Page 107 of Between the Lies

Anne left his side and circled Nina like a vulture would a corpse. Then she stopped, pulled up the hem of her dress and extracted a knife.

Robert cursed. ‘Don’t do this. What’s Nina done to you?’

When Anne lifted the knife, a wide smile on her face, Robert lunged. ‘No!’

Though his hands were still bound, he surged to his feet. In an instant, hands grabbed him to pull him back down to the ground – but Robert, anticipating their interference, pivoted and struck out. A grunt sounded before a thug toppled.

‘Now that’s also very sexy.’ Anne twirled the knife in her hands. ‘I can see why that bitch seduced you.’

Another grunt from Nina. Robert’s eyes flashed to hers; Anne had used the blade to slice through Nina’s blindfold.

‘Is that how it is?’ Anne walked over to him and placed a hand over his chest. ‘What happened to till death do us part? You’d barely buried me before you slept with the woman who killed me! And now you’ve only got eyes for her.’

Was this all a fucking show for Anne? Looking down, seeing the knife she now used to trace his muscles, Robert snorted. ‘Youdied. Iburiedyou,grievedyou. You seem to have forgotten that – and something else that’s very important.’ Robert dropped his voice a notch. ‘Don’t you remember those little words you wrote in your vows? What were they? Oh aye! “I vow to confide in you, holding no secrets or mistruths between us, for you and I are partners for life.” Our entire marriage was nothing but secrets and mistruths.’

‘So you went and slept with her?’ Anne pressed the knife under his chin. ‘I should kill you for that.’

This close, despite the dim light, Robert could see that Anne had lathered her make-up on thick today, and topped it off with a sharp red lipstick. Perhaps it was just part of her wee drama production. But more than that, that dress, those heels and her make-up showed how confident she was that she’d walk away unscathed and without a fight.

Robert smiled. ‘You could. But, um, I’d wait if I were you.’

Anne narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’

His eyes met Nina’s. When another would’ve cowered, she nodded with determination.

Anne pressed the blade closer, and Nina’s muffled protest echoed through the space. Unfazed by Anne’s threat, Robert grinned. ‘Because Nina and I have a wee gift for you.’

CHAPTERFIFTY-THREE

Aset of footsteps clomped out from the shadows, and Nina’s heart lurched. When Robert had set up his plan, she’d been sceptical. For one, he’d insisted she sit in a car, safe from all of this. Fat load of good that had done her! And second, the man was grieving – not his wife but all the time he’d wasted on a lie. But sometimes the only way forward was to burn bridges. Still, Robert’s plan hadn’t included so many thugs. It should’ve though. And it certainly hadn’t included them being bound and kidnapped.

And their wee surprise – where the hell was it?

Anne leaned into Robert, her body moulding to his, and Nina hissed, her inner green-eyed monster urging her to wring the other woman’s neck.

When Anne flung her hands – her right hand still clutching the knife – around Robert’s neck, angling so Nina could see, Nina clenched her jaw.

Then Anne rose on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Robert’s lips.

Nina should stab the bitch. If not for the fucking ropes binding her limbs, she would have.

‘No, Anne.’ Robert’s tone came out flat but infused with enough steel that Anne leaned back.

The bitch shook her head. ‘Is that how it is? Be faithful to the… mistress, not your own wife.’

‘I think you need to sit back and have a think about marriage.’ Robert stepped away from Anne. ‘If there’s one thing you know about me, it’s that I don’t like liars.’

Anne let go of him, shaking her head. ‘You’ve led such a sheltered life. Yes, you were raised by a single mother, but you’ve always had a roof over your head, a goal for your life.’ She wound her way to Nina. ‘You’ve never known cold, poverty. Never known the prospects a girl has in most countries of the world. I broke those barriers, just like your little lover here.’

Anne’s fingers intertwined in Nina’s hair, tugging at the strands as she went. ‘We got out, made a life for ourselves. But unlike this whore?—’

Anne kicked Nina in the ribs, and pain zapped through her side, but she bit back the scream of pain; Anne wouldn’t get the satisfaction.

Anne’s wee tirade continued. ‘Unlike this husband-stealer, I now make it so all girls have an out.’

Robert hissed, ‘By trafficking them?’

‘Potato, potatoh.’

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