‘Oh, hey.’
Laurel’s eyes snapped open and a weight reappeared like a stone in the pit of her stomach. She pulled the tarp back over the skull, hurriedly pinning it back into place.
‘I thought everyone had gone,’ she muttered. Because she wouldn’t have come if she knew he was going to be here.
‘Yeah, no. I was just finishing up,’ Nate said, indicating the shiny new dig tent that the university had sprung for now they’d had BAS endorsement. He hopped down into the trench. ‘I can show you if you like?’
‘I’ve seen it.’
There was a moment of silence between them, and it was not comfortable. Not in the slightest. She pushed herself to her feet and headed back the way she’d came, away from his pleading face. Away from him.
‘Laurel, please stay. Please talk to me.’
She couldn’t stay, she couldn’t talk to him. She was too angry, and being too angry led her to make rash decisions. Like calling Ivor Rowlands at the university to tell him that his prize pupil was a lying, thieving, plagiarist. Like calling the British Archaeological Society and getting Nate and Alex disbarred or disavowed, or whatever it was. Excluded. Ruined. Like her.
‘I don’t want to.’ She didn’t look up at him as she sat on the edge of the trench and swung her legs up.
‘Stay? Or talk to me?’
There was a slight accusative tone to his voice that Laurel didn’t like one little bit. ‘Both.’
‘It hurts, you know.’
Laurel finally looked at him and raised her eyebrow sceptically. What? How had she hurt him? He didn’t have an archaeological career stolen, one that he’d never even known about.
‘That you don’t trust me. That you won’t even give me the chance to explain, to convince you,’ Nate said. He didn’t try to move towards her, didn’t try to touch her and for that she was grateful.
‘To convince me that Alex acted on his own accord? We both know that Alex Woollard couldn’t tie his own shoelaces without guidance, Nate,’ she scoffed.
‘Laurel, please.’
Nate’s voice broke and she watched his throat work into a long, heavy swallow. She couldn’t let him talk to her. If she did, he would use his pretty, perfect mouth to manipulate the situation, to control it just as he had ten years ago.
‘Nate,no.’
Laurel pushed herself to her feet and forced them forward. She needed to put some space between them, otherwise she would be tempted to scream and shout and cry and kiss and that wouldn’t do well for anybody, especially her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nate
Nate tried a different tack. He explained everything ad nauseam, to Jack and Rebecca.
Rebecca had been so harsh in her cross examination, picking into every single detail. ‘You knewnothingof Alex’s words to Laurel?… You really thought he was coming up with those ideashimself?… And Laurel is supposed to still fancy you?’
Yes, he admitted he has been a stupid, stupid man on more than one occasion, and he’d had that spelled out to him by Rebecca excruciatingly clearly.
Jack was sick of hearing the story. He could repeat it word for word.
But even Jack and Rebecca could not get Laurel to talk to Nate. She had an escort to and from her car, refused to let him into her office, refused to see him and apparently shut down every conversation in which Nate’s name was brought up.
It was the truth. He didn’t know about any of it.
It was Alex who had stolen Laurel’s paper out of Nate’s pigeonhole. Alex who had plagiarised it, copied it word for fucking word. Alex who had sat opposite Laurel in the student union bar and told her that she was wasting her time with both archaeology and Nate. It was Alex who had told her she was pathetic, less than nothing, destroyed her self-esteem, laughed at her, all because he didn’t have the brains to come up with anything original himself. All because he wasjealousof her work.
He remembered seeing Alex sitting across from a young Laurel in a black strappy dress, drink on the table. Remembered her leaving. Remembered Alex saying ‘you’ve got to let them down gently when they chase you’. Rememberedlaughingwith Alex about it.
Nate felt slimy and icky every time he thought about it.
