Page 95 of The Midnight Secret

She turned away. ‘I...I’ll need to pick the moment carefully.’

He was watching her again, his eyes upon her back, reading her. ‘What about now? You could pack and be ready to leave by the time he comes back. We can tell him together and then go. I don’t want him laying a hand on you.’

She gave a shocked laugh. ‘Now?’

‘Aye.’

‘And where am I to go?’

‘To ours,’ he shrugged. ‘Where else?’

‘To yours? You honestly believe Archie and Christina would be fine with a married woman coming to live with them? With you?’

He hesitated. ‘Well, I’ll need to explain things to them, obviously...but everyone knows what Norman is. And after today, who would blame you for leaving him? I think they’d be more surprised if you stayed!’

She looked at him. It was all so straightforward for him. He wanted to launch straight into ‘happy ever after’ – but she was another man’s wife, no matter how bad a husband Norman might be.

‘I need to consider things, David. It’s not as simple as you’re making it seem.’

He caught his breath, picking up on her growing coolness. ‘No, it is simple, Jayne. It’s as simple as it could possibly be. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t respect you. He doesn’t protect you. I’m sorry to be blunt, but y’ need to see things for what they are. You’re at a crossroads and y’ have a choice to make. We both know this day has been a long time coming.’

His words hurt her even though she knew they were true. ‘That’s as may be, but as I said, I’m not leaving right now. I have to think.’

‘But what is there to think about? Do y’ really want to continue living in fear? He’s got y’ so broken down, y’ think it’s normal to be hit and to be hurt! But it’s not. And you and I both know he’s far more dangerous than people realize.’

She looked away. How many times had he brought this up with her? ‘If you’re referring to Frank—’

‘Of course I am. Norman’s the only one who doesn’t have an alibi for his whereabouts that night. You lied to the policefor him, and it’s an innocent man, Donald McKinnon, who’s taking the heat for it!’

‘David, I’ve told you before, whatever Norman’s faults, I know he didn’t kill Frank.’

He threw his arms up in exasperation. ‘Youdon’tknow that!’

‘Yes, I do! I assure you, it will make no difference if I tell the police he didn’t come home that night.’

‘It would make all the difference in the world to Donald and Mhairi!’ he snapped.

Jayne swallowed. ‘Aye...Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘And I’m sorry they’ve been caught in this – but that isn’t on Norman. The police will only waste their time redirecting their energies to him. I know he isn’t the killer.’

He stared at her, that pitying look coming into his eyes again. ‘No, it’s not that. You don’t care whether the police waste their time. You know you could have Donald taken off the hook of suspicion likethat’ – he clicked his fingers – ‘but you don’t want Norman knowing you were with me that night, because you’re afraid he’ll see what’s really between us.’

She stared back at him, knowing he was right. She’d been too frightened to face her feelings for him before now, not only because she feared they were unreciprocated, but because they had existed far longer for her than they had for him. The terrible, shameful truth was that she had been drawn to him even when Molly was still alive. To have witnessed at such close quarters a love she had never known with her husband...it had made her want that love for herself. It had made her want him.

‘It’s a risk I can’t take,’ she whispered. Norman would kill her before he let her leave him for another man. For David, of all men.

David shook his head, a small, scoffing laugh falling from his lips as he saw her intransigence, her refusal to remove herself from this place of fear. ‘I don’t understand you, Jayne. Here, you are ignored and overlooked and downtrodden; you live in terror of his moods and his fists. You deserve a better life than this, and I want to be the man to give it to you! But you won’t come with me.’ His voice broke on the frustration of it all.

‘I’m just asking for some time, David. I know you love me and I love you back, but...’ Her voice trailed off. How could she explain that it was safer to stay here than walk out with him into the sunlight? She only knew how to live in the shadows.

A silence stretched as she stared at the floor.

‘Well...’ he muttered, looking disconsolate. ‘You’ll be sure to tell me when you’ve finally had enough, won’t you? Maybe after the next woman he fights over. Or the next broken bone.’

‘David...’

But he walked past her and out through the open door, where a squirrel scampered on the garden wall and the world continued to turn.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

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