جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 88

RAINAA week had passed since the night Castor almost caught me, and it hadn't cooled a single thing between me and Sylvester.If anything, the near miss had made us worse. Desperate. Hungry. We'd texted through the whole week, and twice he'd begged me to come over. I didn't go, it was too early to resume physical visits.A smarter woman would have taken the fright as a warning. To end things with Syvelster and keep my distance. But instead, it only made me crave him even more.I tried not to give Castor any reason to be suspicious of me. So when his fundraiser came around, I did my part as his wife and stood at his side in the deep gold gown he'd laid out for me, my hand in the crook of his arm while he worked the room. I greeted the donors he steered me toward. I answered the questions I was supposed to answer.Then I saw Sylvester across the room, and my whole body woke up.He was near the far wall in a dark suit, a glass in his hand, listening to some older donor talk at him. He l

SYLVESTERIt was 7:45 p.m. on a Monday evening.It was the start of a new week, yet my head was still in yesterday's fundraiser.I tried to work through the day, to do usual office work, but somehow, my eyes kept darting to the clock on the wall.It was a silent count down.Patrick had left an hour ago. He'd checked on me before leaving, and and I'd pretended to be rounding up my work to leave as well.I hadn't done a single thing today.The brief sat open in front of me. I hadn't read a line of it. My eyes kept going to the door instead, to the dark hallway past it. Listening, waiting.She'd said eight. It was ten to.I got up. Walked to the window. Came back. Straightened a stack of files that didn't need straightening and caught myself doing it, and that was the part that got me. Ten years as an attorney, of standing still in front of judges who wanted me to break and I never for once let them see me lose control.Now I couldn't sit through ten minutes of waiting for a woman.It h

RAINAI was still on the couch when Syvelster came back.I'd pulled myself together as best I could. Skirt down, blouse buttoned, heels strapped.But my hands had been shaking too hard to fix my hair, and I could feel it hanging loose and wrong around my face. The shock of seeing Patrick had melted a while ago. Now, the tears just came, quiet, heavy, sliding down without my say-so, and I let them because I didn't have the strength left to stop them.Sylvester walked in slow. His shirt was buttoned in a crooked way. He'd chased Patrick down in a hurry and came back with a sore look on his face, the one I'd never seen on him before tonight. He always knew what to do in the tense situations. Always knew the next move. Right now he just looked like a man who'd been caught, same as me.He sat down beside me on the couch and didn't say anything at first. He just reached over and took my hand."He saw us," I said, my voice shaking. "Patrick saw us, Sylvester. He saw everything.""I know."

PATRICKHe opened the door before I knocked twice."Patrick." Relief moved over his face, then caution when he saw mine hadn't softened. "You came."I walked past him into the house. "Sit down."He looked at me for a second, then crossed to the couch and sat. I stayed on my feet. I'd spent three days deciding exactly how this was going to go, and I wasn't going to do it from a chair with a drink in my hand like we were two old friends catching up. Not yet."I'm going to say this once," I said. "So listen to me the way you should have listened three months ago. The way you should have listened from the very start."He didn't argue. That told me something. The Sylvester I knew would have argued."You are not going to lose this election, and you are not going to lose this case. " I said, emphasing every word.He remained silent."Two years, Sly. Two years of my life, of Geoffrey's money, every method, every contact, every hour we've poured into taking Castor Rowland apart. It's finally