บททั้งหมดของ The Governor’s Wife, His beautiful ruin: บทที่ 161 - บทที่ 170

Evelyn I didn’t expect to see her. She was the last person I expected to see. She was sitting on my couch with her handbag on her lap and her coat still on, and when I pushed the door open my heart lurched. “Mom you scared me!” I pressed my hand flat against my chest. “What are you doing here?” She looked up at me. “Theo gave me the address.” I stared at her. “I went to see him at the hospital,” she said. “I needed to see he was alright. He wrote down your address and told me to come.” My chest constricted painfully. I didn’t move from the doorway for a moment, just stood there looking at my mother sitting in my house in her good coat like she wasn’t sure she belonged here, and felt the exhaustion of the day press down on me even harder. I closed the door and sat down across from her. She watched me settle and then she looked down at her handbag and said, “I saw Grace’s interview.” My jaw tightened. “I sat in my living room and watched that woman say those things

“Dad why would you do that?”Clara’s voice echoed through the entire house, sharp and trembling, all the way from her bedroom. Alfred gritted his teeth and strode down the corridor and stopped outside her door, watching her yank clothes from her wardrobe and shove them into her bag with shaking hands.“Clara calm down!” he barked.“Calm down?” She whirled around and glowered at him, her eyes blazing and wet at the same time. “You filed a court motion about me without telling me. Without even asking me. I had to find out from people at school Dad. People at school!”“It was for your own good…”“Your own good?” She scoffed and turned back to her packing, fuming, pulling things off hangers and folding nothing, just stuffing everything in. “You want to stand there and talk to me about my own good? After everything? After what the whole school is saying?” Her voice cracked but her hands didn’t stop moving. “I know everything now. The lies. The cheating. The other family you were hiding whi

EvelynI heard three knocks at the front door and set my coffee on the counter and went to answer it.Grace Cole was standing on the other side.She had her handbag over one wrist and her chin up and she looked past my shoulder into the house before she even looked at me.“I want to see Clara,” she said.“Good morning Grace.”“Don’t waste my time Evelyn. Is she here?”My grip tightened on the door. “She’s asleep.”“Then wake her up.”“I’m not waking my daughter because you showed up unannounced at eight in the morning.”Grace’s jaw tightened and she gripped her handbag strap harder. “I have driven forty minutes to see my granddaughter. I am not leaving without seeing her.”“You have a phone. You could have called her.”“I shouldn’t have to call. She is my family.”“And this is my house,” I said. “Not yours. Mine.”She flinched at that. Her nostrils flared and she pulled herself up and looked at me with twenty years of built up contempt sitting right there on the surface of her face.“

EvelynNathan’s bag hit the floor by the front door at seven thirty in the morning and I came downstairs to find him standing in my kitchen in a hoodie and sweatpants looking around the room with tired eyes.“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” I said.“I wanted to surprise you.” He looked at me and managed a small tired smile. “Also I didn’t want you to tell me not to come.”I crossed the kitchen and pulled him into a hug and he wrapped both arms around me and held on and my chest constricted painfully. He was taller than I remembered. Or maybe I just kept forgetting how tall he had gotten. I pressed my face into his shoulder for a moment and felt his arms tighten around me.“How are you doing?” I asked when I pulled back.He shrugged and sat down at the kitchen table. “I don’t know. Today is a big day.”“It is,” I said.“Has Clara woken up yet?”“Not yet.”He nodded and rubbed both hands over his face and I turned to put the kettle on and stood at the counter with my back to him.W

EvelynI heard Theo moving around upstairs before I even got to the top of the landing.His bedroom door was open and when I walked past I stopped in the doorway. He had his bag open on the bed and was folding clothes into it with his back to me. The room was half empty already. His books stacked by the door. His jacket on the chair.He turned when he heard me and smiled.“I was going to tell you before I started,” he said.“It’s fine,” I said. “You should go back to your place.”He nodded and turned back to his bag. I leaned against the door frame and watched him fold a shirt and set it in and reach for another one.“I got the confirmation this morning,” he said without turning around. “The job. They want me in Amsterdam for the first six weeks of training. I leave in ten days.”My chest tightened. I kept my face still. “Amsterdam.”“Amsterdam,” he said. He folded another shirt and set it down and turned to look at me properly. “It’s a good opportunity Evelyn. Really good.”“I know i