Page 117 of Brighter Together

Not just sex.

Us.

I feel relieved.

But, underneath all that happiness, something dark pushes back to the surface.

The way Tommy looked at the presentation.

The fact that he is sitting beside me now talking about a relationship while I’m still hiding something that could destroy it.

I stare through the rain-streaked windscreen.

I have to tell him.

Soon.

Before Lee does it for me.

Chapter 11

Tommy

Ican hear Ella on the phone through my office door.

The door is closed for one very good reason.

If I leave it open, I get absolutely fuck all done.

We have been secretly seeing each other for two weeks now, and spending almost every evening with her has done nothing to make me want her less. If anything, it has made concentrating on anything else considerably harder.

Most nights I finish work, go straight to her flat and stay until early morning before creeping back into Greenview Manor like a teenager trying not to get caught.

There have been a few curious looks when I arrive wearing yesterday’s shirt, and Sheila asked me last week whether I had suddenly developed a social life.

So the staff probably suspect there is someone.

They just haven’t worked out that she sits ten feet from my office.

I rub the back of my neck and stare at the spreadsheet on my screen.

I have read the same occupancy figure four times.

“Fuck.”

Ella laughs at something on the other side of the door.

That immediately makes concentrating even harder.

At work, we have been remarkably sensible… most days. We keep our hands to ourselves as much as we can, talk about bookings and suppliers and staffing, and pretend I don’t spend half my day looking for reasons to hear her voice.

Then we leave Greenview and usually have each other’s clothes off within half an hour.

It is exhilarating, exhausting and nowhere near as casual as I once thought it might be.

I don’t want her hidden away in her flat every evening as though she is something I’m ashamed of. I want to take her to the pub, sit beside her with the others and put my arm around her without checking who might see.

There is a knock.