Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“I’m happy for you. She must be really understanding, letting you come out here to help. Letting you talk to me.”
“Letting me?” I frowned. “You and I are just friends now. Allegra knows that.”
Sorcha scoffed. “Jared, we’re friends who used to fuck. If your wife says she’s okay with our friendship, she’s absolutely lying.”
“No. Allegra’s not like that.” Especially because our marriage wasn’t real.
“Oh. So if you found out she was still talking every week to a guy she used to fuck on the regular, you’d be fine with that?”
The thought of Allegra with any man filled me with a fury I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“I’ll take that murderous expression as a no.” Sorcha chuckled humorlessly and stood. “I’m sorry for dragging you down here, Jar. I’m sorry for holding out hope that your marriage would fall apart, and you and I could go back to what we had.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise at that confession.
“It’s clear that you and she are solid, and I shouldn’t be calling a married man to come and bloody rescue me.” Sorcha scrubbed a hand down her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorch, it’s fine.”
“It’s not.” Her expression was apologetic. “Go home to your wife, Jared. I’ll call Donna.”
I shifted uneasily. “I can wait for her to arrive.”
“No.” She gave me a sad smile. “You’re not mine to rely on. You never really were, were you?”
Guilt shafted through me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We can’t help who we love.”
I felt heavy with the exchange after I said goodbye to her and Brechin and got back in my car. Instead of leaving immediately, I decided I’d wait until I saw Donna pull up in her Toyota. When I searched for my phone to text Allegra I’d be back soon, I discovered I’d left the bloody thing on the kitchen table when I’d snatched up my car keys.
While I was sure Sorcha was wrong about Allegra, considering our marriage was fake, I couldn’t help but think how my wife wouldn’t meet my eyes before I left. Just seconds before that, she’d been touching me, offering me solace and fierce loyalty. The combination was a massive turn-on. But she’d switched it off, turned from me at the mention of Sorcha.
Fuck.
Maybe Sorch was right.
I was relieved on multiple levels when Donna showed up. Relieved for Sorcha that she had company and relieved that I could get back to Allegra before any of this looked suspicious. Not that I technically owed her anything. But I did. I’d promised her fidelity for two months.
I needed her to trust that I’d keep my word.
I just needed her to trust me.
Twenty-One
Allegra
Around forty minutes after Jared ran off to comfort his ex, I heard his phone ringing in the kitchen. Seeing Georgie’s name on the screen, knowing from Jared how worried the farmhand was about the animal someone had cruelly killed, I’d picked up. I’d told him where Jared had gone, and Georgie had sounded surprised. And a little pissed off.
I was right there with him.
I asked Georgie if I could help with what he needed, but he told me to just get Jared to call him when he returned from running to the rescue of his ex-girlfriend. Or fuck buddy or whatever she was.
Friend.
That’s what he said.
So he was still in contact with Sorcha. This whole time.
I was such an idiot.
Hurt and jealousy and anger roiled in my gut, and I hated Jared for that. I’d never been a jealous girl. Honestly. Never. Not to sound like an arrogant asshole, but it was usually the other way around. I’d had a few boyfriends get all jealous and possessive, and guess what? It was a huge turnoff. So I would not be that person.
No way.
Not me.
I’d just seethe in my quiet fury.
A little over an hour after Jared left, his phone buzzed again, and thinking it might be an impatient Georgie, I’d picked it up. It was a text so the screen remained locked, but I could see enough of it.
Sorcha
Thnx for cmin. Srry if I crossed the li…
I couldn’t see the rest of the text, but hot indignation rushed through me as I dumped the phone on the coffee table in the sitting room. What the hell? Did the rest of the text say “crossed the line”? And what did she mean by that?
Furious, I cleaned the house. A huge part of me wanted to jump in my car and disappear to my studio. But the rational part of me knew that Jared had been through a lot today. Someone deliberately killed one of his flock, and his ex-fuck buddy/girlfriend/current friend had her apartment broken into.
I needed to be cool.
A good friend to him.
After all, he wasn’t my husband for real. He didn’t owe me fidelity.
It was another hot day, so I’d shoved open the windows and changed into shorts and a tank to scrub the house from top to bottom. We’d had housekeepers growing up, but as soon as I moved out, I’d discovered I enjoyed cleaning. In the same way I loved the way my canvas transformed over time with layers of material, I liked the opposite process of returning a physical space to order.