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I did my best to hide my impatience that the one person I was desperate to see hadn’t come out to join us.
The longer the embrace went on, the more my heart skipped, and it took all my self-control to hold my desperation at bay and extract myself kindly and slowly.
“Where’s Nerida?” I asked, my eyes searching the shadowy kitchen.
Jack stepped back, mopping up his tears with the back of his hands. Anna pulled a tissue from her shorts pocket and blew her nose.
They both shared a look.
A look I didn’t like.
“She’s not here...is she?” My voice slipped into despair. My heart threatened to stop beating altogether. “She...she found someone else?” The question was barely audible.
Of course, she did.
It’s been five years, you idiot!
Five years.
Of course, she wouldn’t live at home anymore.
Of course, she wouldn’t wait for a dead man.
My back prickled.
Grief smothered.
Stepping backward, I clutched my cane. “I-It’s okay. Eh, don’t tell her I’m back, alright? In fact, I’ll go. I don’t want to upset her. If she’s found happiness, then I don’t want to do anything to destroy that.”
Anna sniffed and grabbed my hand. “We’ll take you to her.”
“No, not if she’s—”
“She’ll want to see you, Aslan. Believe me.” Jack leaned into the sliding doors and grabbed his car keys from the kitchen bench. “She doesn’t live far from here. We’ll go right now.”
“But I don’t want to hurt her.”
“You won’t.” Anna shook her head. “We wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true.”
“So...she’s not with anyone?”
Anna shared another look with Jack.
A look that tore out my heart.
“She is with someone,” I choked. “Fuck, I can’t see her then. I-I wouldn’t survive. I just...” I did my best to extract my hand from Anna’s. “I-I was told she had a daughter. I stupidly assumed that daughter was mine.”
Fuck.
Cem had been playing me again.
Even in a grave, he still found ways to torture me.
Neri had had a child, but it wasn’t mine.
That intrinsic knowledge I’d had the moment I set eyes on Ayla’s photo had been wrong.
Fucking hell.
