Page 154 of Red Flag
“Nix, I’ve got to go,” I said.
“What? No—”
“MsArmasis here,” Stanley said. “She’s forgotten herkeycard. Am I okay to send her up?”
“Uh, of course,” I said, frowning as I tried to remember what Nix had said. He’d just been with his mum, so how was she here?
But my focus should be the fact I was naked and my thighswere wet. I had soaked the bed just as he’d begged.
I threw the duvet over the wet patch — a feat I’d only ever managed to achieve with Nix — and grabbed some pyjamas before running into our en suite.
Half-drunk last night, I’d managed to wipe off my festive makeup — red lipstick and all.
“Marie,” I greeted from the kitchen when I heard her high heels clicking against the marble floor from the lift.
She was the colour green today. Navy wide-leg trousers and an emerald shirt. I needed this woman to have her own Instagram. She’d be far more popular than me.
“Just pop them there,” she said to Stanley, who placed two large shopping bags in the entryway. “Thank you, Stan.”
She turned on her heel towards me in the kitchen and kissed me on the cheek.
“Morning,Livie,” she said with a smile. “How are things?”
“They’re okay,” I said and lifted the coffee to her. She nodded with a thanks but raised her brow for me to continue.
“I’m feeling so much better, though I probably don’t look good right now,” I added with a little laugh, making her coffee with the boiling tap.
She sat on the bar stool, sliding her handbag down her leg to the floor.
Much like her son, she would press for things with silence.
“My therapist is helpful,” I continued, getting out a teaspoon and knocking the drawer closed with my hip. “That’s been going well. My role in the trial is over. I… Is Nix not with you?”
She frowned, her hands together on the kitchen island. “Why would he be? I’m here to give you both your Christmas presents before I go to France. Is he not withyou?”
I could only bring myself to shake my head as a muffled ringing filled my ears. Then she was getting out her phone.
“He—he said he was with you,” I told her, looking at the cup of tea I had started to make. “I woke up and he was gone.”
Nix had never given me a reason not to trust or believe him.
Until right fucking now.
I was in our bedroom, pulling my suitcase out from the cupboard in seconds and throwing all of my shit inside.
I wouldn’t be lied to.
Not right now. Not fucking ever.
“Livid?” I heard his cautious shout from the other side of the apartment.
“Nixon,” his mother called his name with a tightness.
I shoved the suitcase closed and stomped out to see what he had to say for himself.
The second I was out of the bedroom and into the living room, his mother was waving a finger at him and walking him back into the wall. “You love this woman, yet you lie to her? Don’t you dare include me in your falsehoods! I won’t stand for it. I raised you better, NixonArmas, and you will tell me where you were right now.”
“She speaks French, Mum,” he sighed, shaking his head.
