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CHAPTER ELEVEN
GALENWOKEANDturned on his phone as Roula coiled into him, and was stunned to see the time, for it was after eight. He unknotted himself from his bedfellow and then went out to his unused kitchen to check the messages...
Roula woke to see Galen sitting on the bed.
‘Your mother remains keen to speak...’ He must have read and heard all her messages.
‘Who else?’
Her detective, her lawyer, members of the family, friends, her late husband’s mother... It really was quite a list.
‘I’m going to be busy.’
‘We’re in hiding, Roula,’ Galen said, and climbed back into bed. With a groan, he checked his own messages.
‘I might have a shower,’ she said.
‘Sure, help yourself. The bath is nice, but takes ages to fill. Do you want a shirt? There’s underwear in the top drawer.’
‘I’m not wearing your partners’ leftovers, thank you.’
‘I meant mine.’ He gave her a smile. ‘It’ll probably be a bit big for you.’
Roula took the ‘lady’s’ flight bag and padded out to have a shower, but as she closed the bathroom door she blinked. Gosh, his en suite bathroom was stunning! Roula had only brushed her teeth and used the loo last night, and had not really been up to examining her surroundings.
Now, as she stripped off her pyjamas and her most appalling massive knickers, she looked up at the marble and columns. The subtle opulence was daunting. Seriously so.
Aside from the columns and such, two of the walls were mirrors—but certainly not the measure-and cut-kind.
Oh, my...
Roula stepped closer to one vast wall and saw the speckles and grey-green hue, and then she looked at the ornate frame. Of course she could not touch it, for it was saved from further damage by a thick layer of modern glass.
She spun and looked to the other wall.
It was a smaller mirror, though still vast. This one was unframed and had a crack running through it, and was so beyond beautiful it made her reach out.
Again it was set behind glass.
Roula looked at the beauty around her, and as she took off her first bra she felt shabby. For a very long time it hadn’t mattered. In fact, the shabbier and more hidden the better she’d felt.
She unhooked the second bra and felt the drop of her heavy breasts. She stared at the pale reflection of the large breasts she tucked and strapped away, and then looked down to her pale stomach, and lower, to the bright red curls that seemed too vibrant for someone who was dead inside.
Yet she did not feel so numb now.
She turned and looked at her bottom—the same bottom that Galen had stroked last night, through fabric—then back to her reflection. Roula lifted her arms and looked at the hair there—only it was not black and beautiful, like Galen’s.
Unfortunately the lady’s toiletries pack didn’t come with a razor, so she looked at his razor, picked up the heavy metal, then stood under a deluge of warm water.
She could have been standing there a thousand or more years ago, Roula thought, being drenched by the rain. Except the rain was hot in Galen’s world, and there were glass jars with bubbles and lovely fragrances and oils.
She shaved for the first time in for ever. Well, since her teenage days, and the eve of her wedding. And she borrowed his nail scissors too—though not for any practical reason! And she pinched some lotion and sniffed his deodorant, but replaced it unused. It smelt very male.
She felt not.
Roula pulled on her horrible pyjamas but left off the underwear. And as she bundled it, the she had when she’d wet her knickers all those years ago, something changed in her head.
She wanted pretty things.
