," I say quickly, hoping she won’t react too badly. "He came to my room tonight."

She looks up at me, and for a moment I’m lost in a pair of blue eyes. "What did he want?"

She isn’t angry, but she is a little upset. I want to hit Shawn for hurting her like this, again and again, but I can’t, so I comfort my darling Belle instead. "He wanted to know where you were at half past six tonight. I told him you were with me."

She nestles closer to my chest and I breathe in her smell. She makes me feel so warm, so happy, so damn horny…

Back to reality.

"So why did you want to talk to me about last time?" She hasn’t moved her head from its delightful position on my chest, and we move together to the sofa so we can be more comfortable while we talk.

"Because Paul was murdered tonight, Belle," I remind her as gently as I can, "And everyone in Salem can see the connection between him, Jan and Shawn, especially when Shawn just happens to come home the same night as Paul is killed."

"You don’t think he did it, do you?" She doesn’t ask me in outraged sensibility of her ex-friend’s worth, but in genuine interest.

I shake my head. I don’t know, but I don’t want to scare Belle anymore. "I don’t know, babe, but that’s what I wanted to ask you. Do you think he’s capable of it?"

She looks at me with the blue eyes that have haunted my dreams for years. "I don’t know… Before the trial, I would have said definitely not, but he lied under oath, Philip. I know he lied that day."

Belle’s getting upset, so I put a hand down to calm her. "Hey, it’s OK. It’s OK," I start rocking her in my arms, and now that she’s crying, I feel terrible. I shouldn’t have made her talk about this tonight. She’s had it bad enough already.

"Philip!" Brady yells from upstairs. "Stop making my little sister cry! This is your only warning! You’d better stop, make it up to her or get out in the next five seconds or I will be down there to kick your ass out of town!"

How does he do that? There’s at least two closed doors between us and him, and I know he shouldn’t be able to hear us, because Belle is whimpering like a kitten and we were talking in whispers. Amazing.

"Shut up, Brady!" Belle yells, her fighting blood up. She may love her big brother, but she certainly doesn’t let him rule her life. "I’m fine! Go back to sleep!"

I love this girl so much, she’s just wonderful, especially when she’s yelling at her brother for me. Even if she had a brother, Chloe never would have done that. Bitch.

"Belle, we need to talk about this." I repeat, once she has sat down again and has calmed down to the point where she is not about to beat her brother into submission with a cushion. "The police are going to want to talk to you and Shawn after last time."

"I know," she’s being submissive now, and I hate it. I like her when she’s fiery, it shows how alive she is. When she’s like this, I feel like a complete bastard who has somehow cowed or threatened his fiancée into this position. "But I don’t want to go through all of that again."

"Philip!" This time it’s John, and he’s yelling even louder than Brady was. "It’s time for you to get the hell out and that’s a fact!"

I grimace, and Belle’s grip on my hand tightens. "He’s going in just a few minutes, Daddy!" She calls back, apologising to me about her family with a simple look that makes my heart glow. I love her family because she loves them, no matter how many little peccadilloes - or major neuroses - they have.

"Belle," this time, I turn her around physically so she’s facing me. "They’re going to want to know about last time. They’re going to want to know about the island, the first time Paul was shot everything."

She nods, and looks sad. It cuts my heart to see her like this. I want to protect her from the world, but there are some things even I can’t save her from. "OK."

I stand up slowly, not really willing to leave but knowing that John is going to come flying down the stairs any minute now with a bowie knife in his hand, and I’m not quite ready to look death in the face again tonight. I feel like I came close enough with Shawn’s visit earlier, and I know John is going to come after me at some point, probably reeling drunk, for wanting to marry his little girl. I just don’t want to make tonight the night when I visit first the ER for fight wounds and then the jail to bail my future father in law out.

"Goodnight Belle," I whisper to her. She kisses me goodnight, whispering sweet nothings to me, and my heart damn near goes through my chest. I don’t want to ruin this romantic moment, but I feel like I have to. "Just remember: Paul is dead and he can’t hurt you or anyone else anymore, Shawn may be back, but you don’t need him, and he can’t hurt you either, and that bitch is long gone. We went to her funeral together, in the rain, remember?"

She nods, and just before she closes the door, says in a voice that sends ice not fire through my body, it is so sad and so full of wisdom hard won, "Call her by her name, Philip. She’s dead, ‘murdered by person or persons unknown’. I know she hurt me while she was alive, but I forgive her. You should too. Goodnight Philip, and please, make your peace with her too. She’s beyond everything now, and it’s wrong to hate the dead."

The door is closed, and I know she is right, that I shouldn’t hate the bitch, but after all she did before she was murdered, can I really find it in my heart to forgive Jan? I just don’t know.

Chapter Four

When I return home, Henderson, my faithful butler, is waiting at the door. It’s late, and he’s used to me being out at all hours, so I wonder why he is still up. Usually he tucks himself up at eleven with a copy of Playboy and a cup of Ovaltine. It’s well past eleven now, and there’s no sign of either Playboy or the Ovaltine. I have a suspicion I know my butler too well, but the man practically raised me. He’s certainly more a father to me than my real father.

"Sir," Henderson makes that little coughing sound all butlers make when they have some bad news to break to the young master and don’t want to do it.

