Page 141 of Fierce-Zander

“Really?” Colin asked. “I couldn’t ask you that on a Friday afternoon.”

“It’s not a problem,” she said.

“So much for leaving early,” Miles whispered when Colin moved into her office.

“You can go,” she said.

“No way,” Miles said. “Zander will have my head if I leave you in there alone.”

She sighed but didn’t want to argue.

“Thirty minutes,” she said. “And I’ll make it up to you next week. I promise.”

“You better,” Miles said and sat back down at his desk.

She went into her office and closed the door but went to sit behind her desk rather than her normal chair for a session.

“Do you mind if I pull up my notes from our last visit? I just want to refresh my memory for a minute.”

“Sure,” Colin said, sitting at the chair in front of her desk.

She was moving around the files on her computer and reading her notes, then glanced up and noticed Colin was fidgeting.

“Everything okay?”

“No,” Colin said. “You ruined it.”

Her hands froze on the laptop, her eyes staying locked on his.

“Ruined what?” she asked calmly. It was the choice of words.

“Maria and me. She wanted to come here to work on communication better before our marriage. She wanted to try to explore things sexually more than I was comfortable with.”

“Did you tell her those things?” she asked.

“I tried. But I didn’t want to lose her. She told me that she was attracted to women just as much as me. She wanted to try to get it out of her system. She found you attractive and it gave her the push to tell me that.”

“Did Maria send me flowers?” she asked. The card said something about thanking her but ended up finding her beautiful. The whole thing was odd to her, but nothing ever came about it.

“She did,” Colin said. “I found out after the fact. She didn’t sign her name. She didn’t want you to know and feel uncomfortable, but she said it empowered her to learn to voice her desires.”

“It sounds as if she was just expressing herself,” she said. “I’ve never led her on and didn’t know it was her that sent the flowers until just now.”

“I know,” Colin said. “She told me that. And the next time we met it didn’t come up.”

“You mentioned things were ruined.” She was trying to stall. She solved the flowers but wasn’t sure if it was just his choice of words or if he had sent her the threatening notes. “Are you and Maria not getting along?”

“She broke off the engagement,” Colin said. “I wasn’t willing to share her with a woman right now while she explored her feelings. So she said she needed time alone. I had it all planned out. We were perfect for each other. But you said we should talkmore and she felt she couldexpressher wants and needs. It’s your fault.”

Regan pushed back in her chair and hit the wall on purpose behind her when his voice rose.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “We need to take it down a bit. I know you’re emotional over this. I can understand that. You have to ask yourself if you would have rather found out about this information years later than now.”

“My mother told me that too. That it was better to know now. But I don’t believe it. I would have rather never found out.”

There wasn’t anything she could say to that.

People couldn’t live their lives in a bubble or with their heads in the sand and hope the truth didn’t come out.

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