AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d had to spend my money somehow—but now I was wishing I’d collected boats or gotten a helicopter or something. My house just highlighted how very alone I was, and I found myself hating it.
Just call Alison.
No, I couldn’t do that. Not yet. I had to respect whatever she was going through. I had to give her time.
Besides, I had no idea what I was going to say to her when we eventually talked. How could I possibly make up for the way I had treated her?
All night, I went back and forth. To call or not to call?
I didn’t sleep a wink.
As the sun was coming up, I finally made my decision. I couldn’t put this off anymore. I had to speak to her as soon as possible.
It was torture to make myself wait until a reasonable hour. I decided to go in to work. By the time I got there, it would be late enough to make the call, and then I could finally tell her everything that had been on my mind.
It was too much to hope that she would want to spend time with me again. I’d probably ruined that.
And that was what was on my mind as I drove into the office. All of her scent, how she felt around me when I took her, and the sounds she made when she was midst of pleasure were gone.
It could never have lasted anyway. You always knew it was temporary. How could it have been anything else with Henry’s daughter?
I parked my car and went inside.
Everyone was quiet, clearly still a little shell-shocked by the arrest and the aftermath, the follow-up investigations that had come at us over the past few days. Nothing else had turned up, but I got the feeling a lot of people were anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I went into my office and closed the door. I’d been keeping the door closed pretty much all the time these days. They could knock if they wanted me.
I pulled out my phone and dug around for the business card Alison had given me on her first day here. I’d shoved it into a drawer at the time, thinking there was no way I would ever want to call a federal agent and that I especially wouldn’t be trying to call Henry’s daughter.
God, I really had no idea.
I dialed Alison’s number and leaned back in my chair, trying to think of what I would say when she answered.
The phone rang and rang. No one picked up.
She couldn’t be screening my call. She didn’t know this was my number. We had never spoken on the phone before.
Except—
She was at Henry’s house. And if she showed Henry the phone, he would know it was me.
I could only conclude that she was ignoring my call on purpose.
Chapter twenty-one
ALISON
Iturnedmyphoneoff. I didn’t know if Brian would try to call me again or if that was the only one I would get, but I didn’t want to spend the whole day fielding these phone calls.
“Maybe you should talk to him,” Dad suggested gently. “I’m sure he’s sorry.”
“What makes you think he’s sorry?” I had detailed the confrontation between myself and Brian to my father, but I’d left out the part where Brian had accused me of fucking him for career advancement. My father didn’t need to hear that shit.
“Well, I talked to him,” Dad admitted.
I gasped. “Did you tell him what I told you?”
“Of course, I didn’t, Al. You know I’m on your side and no one else’s. He toldmeabout it. He feels bad. I’m sure he’s calling you to apologize.”