"Yes?" I sound tired even to myself. God knows what I must look like after tonight. "What is it?"

"A lady awaits you in the second French room, sir," Hendie tells me with an apologetic look.

"What lady?" My mother? No, he would have said Ms. Roberts, or Mrs Kiriakis, or simply ‘your mother’. None of this ‘a lady’ business.

It crosses my mind that maybe Belle has come to my house after all, passed me and reached home first. I was driving slowly.

Almost throwing my wet overcoat at him, I race to the second French room. If it’s Belle, all my prayers are answered. It has to be Belle. I’m a Kiriakis, that practically puts me on a level with an archangel, with a hotline to God, or so my father always believed.

"Darling?" I call as the door swings open.

"Well, it’s been a while since you called me that, Philip," and it’s not Belle. Damn. "How are you, darling?" She overemphasises the last word, and all of the hatred I’ve kept inside of me for years, letting only Belle see what I truly feel, boils up. Double damn. It’s Chloe Lane, arch temptress and practised heartbreaker. If you thought she did me wrong when she accused me of rape while we were still in high school, you should have known her the summer after Graduation, when all hell had broken loose.

"Chloe," I answer coldly. "I thought you were someone else."

She smiles. "Evidently."

I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

I practically LIKE Shawn Douglas compared to my feeling for Chloe. She’s a bitch, and no mistake. There was magic between us once, not the loving, sparkling champagne that Belle and I are bound together by, but cold vodka that burned as you swallowed.

I hate her.

"It’s been a long time," she’s still smiling that damn smile she’s used on me for more years than I care to count.

"Not long enough." I bark the words. I have no interest in her, she broke my heart once. I was a mess after she left, and I’m damned if I’ll let her come anywhere near me or anyone else I care about ever again. I might even go so far as to protect that bastard, Shawn, because not even he deserves her. "What the hell do you want?"

"That’s not a very nice thing to say to an old friend," she’s smiling like a cat, knowing and full of self command. She’s a cold one, but I’ve always known that. "Especially one you used to be so tender with. You remember, don’t you Philip, all those long nights together, when you were only too desperate to be with me, to tell me what I meant to you. ‘Oh Chloe,’" she gasps in fake ecstasy, mocking the love I thought we once shared, the passion that once was a forest fire between us. "‘I love you so much, Chloe. You’re so beautiful. Oh God,’" more ecstasy, "‘You’re so good to me, Chloe’."

If it was possible to hate her anymore than I did five minutes ago, I would, but I don’t think it is, so I merely fume at her. "What do you want?"

She straightens up in her seat, a Louis XIVth chair, and I notice her hair is longer than ever. I used to love that hair, running my fingers through it and feeling the silken strands caress my hands, and letting the scent of her shampoo mix with the musk odour of my after-shave when I held her close.

"What I’ve always wanted. You." Lying bitch. She never wanted me, she wanted my money, or my status, or just my body, but never me. Not the way Belle has wanted me.

"Stop lying." This time the words are tiredly spoken, not barked. I’m tired to death, of her, of Shawn, of all the problems in my life, and I just want to go to bed. Alone.

"Fine." That was easier than I expected. If she stops lying, perhaps I can find a few things out, like what she’s doing at my house in the middle of the night years after she trampled all over my heart and ran off to New York with no explanation. Abruptly, she changes her tone. "Do you remember that long, hot summer after graduation?"

"How could I forget it?" What the hell is she getting at?

"It’s happening again, Philip," she uncross her legs and walks towards me with that cool sway of her hips once burned on my memory as the sexiest movement a woman could ever make. Nothing stirs now, but still she comes closer, and now this beautiful woman, who was once the beautiful girl I loved more than anything, is mere inches away from me. "It’s happening again, and you know what that means."

I want to say ‘Do I? Do I really or is this just one of your mind games?’ but the words stick in my throat. I know exactly what she means. It never ended, the strange story that started not the night Jan was murdered out on the docks, not even the night that she was raped on the Island the summer before our senior year, that terrible year when everything seemed lost, but the day when Alice Horton was given a ruby by her beloved Tom, and this story still hasn’t ended.

"It’s time to go back," she whispers, her breath tickling my throat in a way that used to drive me crazy and now only drives me to the need to vomit, because now I know she’s tainted. "It’s time to remember old sins, and maybe unearth some new ones."

She strides past me, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding in.

"Oh, and Philip?" I turn to see her standing regally in the doorway, half turned towards me with her long flowing hair forming a crown high on her head, "Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did either."

Then the world fell in, and nothing would be the same again.

Chapter Five

It’s time to go back.

The words run through my head in the darkness that seems to be the entire world for me.

It’s time to remember.

I can’t help it. I have to remember, I have to go through it all again, and I can’t change one damned thing.

It’s time to find the truth.

I know the truth. Or at least part of it. Perhaps I will finally learn the rest. The ‘why’ of what happened that terrible summer. The summer I, and everyone else who survived it, can never forget.

Remember.

I don’t want to. It hurts too much. Once was enough. I don’t know if I can take the pain again.

Remember, Philip.

I want to beg whatever force is doing this to me to stop, but I can’t.

Relive it, Philip. Relive it all.

I can’t resist. The darkness is clearing, and I’m being dragged back. Hell, here I come.