All Chapters of The Governor’s Wife, His beautiful ruin: Chapter 181 - Chapter 188

Evelyn The water was warm. The sun was high. Daniel was beside me with his arms hooked over the pool edge talking about something I was giving about forty percent of my attention to.The other sixty percent was on Theo.He was at the pool bar. Dark shorts and no shirt his arms crossed. He hadn’t moved in twenty minutes. Hadn’t looked away once. Every time Daniel leaned slightly closer to say something I felt Theo’s eyes sharpen from across the pool deck like a physical thing pressing against the side of my face.I laughed at something Daniel said although I didn’t hear what it was.Daniel pushed off the wall to get us drinks. I turned onto my back and floated and looked at the sky and felt Theo’s stare travel down the length of my body from my throat to my feet and back up. My nipples hardened under my swimsuit and I stared at the clouds and counted them and told myself I was completely unbothered.Three clouds. Then two. Then Daniel was back with the drinks.I stayed in that pool f

Evelyn The resort pool was quieter by mid morning.Most guests had migrated to the lakeside or the main restaurant and the pool area had emptied out to just a handful of people scattered across the sunbeds with their drinks and their phones and their complete indifference to anyone around them.I was in the water with my arms hooked over the edge looking out at the lake when Theo appeared at the pool steps in dark shorts with two drinks in his hands and the audacity to look that good at ten in the morning.He set the drinks on the edge beside me and got in.“I ordered you one,” he said. “The bartender said it’s what you had yesterday.”I looked at the drink. It was exactly what I had yesterday.“You asked the bartender what I drink,” I said.“I observed,” he said.“You asked,” I said.He said nothing and got into the water beside me. He picked up his own drink and I pressed my lips together against the smile trying to get out and looked back at the lake.We stayed in that pool for tw

Evelyn grabbed Clara’s hand and dragged her across the Villa’s until they got to hers and Clara tried resisting all through.She sat her down on the villa couch and stood in front of her with both arms crossed and her jaw so tight it ached. She felt the fury and the fear sitting so close together in her chest she couldn’t separate them.“Eight weeks,” she said.Clara said nothing.“You have been pregnant for eight weeks.” Evelyn’s voice was controlled but only just. “Eight weeks Clara. You have been carrying this for eight weeks and you said nothing. Not one word. Not a call. Not a text. Nothing.”“Mom…”“I am your mother.” Her voice cracked on the word. “I am your mother and you have been walking around for eight weeks with this and you couldn’t tell me.”Clara looked at her hands. “I didn’t know how.”“You open your mouth and you say the words,” Evelyn said. “That is how. That is exactly how.”“I was scared,” Clara said quietly.“Of what? Of me?” Evelyn stepped closer. “You were sca

The flowers arrived at nine fifteen.Keisha from reception carried them in with both arms and set them on the edge of Evelyn’s desk and stepped back and looked at them with the expression she had been wearing every morning for the past three weeks.“Same sender,” Keisha said.“Thank you Keisha,” Evelyn said without looking up from the contract in front of her.“This one is bigger than yesterday’s.”“I noticed.”“It’s significantly bigger than yesterday’s Mrs Cole.”“Keisha.”“I’m just saying.” She retreated to the door. “Your nine thirty confirmed. Conference room B.”The door closed.Evelyn set her pen down and looked at the flowers properly for the first time. They were enormous. White and deep red and spilling over the edges of the vase in a way that took up half her desk and smelled extraordinary and had been arriving every single morning for twenty one days without a card and without a name and without any explanation beyond the fact that she knew exactly who was sending them and