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“I have to see Marsh tomorrow.” His face darkens. “But I reckon they’ll suspend me.”
“What?” She’s angry for him. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not,” he says. And as she listens, he tells her about last night, the drinking, and Ellie Quinn.
“Oh, Adam,” is all she can think to say. But she doesn’t move from the sofa, from his embrace. If she can help it, she’ll never move again.
“You’re not angry with me? You don’t think I’m …”
“What?”
“A piece of shit.”
She pulls him close. “Listen, whatever’s happened, whatever you do from here, I’ll be with you. I’ll help you. Whatever you need.”
He bends his head down to hers and kisses her forehead slowly, resting his lips on her skin.
“I’ll never leave you,” she says, repeating his words.
“Never?” He grins. “What about your work? Your patients?”
“I’ll coordinate their treatment from here. In my underwear.”
“What about the supermarket? We’ll need to eat.”
“Tesco can deliver. We’ll be fine. I have beer in the fridge. What more could we want?”
She pulls herself up and kisses him. Unlike before, it is slow and simple, and Romilly knows that everything will be all right.
She doesn’t want anything more.
CHAPTER
54
IN THE DEAD of night, Adam wakes. He rolls over to his back and stares at the glow of the nightlight on the ceiling. He realizes he’s missed the stars. When he couldn’t sleep, when a case got stuck or an offender too tricky, he’d lie looking upward at the gently rotating solar system, listening to Romilly’s light breathing.
Because without her, what’s been the point? After their breakup, nothing changed for the better. He stopped looking after himself, didn’t care about his health. Why did it matter? The fear of the cancer was nothing when compared to his more ethereal and sinister foes: self-loathing and loneliness.
Yet Adam knows he is lying in a bed where another man slept just one night before. He rolls over and looks at her. Romilly is sleeping on her side, facing away from him, and with a finger he gently traces the line of her shoulder. He wonders if she was telling the truth, whether she will leave Phil, come back to him. Whether she’ll take the risk and trust him again.
Would he trust her? The infidelity, that was nothing, not really. It was the excuse, the self-righteous reason for him to walk away. Because he’d been pulling away for months.
He’d had the same concerns as Shepherd. He’d felt the same niggle: that she wasn’t telling the truth. And if she was lying about that, what else might she be hiding? It wasn’t conscious, but gradually he felt himself retreating, putting up a barrier to protect himself from the hurt. The same way he had from his parents all those years ago.
The newspapers had talked about genetics, whether evil could be inherent, passed down between generations. Adam never believed the fairy tales, putting faith in hard proof, actions, and consequences. But the fact still remained. Her father was a serial killer.
Romilly always said she didn’t want children. That her career was too important and she didn’t feel maternal—capable even—of being a mother. And that had been okay with Adam. He’d never imagined himself with a family. Not even a wife, until he met Romilly.
Now, lying next to her, feeling so warm and safe and secure, he wonders how honest she had been. Was it that she didn’t want kids, or had she known there was something deep inside of her, in her blood, in her DNA? Something rotten she didn’t want passed down.
Last night he said that he would never leave her, that he would stay forever. And caught up in the moment, her naked body against his, he’d meant it. But now, in the darkness, the endorphins fade. The doubts resurface.
He realizes that nothing has changed. He still doesn’t believe her. He still needs to know what happened. What she knew. All those years ago.
CHAPTER
55
