Page 20 of The Ring Thief
Lily: We need to talk.
Only a minute later, the phone rings in my hand. I don’t startle, already expecting it, and hitting decline.
Lily: Face to face.
There’s a longer pause this time, and I stare down, watching as three dots appear, disappear and then come back. Finally, a message comes through.
Declan: Where and when?
The short message doesn’t bode well, but I don’t second guess myself, telling him to meet me at the botanical gardens in an hour.
It’s not the neutral territory I originally planned on, but it feels right to end this where we began. Sweet memories of our first date rise in me, making my chest tighten with a sharp ache.
We’d gone to a little mom and pop’s Italian place, smiling over a candlelit table as we’d eaten pasta and drank rich wine. We walked off our food by meandering along the winding gravel paths of the gardens, finally ending up at a white gazebo. Sitting together on the wooden bench seat, Declan had taken my hand in his, tangling our fingers together. I remember smiling, even though we didn’t say a word, both of us looking out over the lake that sat in the middle of the gardens.
Fairy lights had glittered overhead, an addition a local resident had added to the structure, and it’d felt surreal. Eventually, he’d slowly turned me around, his warm hands cupping my cheeks and gently tipping my head back so he could lean down and press his lips to mine.
It’d felt like the most natural thing in the world, a sense of peace filling me that I’d never ever felt before, as well as the tingle of anticipation, the desire for more.
In my hand, my phone chimes again, and I blink myself out of my reverie.
Declan: I’ll be there.
I stare down at his reply, a sense of desolation washing through me, a feeling so strong that I don’t know how I’ll force myself to even leave the house. On my hand, my rings glint brightly in the sun that pours in the window over the sink, a reminder of everything I’m about to lose. But there’s no turning back the clock on this; no unlearning everything I know now.
And there’s no ignoring the underlying urgency telling me I don’t know everything, and that it’s going to get much, much worse.
CHAPTER 9
Lily
Iwalk up the steps of the gazebo early, grateful to find it empty. I look out over the calm surface of the lake. It’s a beautiful day, a promise for the coming spring; the afternoon gleaming off the surface of the water.
The tranquility of it all is at complete odds with the agitation that makes my hands shake.
I arrived early, wanting to have the illusion of control over what was to come, unable to imagine walking up to him as he waited for me. But as I sit down on the wooden bench against the side of the gazebo, a bruised ache sitting right behind my ribs, I know there’s no preparing for this.
How do you face the man you gave a year of your life to? I gave him all of me—body, mind and soul. I held nothing back, believing with everything in me that he was my forever.
In return, he fed me lies and fantasies.
I know it’s all in my head, but I don’t think I’ll ever get the oily feeling of being used off my skin.
A shiver races down my spine. I jerk my head, eyes finding him as he rounds a hedge. He must’ve come from the office, the tailored slate-gray suit out of place in the gardens. A flash of burgundy makes my throattighten, and I pull my attention away from the tie that had been a Christmas present from me.
Everything he does is intentional, I remind myself brutally. Everything he does is part of an agenda.
He’s showing me a facade, an act that’s designed to throw me off guard and lower my defenses.
He stops at the bottom of the gazebo steps, something hesitant crossing his face. The skin across his jaw is tight with tension, making his face seem more angular and imposing. There’s no other outward show of emotion, nothing to give him away. The sun is at his back, casting his face into shadow, and it makes his eyes seem black as he watches me, his stare tracing from the top of my messy bun, down to my face, the loose-fitting shirt, and then over dirt-splattered jeans and old sneakers.
“It’s so peaceful here,” I say, my voice composed and toneless. I force my lips up in an insincere smile, and he frowns. “It feels like we’ve come full circle.”
“Where were you?” His abrupt question has me raising eyebrows.
“You know, I’ve been wondering about our meeting. I thought it was so romantic, the way we crashed into each other and then just clicked.” I let my face soften with the memory, and his shoulders lower a fraction. “It was like a movie, two people blindly running into each other, coffee flying everywhere. The man gallantly tries to clean the mess up, and then they’re just…together. It felt kind of like fate, huh?”
He sighs, running a tousled hand through his hair. “I don’t want to take a trip down memory lane right now, Lily. Do you even understand how fucking worried I was? Where were you?” He’s grinding his teeth, but I just feel oddly numb.
