AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And then there was Greg.
Tonight, I’d see Greg for the first time in two years. For the first time since the wedding.
Two years, and I still wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
Part of me wanted to see him, more than anything. To get it over with. To know, for sure, that there was nothing there between us any more. To be certain that my heart wouldn’t beat too fast when he was in the room, that I wouldn’t find my eyes drawn to him every few moments.
To show that I was no longer in love with my sister’s husband.
The rest of me just wanted to put the inevitable off for as long as possible.
The love Greg and I had shared had been childish, irresponsible – and all-encompassing, for a time. The sort of love that makes you abandon caution and sense and morals. The kind of love that causes pain.
I never wanted to feel that sort of love again.
But seeing Greg was nothing compared to my terror at seeing Ellie again. I could take any reaction from Greg – anything from love to hate. It didn’t matter; it couldn’t change anything now.
But Ellie…the thought of seeing the same hate in her eyes as the day she found out, of knowing for certain that nothing had changed – and never would – that filled me with the same paralysing fear that had kept me away from Rosewood for so long. When I was hundreds of miles away, there was still a chance that she might have forgiven me. Once I saw her again, whatever she felt was the truth, and I couldn’t spin it into possibilities any more.
And that idea frightened me more than anything.
I ached across the shoulders, and my eyes still felt gritty, but at least I was clean. Wrapping one towel around my hair and another around my body, I wiped beads of water away from my eyes and opened the bathroom door, letting the burst of steam obscure the alarming yellow of the bedroom walls.
My skin burned, and I knew I’d be bright pink from head to toe. I liked my showers hot – hot enough to leave me gasping for breath when I stepped out.
Pulling the towel from my head I shook my wet hair out across my shoulders, and clutched the towel around my body tighter as I crossed the room to open the balcony door. Fresh air filled my lungs as I stared out over the Rose Garden. Edward was there, I realised, his blonde head moving between the remaining blooms. Isabelle had been right; I did have a magnificent view of the Rose Garden. I felt I could almost reach out and pluck one from its stem.
Suddenly, something else in the garden caught my eye. Another figure, too pale in the sunlight. She seemed to move in a different plane to Edward, as she ran her hands over the decapitated rose bushes, as if to her they still bloomed.
Was it really the Rosewood ghost?
I leaned further out across the balcony railing to get a better look, until a rush of cold air told me that my towel hadn’t leaned with me. I grabbed for it, yanking it back up over my breasts, but not before Edward turned towards the house again.
Even at a distance, I could see the sardonic eyebrow he raised at my state of undress. Then he turned his gaze away and walked slowly towards the other gardens.
Damn.
I was beginning to think that I hadn’t made the best ever first impression on my grandfather’s new assistant.
