Page 31 of Nothing to Deny
She couldn’t leave it at that. He’d only keep calling if she didn’t make contact. A text, she could text the reason for not taking his call. The made up reason that she still had to invent. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to figure her out from text than it would be with speech. Hmm, yeah, she wouldn’t hold her breath.
“Truman?” Holly asked. Casting her eyes up from the phone screen without raising her chin, she gave her cousin confirmation. “He’s going to be maaad.”
Duh, thank you. She didn’t need her cousin drawing out the word to accentuate the obvious. “Yes, okay, thanks, Hol.”
“What does he want?”
People usually phoned to tell other people what they wanted. Her relationship with her grandfather wasn’t like that.
“What does he always want?” she muttered, typing one thing, then deleting it to write something else.
“For you to go home to him.” Another glance over the phone, she understood Holly’s sigh. “There are worse places to live.”
“Says the woman who’s never had to live with him.”
“He’s not awful. He doesn’t beat you.”
“No, he’d hire someone to do it for him.” The joke wasn’t funny. She inhaled to blow out a long breath. “You’re right. He’s good to me. He’s a good man. He’d beat every other person on the planet before he’d raise a finger to me.”
“Doesn’t show his love in healthy ways though,” Holly said. “He doesn’t want you to be independent. If you go back, it will be just like before. He’ll be all in your business… And he’s more protective now… possessive… but cheating on a marriage—”
“Yeah, okay, thank you,” she said, noting how both men in the car reacted to that statement.
Donoghue was the first to interject. “Hey, if a man can’t satisfy his wife—”
“Oh, that wasn’t a judgment on you.” Holly was quick to leap in and clear up the misunderstanding. “Definitely not a judgment.”
“No, it was a judgment on me,” Freya said. “Thank you for airing my private business, Hol… My name is Freya Dere and I am a disgusting, sex-starved slut… Thank you, Holly. Thank you for helping me admit I have a problem.”
“I didn’t say that,” Holly said. “You know how I feel about cheaters, but I—”
“You really think this is the place to talk about this?” she asked, giving up on texting and tossing her phone back into her purse. “I can’t go back and change the past. What’s done is done.”
“That’s what you say. Do you think Truman will ever let it go? Do you think he’ll really ever give up on tearing Chapman apart? His wife—”
“Holly,” Freya said, begging her cousin to shut up.
“What? I’m just saying, there would be worse things in the world than to be with Truman again. He loves you.”
“So I should give up on self-respect? Give up on what I want to instead be the perfect, dutiful princess who never lives a day in her life?”
“If you’re not in love with the dude divorce him,” Donoghue said.
Holly’s laugh spurted out. Horror whipped Freya around to blink at the guy casually sitting there, draped against the door. But his opinion wasn’t the one that mattered.
Her eyes met Baer’s. “I’m not… I’m not married.”
All the things they’d done. The moments they’d shared. If she was married, she should’ve been honest. She couldn’t let him believe she lied.
“You told me that when we met, Little Skit.”
ELEVEN
REACHING THEIR DESTINATION, eventually, delivered a reprieve from the heavy air of the car. Cloud, that was the name of the club. She hadn’t picked it, though was thankful her usual haunt, the super-exclusive nightclub, Crimson, hadn’t been floated as an option. Not because she didn’t love it there, she did, it was one of her safe spaces. But Roxie, Crimson’s Empress, was full-on, and the situation wasn’t easy to explain in ten words or less.
More than a few people queued at Cloud’s entrance. A canopy, red carpet, and security on the door… hmm, going for Crimson’s audience? Good luck. She wasn’t worried; Roxie wouldn’t be either. Cloud was a cheap imitation not competition.
Using Baer’s forearm to steady herself, she bent to straighten the strap at the back of her shoe.
