AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He kept talking, but she couldn’t hear him. There was a rushing sound and a sense of the world shifting off its axis. The tears immediately followed as a protest rose up inside of her.
“You’re not getting out?”
She tried to keep her voice down, remembering what had happened when Peter had started shouting. But the broken part of her wanted to scream out a protest.
“You’re not getting out?” she repeated in a whisper. “I thought we’d have time. I thought you’d fight the charges. Isn’t that what Raymond is for, the reason you waited for him? So he could help you?”
Peter sat in his chair, obviously uncomfortable. He looked at everything but her.
“You really thought I was coming home? Allison, I can’t. The charges. Didn’t you know?”
“Know what? You kept saying it was a mistake. A misunderstanding. What does this mean? You’re cooperating. So you know stuff? Are you guilty? Did you do those things?”
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”
He reached for her hand again. She wanted to snatch it back, but that would cause a scene and despite everything, she didn’t want the visit to end. If only she could ignore the sick feeling in her stomach.
“I wanted everything for you,” he said desperately, his voice low, his gaze intense. “I need you to remember that. Things weren’t going well and you were pregnant and I got frantic.”
She tried to understand what he was saying. Or maybe the real information was in what he wasn’t saying.
All this time she’d assumed he was an innocent man. That circumstances had forced his hand, or he’d been tricked or something. But she’d been wrong.
“Are you a criminal?”
“What? No.” He drew back. “Why would you ask that? You love me. I’m a good husband and father. I’m not a criminal.”
“But you’re in jail and you’re going to plead guilty.”
“It makes things easier.” His gaze locked with hers. “I love you, Allison. For always. This is just a bump in the road. We’ll get through it.”
A bump in the road? “Do you have any idea what this has been like for me? I believed in you. In us. Was it all a lie?”
“No.” His voice was strangled. “God, no. I hate what I’ve done to you, but you have to understand why.”
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Nothing about their situation made sense.
“Did it really start in the past few months or have you been doing stuff like this for longer?”
He looked around again, as if conscious of listening ears. “No, no. Of course not. It was just a one-time thing. I got tripped up and things spiraled.”
She wanted to believe him. Despite everything, she missed him and she wanted him home with her and Jackson. She’d seen herself growing old with Peter.
“There was nothing wrong with our life,” she told him. “What we had was special because we loved each other. We had a family and a future.”
“Baby, all that’s still true. Give me some time.”
Time wasn’t the problem, she thought as she studied him, looking for the person she’d fallen in love with three years ago. The problem was that she was finally figuring out he wasn’t who she’d thought. And while it was easy to say it was all his fault, what if it wasn’t? What if she was just as much to blame?
25
“I’m not hungry,” Allison said, avoiding Erica’s gaze. “I’m going to my room.”
Erica had spent the day dealing with a quirky HVAC system and a training class that had gone off the rails when a stylist had accidentally set her blow-dryer on fire. She was tired, she was cranky and she’d driven out of her way to bring home the best fried chicken on the Eastside of Seattle.
Mara was busy with a man friend, Summer was out with the girls, so it was just the two of them. Most nights that happened, Allison put Jackson to bed about the time Erica got home and they hung out together. Like friends. Sure, they were thrown together by circumstances, but Erica had started to look forward to their evenings and she wasn’t in the mood to be understanding.
“What has your panties in a bunch?” she demanded, her tone snarky.
