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“Then I guess we’ll have to see how I do without you,” he said. “You can laugh in my face if you’re right.”
I was so relieved when I heard her heels storming away down the hallway, and let out one hell of a breath when the front door slammed shut.
I was still pressed so tight to the wall, churning so much with so much, and so worried.
So worried and hurt for both of them. So worried and hurt for him.
“She’s gone,” he said, and his voice was so calm again. “Come out, princess, and let’s talk cats.”Chapter Thirty-SixMilesI was still reeling, but kept my breathing steady and my smile bright as she stepped out of the dining room to join me. She tried to hide it, but I could see she was upset. Her eyes were brimming and she looked so scared. No doubt petrified Erica would charge on in there and tear her world apart by finding us out.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” I said, and she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry I had to hear that. That was so private for you.”
“I really wasn’t expecting it,” I said, and crouched down to pick up the mug pieces.
Faith came to join me, and I tried to shoo her away in case she cut herself, but she shook her head and carried on helping.
“She really does love you,” she said, and her voice was so genuine.
“No, she doesn’t,” I told her. “She wants what she can’t have. That’s the kind of woman she is.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe she really has realised she cares.”
I put the mug pieces in one hand, and tipped her face to mine with the other.
“I don’t love her,” I said. “Regardless of whether she cares or not, I don’t love her.”
Her eyes were so fierce. Brewing with so much, and I wished I could read her mind. I wished I could claim her as my own and give it my all to make this worth the destruction for her.
She broke the tension by moving her face from my touch and resuming her clear up of the mug pieces.
“You’re really sure it’s over between you?” she asked, with her eyes on the floor.
“I’m positive it’s over between us. It wouldn’t be fair on either of us,” I continued. “Especially not for her. A commitment between two people needs to be based on the real thing, or what’s the point? Whatever’s the point in selling out for less?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess you’d need to be super sure, right? Super sure it was the real deal and worth it to really take that kind of risk?”
I nodded. “You sure would. And it isn’t the real deal between me and Erica. It never has been.”
I picked up the last of the porcelain pieces and got to my feet, then helped her up after me.
“I’m just sorry you had to hear that,” I said again. “I really had no idea she was coming.”
“Just as well she came later rather than sooner,” she replied and gave me a flash of a dirty little smile. “Maybe she’d have found a way into the house and discovered me with that huge dildo inside me.”
I loved the warmth in her laugh, and found myself laughing too.
“I think that would have resulted in a whole lot more than two broken mugs,” I said.
I took the mug pieces from her and wrapped them up in some kitchen towel before dropping them into the bin, determined to bite my tongue and hold back from telling Faith how I was really feeling. That a part of me had been hoping Erica really would charge into that room and blow our cover. That I’d been craving it since we started. Craving it since I’d known for certain that this really was the real fucking deal for me.
“We really should start the charity auction stuff,” she said, and I nodded.
“Yes, indeed, we really should.”
She wasn’t wrong. There really was a whole heap of truth along with the alibi.
There really was going to be a charity auction, a whole host of decisions to be made on the format and a whole heap of work to get us there.
So I made us coffee, grabbed the rest of the chocolate treats from the fridge and we set up on the dining table with my laptop and a couple of notepads.
And it was us. The other side of us. The enthusiastic, ambitious side of her pushing so hard to do her best. And me. Loving her for it. Encouraging her for it. Knowing without a doubt that I’d been absolutely right to start my involvement in her university plans and her future.
Faith was too much of an individual woman to sacrifice herself for the sensible.
I couldn’t watch her do it. Not for anything.
