Page 8 of Our Little Secret

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Page 8 of Our Little Secret

“No! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Her voice had elevated an octave and she held the phone in a death grip as she stared through the dusty windshield.

“So what? You think l told someone and they called you?”

“I don’t know what to think, butsomeoneknows.”

A pause. “Maybe it’s a prank.”

“Oh right, what’re the chances of that?” Was he being dense on purpose? Outside a crow flew onto a nearby tree.

“I don’t know. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Now he was just being obtuse.

Tell him. Tell him now!

She gathered the courage she hadn’t found earlier. “So maybe we should cool it,” she said, her heart racing.

“What?” he said, a cautionary note in his voice. “What’re you talking about?”

She drew in a long breath, then plunged in. “I’ve been thinking for a while now. And I don’t really know how to say this, because it’s new territory for me, but I guess it’s best to just come out with it. Gideon, I’m done.”

“You’re—?”

“What we had?” she cut in quickly. “It was great. Okay? But it’s over.”

She waited, the silence stretching long.

Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty. Then, finally, “You’re kidding. Right?”

“No. Not kidding. Dead serious. I can’t do this anymore.”

Another achingly long pause, then, tentatively, “But . . . why?”

“Because it’s wrong, Gideon. We both know it.” She stared through the windshield but couldn’t see Marilee in the glare. “I have a family. And I don’t know what I was thinking to let this go so far, but I just can’t go on with it. I won’t. I’m a married woman, for God’s sake. I’ve got a kid.”

Yet another stunned silence. Then only, “Wow.”

She waited.

As if he finally understood, he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“You were just here.”

“I know.” She didn’t admit that she’d been too nervous to say what was on her mind to his face, that she’d planned to break it off for weeks. “It’s been coming a long, long time.”

“As I said, you were just here,” he argued, his voice a little harsher.

She cringed as she eyed the half-drunk cup of iced coffee melting in the cup holder, the dry cleaning tossed into the back seat with her gym bag, all part of her alibi if she were asked what she’d done all afternoon.

Lies.

All lies.

Well, it was over.

But Gideon still was not believing her. He said, “You could have given me a heads-up. You know, when we were together. If it’s been on your mind for so long, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wasn’t sure.”


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