Page 56 of Reawakened

‘He can’t have showered properly yet!’ Adele grumbles. ‘Can’t you pull him aside and teach him how to look the part like you, Valentine?’

He chuckles as he looks at her. ‘That’s a battle for his wife.’

She harrumphs as she walks past him and he’s looking back at me now, but I can’t move. I’m still, so still, my voice and body caught up in my gut where this revelation churns and churns.

‘Are you coming in?’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Valentine

‘ITHINKTHATwent well; both Louis and Adele were clearly excited about the potential collaboration.’ I sneak a look at her cool, detached form in the passenger seat and suppress a grimace. ‘I reckon you’ve got a long-standing and very rewarding relationship building there.’

She nods. No verbal confirmation. Not even a murmur.

So much for breaking the ice...

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel and try to think of something else to say. Something that’s not on the same lines as what has her so distracted. Layla. I can’t even be cross at Adele for letting it slip. She has a heart of gold and her mouth has a habit of running away with itself. It only makes her more endearing, a liability for Louis at times, but nevertheless endearing.

No, it’s my fault I feel like this, that we’re like this. But I can’t have that conversation while I’m driving.

Neither can I sit with the silence building between us, a gulf forming that I’m scared I won’t be able to cross.

She hasn’t said anything since we left the stadium and her mood has gone from vibrant and excited with Louis and Adele, to this: quiet, reflective, so far withdrawn from me as she watches the world go by outside her window while I drive us home—tomyhome. Something I agreed I would do on Thursday...but I’m not so sure it’s wise any more.

Not that I thought it was wise on Thursday night either, but then my concern was the total annihilation of the line between business and personal. A line that has long since gone. No, my concern now is that I’ve hurt her. Not intentionally, but that doesn’t make my non-disclosure right.

‘I’m sorry you found out like that.’

Her head snaps to me, the most animated she’s been since we’ve been alone. I flick her a brief look. Definitely hurt. Her eyes are hard, her lips pressed together like she wants to say a thousand things and is trying not to.

‘I tried to tell you by the pool the other night.’ I throw my attention back on the road but inside it’s all on her and how I’ve made her feel. ‘When I asked you what happened to Nathan, I wanted to tell you then.’

‘You should have.’

‘I know. But you didn’t want to hear it; you asked me to let it go.’

‘If I’d known that’s what you were about to say I never would have stopped you.’

My eyes flit to her again, the truth of her words forcing me to accept that I knew that too and I let her stop me because I didn’t want to ruin the moment either.

I sigh, the sound reverberating through the car. ‘I know. I guess I didn’t want to talk about it either.’

I feel her eyes on me, burning into me, so many questions itching to get out. ‘When did she die?’

I stare straight ahead. ‘Four years ago.’

‘She must have been very young.’

‘Twenty-five. We were the same age.’

‘What happened?’

The ache in my chest is sharp, brutal. I swallow. Tell myself it’s the same question I asked her and that she has every right to ask it of me. But she was an innocent party to her husband’s death. Me...

My mouth dries up. I should have kept up the silence, at least until we were out of the car.

‘Adele said she had an accident...?’

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