AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Have you ordered?’ he asked.
Mary was amazed that she could stand nude and make conversation about such an everyday thing.
‘I was about to.’ She swallowed. ‘Do you want me to order for you?’
‘Put down the phone, Mary.’
‘Am I to receive another lecture?’
‘No,’ Costa said. ‘What was it that upset you this evening?’
‘I have to choose one thing?’ She widened her eyes. ‘Why, Costa, there were so many...’
‘Mary,’ Costa said, and they both knew the moment to which he was referring, ‘you almost cried.’
‘No.’ She shrugged and lied right to his face. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Mary?’
She could tell him to get out and she knew he’d go. But there was no point in lying now. She stood naked before him, yet he’d invited her to shed so much more than just her clothes.
‘Will you tell me about yourself?’ Mary asked.
‘No.’
He was at least honest about his inability to share, she thought.
‘I don’t want to let anyone in.’
‘That’s not very fair.’
He didn’t respond to her statement.
‘Youcantell me,’ he said.
Could she?
Her mind darted in search of reasons, yet there was no reason she could discover to keep her secret now—no job to lose, no people to offend. She had already seen to that.
‘I lied.’
‘We all do.’
‘I’m not an orphan,’ Mary told him. ‘I didn’t deserve Yolanda’s hug. My father is in prison. I visit him every week.’ She gave a tight smile.
‘He is the commitment that kept you in London?’
Mary nodded. ‘He was drunk at the wheel in the car accident that killed my mother.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven,’ she said. ‘The day of my diving adventure.’
‘And he’s still in prison?’
‘Not for that; the judge gave him a suspended sentence,’ Mary said. ‘But he’d borrowed a lot to pay the lawyers and I had to move schools. Then something happened at work, and that was the first time he was put away...’
‘What about your other family?’
