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“Maybe not the best move. They already suspect, Ryan.” She wanted to grab his hand and shake it, make him understand. “If they talked with you, called you in, then they’ve figured it out or are close to doing so.”
“Witnesses told them about us having coffee. They didn’t mention us meeting at my house or about that hotel in Syracuse, but we both know we used both.” He shrugged. “Paid cash at the hotel, thank God.”
He might think they were home free. She knew better. Ginny would pick and poke. She’d get it in her head there was something to find then hunt it down. Lila knew because that’s exactly what she’d do if she were Ginny.
Lila fell against the back of the bench. “Discovering that, or most of it, is likely coming.”
“To throw them off I told them about the ongoing water issue.” He played with the ends of her hair. Wound it around his finger. “Made it clear there was a perfectly good reason for us to keep meeting.”
So sure. Real or not, only a man would find solace in such flimsy excuses at a time like this. Women were programmed to fight to be believed.
She sat up straight again as she batted his hand away. “That investigator, Ginny? She’s smart.”
“I’m smarter.”
So much ego. She hadn’t seen that in him until the end.
He understood violence and familial destruction. He listened and seemed to get it. Didn’t judge. She could keep him overthere,away from her daily and mundane life and just enjoy. Then she ruined it.
As her plan to deal with Aaron came together a few weeks ago, she merged the pieces of her life. Ryan had priceless intel she needed, so she began asking questions. Going deeper. When the topic dipped into his expertise, his ego flared. It was all about him and how he “got” things his contemporaries didn’t.
The hubris burned through the zing, leaving her bored and itching to get out. What she’d felt for him flickered and died. For the last month, she’d been going through the motions. With him. With Aaron.
She was not good with men.
Despite how important he thought he was, she needed him to let her lead now. There were things he didn’t know. Things that could get them in trouble if he shared because he thought they were innocent instead of her calculated attempt to remove Aaron from her life.
She poured every ounce of concern and anxiety into her voice, silently begging for him to get it. “Please listen to me.”
“Where’s Aaron?”
“I have no idea. Honestly. None.” That pissed her off, but it was true.
“Did he find out about us and take off?”
“No.” There was no way Aaron could have hidden his fury at being replaced in the bedroom, even temporarily. “I mean, not the ‘us’ part. Could he have left for some other reason? I guess, but I can’t imagine.”
“You can’t know he didn’t figure it out.”
“He would have mentioned stumbling over my adultery. Trust me.” He’d choked her for finding the videos. The punishment for embarrassing him would have been a campaign of destruction that burned through every part of her life.
“Did you talk about being unhappy in the marriage, maybe give a hint that you might leave him?”
Interesting how he assumed she’d messed up, as if she were lost in some sort of romantic stupor and let the incriminating information slip. “Never.”
“Wait.” Ryan’s head shot back as if he’d been slapped. “Never?”
Not this. Not now.“That wasn’t the plan. You know that. We agreed on no commitment.”
He moved back, putting a few more inches of space between them. “Seven months, Lila. That’s a long time to have sex and meals together and meet and not have some feelings for more develop.”
Not for her. Not ever for her. “Stop talking like that.”
With him, at the beginning, for these amazingly brightflashes, she hoped it would be different. Better. That she could be normal and seek what other people sought. The sex was exciting, not just a set of moves she’d done for years.
Then their differences, once faded in the background, pulsed to life. He liked people and going out. He bought tickets to events and dragged her to see live music. Being trapped in swaying rooms that reeked of liquor and dripped with the sweat of a heated audience ignited her anxiety. Even if she weren’t married and in a frenzy of panic about being seen, his constant need to be fed by a sea of people would have drained her.
At least with Aaron she had hiking and a mutual respect for quiet. Ryan tried to coax her “out of her shell.” She was married and dating and dreaded both. It was the ultimate nightmare.
