AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I ran a hand through my hair, sighing. “I guess you’re right. But I’m not like that. She could have told me.”
“Told you when?”
When we first hooked upwas what I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to give Richard too much detail. Magda was his daughter, after all.
“She could have told me,” I repeated, but it sounded lame to my own ears.
“Is your pride worth losing her?” Richard asked, and his words shook me.
Wasmy pride worth losing how I felt when I was with Magda? I felt like she knew me, inside and out, and that wasn’t something I got often. Maybe Richard was right and I needed to talk to her. She was at home naked in my bed, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I should go,” I said, and Richard nodded.
“Only if you’re going to talk to my daughter. Tell her I said hello,” he said with a grin, and I laughed and walked out, heading straight back to my place.
When I opened the door, Magda was sitting up, surrounded by blankets and crying her eyes out.
“Magda—” I started, and she stood up, naked and unashamed.
“You left me. Again,” she said, and I hated that she was right.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you—”
“I know you’re pissed off that I lied to you,” she started. “I know that you’re pissed off about Mark, too, but he never touched me. I never would have let him. He’s been stalking me, tried blackmailing me into having sex with him.”
Rage rose in me. “He did what?” I asked quietly, and Magda just shook her head.
“He’s in jail so it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. All that matters is that I’m trying to fix things and you justleft.”
She started to get dressed and I just stood there, shell-shocked, watching her. There was so much I needed to say. I needed to tell her how I felt, needed to say I was sorry, but I was still angry. Still holding on to that pride Richard had warned me about.
“You don’t care. You never did,” she spat at me.
I slammed my hand into my own wall, punching through the sheet rock and bloodying my knuckles, suddenly so angry I couldn’t stand it. Magda jumped and I hated myself for scaring her after she’d just gone through that with Mark.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Just don’t tell me how I feel.”
“Why not? It’s not like you’re going to tell me,” she shot back and grabbed her purse, leaving my apartment. She let the door close behind her and I squeezed my eyes shut, frustrated.
She drove mecrazy.Which was precisely why I was in love with her.
I poured myself a stiff drink and sat on my couch, watching television but not really watching it. I hadn’t even bandaged my hand and blood trickled down my arm. I was a mess. Magda was a mess. She’d lied to me, betrayed me, but what if Richard was right?
What if losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to me?
MAGDA
I threwmyself back into work the rest of the week, and Roarke took a sabbatical. I couldn’t say I missed him around the office, exactly, but I kept looking for him, glancing over at his closed and locked office.
I hated not seeing him, not talking to him. He hadn’t called or texted me, and I had ignored him, too. We were both proud, which I guessed was our downfall. I was a little depressed when I thought about it, but I just focused on work.
I had a new case and a new partner, Marie, who was a new and bright junior associate to replace Mark. She was nice enough, but she wasn’t a shark like Roarke. Our case was complicated, a couple with four kids who weren’t sure who was going to take which kid, and she was slow about picking things up.
Fine. I missed Roarke, and not just because we worked so well together. I missed him because I loved him, and I couldn’t deny that fact anymore. Not even to myself. I wished I could make myself call him, text him, go over to his house.
I couldn’t. He’d left me alone in his apartment again, and I couldn’t handle that. I felt pathetic for even thinking about it. There was no way that he would understand what I’d been through. I was a young woman in a man’s field, and it was hard enough on me without the whole office knowing that one partner was my father and the other my lover.
The water cooler was all abuzz with the news and everyone hushed when I walked by.
