Alle Kapitel von After You Broke My Heart: Kapitel 51 – Kapitel 60

"You said that already.""I know.""You said it in your office. You said it in the street.""I know.""Tonight is when Zara goes public.""Then it'll be tonight. I'll tell you before midnight. All of it. I swear.""Why should I believe you?""Because I'm out of lies," he said simply.I stared at him. Every sensible part of me wanted to turn and walk away and never look back. I wanted to go home, lock the door, and let Leah hold me until the shaking stopped. I wanted to be a woman who had learned her lesson.But I kept hearing his voice in the street. Tell me to step back. And I kept seeing him sitting at his desk, torn between two truths, willing to be hated rather than lie."Where?" I heard myself ask.His shoulders dropped, just slightly. "Anywhere you choose.""Not your lounge.""Not my lounge.""Not a hotel.""Not a hotel.""Somewhere with Leah nearby."He almost smiled. "That seems fair.""Seven o'clock. I'll text you where.""I'll be there.""Don't be early.""I'll be exactly on

"Absolutely not," Leah said."I have to go.""She told you to leave your phone.""I'll leave it with you.""That's worse." Leah paced her tiny living room with her arms flung wide. "You're going to a service entrance, alone, with no phone, to meet the wife of the man you kissed. That's the opening of every crime documentary I've ever watched.""Catherine helped me in the boardroom.""Catherine could have helped you to get you in a dark corridor.""She's shaking, Leah. Every time I see her. Her hands shake.""So do Dan's."I stopped. She was right. But I had watched Catherine's fingers tremble against the glass table while she defended a stranger, and a woman who shakes while she tells the truth is not the same as a man who shakes while he lies."Please," I said. "Trust me."Leah folded her arms and glared at the ceiling. After a long moment she let out a breath."Fine. But I'm parking outside the staff gate. If you aren't out in forty-five minutes, I'm coming in with a fire extinguish

"I know.""She has your passcode. Maybe your cloud login. Maybe both.""I know, Leah.""Then turn it off."I held the power button until the screen went black. It felt like pulling a plug on a machine that had been listening to me breathe. "How do I tell Nick I'm here?""He's early. He's outside." She reached into her bag and slapped a cheap grey phone into my palm. "Burner. I bought it on my lunch break, just in case. It's got one number in it.""Whose?""Mine." She smiled grimly. "Don't say I never think ahead."Marlow Street's rooftop café sat above a bookshop, up three flights of narrow stairs and through a glass door that opened onto a terrace strung with warm yellow lights. The rain had stopped, and the wet tables gleamed. Standing heaters glowed orange in the corners. Beyond the railing, the city spread out in soft smudges of gold and blue.Nick stood at the far rail with his back to me, his hands braced on the wet metal.He wasn't wearing a suit. A dark sweater, plain trousers

Her arms closed around me before I could think of a way out.Aunty Fola smelled exactly as I remembered, warm shea butter and expensive jasmine, the scent of every Sunday lunch I had ever eaten at Zara's family table. For one dizzy second, my body relaxed into it on its own, the way a body does when it's been hugged by the same person for six years.Then I remembered the notary seal. Folasade A. Adeyemi, Esq.My spine went rigid."There she is," Fola murmured against my hair, rocking me gently. "My darling Rita. You've been so strong. Zara tells me everything, you know. I've been so worried.""Aunty," I managed."Let me look at you." She held me at arm's length. She was tall and elegant in a grey suit, with an orange gele folded high above her face, silver bangles chiming at her wrists. Her smile was radiant. Her eyes moved over my face like a jeweller's over a stone. "Too thin. But still beautiful. And wearing a man's sweater."Heat rushed into my cheeks. "It's cold.""Mm. I'm sure."

I stared out the window. The streetlights swam. A bitter, ugly little feeling twisted behind my ribs, and I hated myself for it."Did Catherine know?""From the beginning. She covered for us. She sat in restaurants as my wife so no one would ask who I was really having dinner with." He opened his eyes. "She was the one who told me to let myself be happy. She said one of us should."My throat tightened. The last woman I liked who got close to Dominic."What happened?""Two years ago." His grip on my hand tightened. "March. We were driving back from a clinic fundraiser in the next county. It was raining, like tonight. She'd taken my car because mine had a flat tyre in the morning, and I was in a meeting that ran late. I was supposed to ride with her.""But you didn't.""I stayed behind." His voice cracked. "Twenty minutes later, her car left the road on Ridge Bend and went down an embankment."I covered my mouth."She hasn't opened her eyes since. Two years." He bowed his head, and his