Page 46 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
“I—” Audrey’s voice comes to her in a small squeak as she forces the sound past the hard lump that’s formed in her throat. “Yes.”
Colin smiles, a twisted grin of satisfaction at her response. “Good girl,” he says as he brings his mouth to meet hers, his fingers circling her throat.
Audrey wants to shove him away. She wants to cry, she wants to break, she wants to shatter into one million pieces at his feet. But a small voice in the back of her head hisses a reminder of the truth she isn’t ready to face: She brought this on herself. Maybe this is what she deserves, her penance for the pain she’d caused Seth.
Colin kisses her deeply, his tongue forcing its way past her teeth, and she feels her body softening, her survival instincts kicking in.I just need to get through this,she thinks.I need to give him what he wants so that he’ll let me go.She doesn’t know this man in the alley, the one who has her back pressed against the rough brick of a filthy wall. This isn’t the same man who’d made love to her, who’d explored her body, who’d relished in discovering all the little ways that he could bring her pleasure. This man is dangerous, unpredictable.
“Go on, then,” Colin says as his lips leave hers. “Go and make your train. We don’t want to keep Seth waiting, now, do we?”
Audrey shakes her head, her hair a wild tangle against the brick wall.
“And next time I call, you’ll pick up the phone. Understood?”
Audrey finds herself nodding, and she hates herself for it. But she needs to buy some time. She needs to figure a way out of this mess, because she’s realizing now that one of them might not make it out of this affair alive.
29
Georgina
Hawthorne Lane
Georgina adjusts the knife and fork beside her plate, nudging them into neat parallel lines, before checking her watch again.
Sebastian is nearly half an hour late now. Across the table, Christina is on her phone, texting or playing some sort of game, Georgina isn’t sure. She normally doesn’t allow cell phones at the dinner table, but Christina has been made to wait on her brother, who may or may not decide to grace them with his presence, so she’s letting it slide tonight.
Georgina called Sebastian earlier and left him a message reminding him of what time he was expected home for dinner, but he hadn’t responded, nor has he bothered to come home on time. Colin has always stressed the importance of their children being served homemade meals, family dinners. Though the same rules have never applied to Colin, Sebastian is certainly aware that they still apply to him. It frustrates Georgina to no end that he continues to flout them.
“You might as well start eating,” she tells Christina.
Her daughter looks up from her phone, blinking at Georgina from behind the lenses of her glasses as though her mother had just spoken a foreign language.
“Go on,” Georgina adds. “No sense in letting it get cold.”
Christina sets down her phone and begins to serve herself a portion of Georgina’s roasted asparagus.
“So how was school today?” Georgina asks across the near-empty dining room.
“Er, fine,” Christina replies. “I had an English test. It was easy, though.”
“That’s great,” Georgina says, nodding her approval.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” Christina sets her fork down, stealing a quick glance at her darkened phone screen.
Georgina forces herself not to react. Not to let her face betray the fact that she already knows about Lucas, knows that Christina has secretly been spending time with him. She’d been waiting for her daughter to open up to her about this new relationship, and this seems like the perfect time to have that conversation, while it’s just the two of them. Georgina is glad that Christina feels comfortable coming to her with such things, that she’s built a strong enough foundation for their relationship that they can talk like this.
“I’m thinking of applying to UCLA next year.”
“What? California?” This isn’t at all what Georgina was expecting. “But you’ll only be a junior! You still need to finish high school!”
“There’s an exchange program,” Christina says, her eyes on her plate. She picks up her fork and pushes a stalk of asparagus around the edge. “I’d do my senior year in California, get a head start on college courses.”
“Honey, I don’t know…” Georgina thinks of her daughter all alone on the other side of the country, and then she thinks about how Colin would react to this request. He’d never allow it. “You’re so young to be so far from home.”
“It would be a long shot that I’d even get in, but there’s a fellowship I could apply for.” The words bound eagerly from Christina’s mouth now, as if they’re competing to be heard. “My English teacher said that he’d help me with my application, and he thinks that I could have a real chance and—”
“No.” It comes out more forcefully than Georgina intended, and Christina falls silent, her eyes round in surprise. Georgina feels terrible. She could hear in Christina’s voice how excited she is about this opportunity, how important this is to her, but there’s no sense in giving her false hope. Even if Georgina were to agree to it, she’d never be able to get Colin on board. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“But I didn’t even tell you about the program. Maybe I could—”
