Page 21 of Destroyed With You

“I didn’t think,” he snaps. “I didn’t have to. The situation was clear enough. You were alive. You’d betrayed me.”

I lick my lips. “So you just knocked on the door and my date volunteered my name?”

He nods. “I said I was an old friend of Linda Starr’s. He told me I had the wrong room. That your name was Michelle Moon.”

I press my lips together.

“I asked to talk to you,” Winston continues, “and he said you were in the bathroom.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what came over me, but I pushed my way in. And once I was past the door I told him we used to be married. That shocked him but I said that I only wanted to talk to you.”

“What did he say?”

“Offered me a chair.”

I cock my head to one side. “Really? And then after this polite interchange, he slammed you in the head with an iron?”

“He blindsided me,” Winston says. “Considering I pulled my gun when I heard the bathroom door open, I can’t blame the guy too much. At least he was chivalrous enough to try to save you.” He looks at me hard. “Then again, he’s the one who bolted and left you with the crazy man waving a gun. To my way of thinking, that makes your boyfriend a real dick.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Under the circumstances, it hardly matters, but I want him to know that. Not that it can make up for anything.

“So it was just a pick up? A quick fuck? Well, that makes me feel better.”

“It should,” I say. I wave a hand to indicate my still-naked body. “You’ve stripped me of all pretense, Winston. You want the truth? The truth is that I haven’t been with anyone since you. Not seriously. But sometimes, especially when I’m on the road…”

“You don’t live here, either?”

“I came in for a conference. I’m an office manager in a plumbing supply company in Tulsa.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“It’s not.”

“So the chivalrous guy who bolted and left you with the potentially crazed ex-husband, he was just a hook-up?”

“I’ll be leaving a few choice comments on his profile later.” I’m trying for levity, but when he doesn’t react, I try another tact. “I’ve been so lonely.” I watch his face, hoping that he can hear the truth in my voice.

“Then I guess you made a mistake pretending to die.”

I feel the tears well, and I don’t try to hold them. “No,” I whisper. “That was horrible and it hurt both of us, but it wasn’t a mistake.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I never wanted to leave you.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

I glance away, not quite able to meet his eyes. “I don’t think I have the right to expect anything from you anymore.”

My palms are sweaty again, and I take a sideways step towards the bed, intending to grab the spread, but he gives his head one quick sideways shake, the gun still trained on me. “Stay put.”

I freeze. I don’t think he’d really shoot me, but all things considered I wouldn’t be surprised.

“Go on. You were telling me you didn’t want to leave.” There’s a harsh tone to his voice, as if he doesn’t believe me. Well, why would he?

“It’s the truth.” It really is. I would have done anything to stay with him, but anything wasn’t possible. So instead I did everything I could to protect him. “I knew you were working on a case, remember? Something big. Something scary. But that’s all you told me. Corruption in the local government, you said. And I knew there’d been a murder. But you never gave me the details.”

Winston nods. “I remember.”

“Well, that’s it, really. I knew something was going on, and I knew it was bad. And then one night when you were out, someone came to the house.”