Behind the Curtain - Page 95

“What?”

He fell back on the pillows. “Nothing. It’s just always one thing or another.”

“Asher?” He heard her confusion.

“About three months after I started at the Times, the paper was bought by a different company. All of our e-mails were changed.”

“Oh.”

He hated the sound of her shaky sadness. He rolled off the bed.

“I think I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

He’d startled her. He could tell by her tense expression and big eyes as she pushed herself into a sitting position.

“Maybe I should go,” she said.

“No, don’t.” He cursed under his breath when he saw her start at his emphatic denial. He raked his fingers through his hair and strained to calm himself . . . to tamp down his anger. “I’m just pissed,” he admitted.

“At me.”

“At you. At me. At the whole damn situation. But don’t go anywhere. I just need a minute. Please?”

She nodded, but he didn’t move. He felt awkward in the ensuing silence. Stupid, for having exposed his vulnerability so abruptly, like a lightning strike from the blue. Finally, he forced his feet to move. He spun around when he reached the corner of the bed.

“I lost my phone soon after I moved to L.A. I could have gotten a replacement with the same number on the new phone. I just figured it didn’t matter, though, you know? Why not get a new number? I wanted to wipe the slate clean. I could tell my friends and family the new number. No one was going to try to reach me that I hadn’t given the new number to. You certainly were never going to try.”

She remained utterly still. He had the impression she didn’t even breathe.

“I’d like to call it fate,” he said with a harsh laugh, “or bad luck or wrong timing on our part. But the truth is—at least in this instance—it was my own dumb-ass pride.”

• • •

When he came out of the bathroom five minutes later, pulling a clean T-shirt down over his chest, he froze on the threshold. The blood seemed to drop out of his head in a free fall. The bedroom was empty.

He stalked down the hallway. “Laila?” he called. “Laila?”

“I’m in here.”

Relief rushed through him, the distilled form of it leaving him light-headed. He entered the kitchen. She turned to him as she pulled two cups out of his cabinet. She was heating a kettle on the stove.

“I thought you’d left. I’m glad you didn’t,” he stated bluntly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

“Why not?” she asked, her smooth, calm voice both soothing his agitated state and increasing his bewilderment.

He threw up his hands. “Because I don’t want you to go, that’s why.”

“You were just being honest before,” she said, opening another cabinet and looking inside. “I don’t expect you to walk on eggshells around me. Where’s your tea?”

“Laila,” he said, frustrated because her face was blocked by the cabinet door.

She looked around the edge of the door. He started to speak but paused when he saw the compassionate expression in her beautiful eyes.

“I know you’re angry, Asher. I know you’re mad at me for walking away back then, after I’d told you I’d fight for us. I’m plenty mad at myself too. But I can’t go back and change it. I only have right now. I know you’re mad at yourself, and at the world a little too, when it comes to all of it. But—” She dropped her hands from the cabinet and faced him. “The thing of it is—don’t take this the wrong way—but—”

“What?” he asked, taking a step closer.

She gave him a helpless glance and shrugged. “Part of me is glad you’re mad. Part of me is happy that it still hurts,” she said, touching her chest with her fingertips. She noticed his dubious expression. “Because it means we still care. Doesn’t it?” she added, a shadow of anxiety flickering across her expression.

Tags: Beth Kery Erotic
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