Deep (Pagano Family #4)(80)

Her trust.

Behind him, her phone rang. It rang until it went to voice mail, and then, a minute or so later, a voice mail alert chimed. He stepped back through the open balcony door and went to the kitchen counter to check it.

Bruce. Calling so early, it was no social call. This was Bruce sharing news he’d just learned, that Mills had had an accident. That he was dead.

And now Nick would live his first lie with Beverly.



oOo



She came in wearing her white terrycloth robe, a purple towel draped over her shoulders and her wet hair free from the rolled braid she wore when she swam. She smiled her beautiful smile at him, and she looked like his Beverly, almost as bright as ever.

“Hi! I thought you’d be gone already. You’re still in your track pants.” She walked over around the counter and into the kitchen, and he kissed her.

“No meetings today until later. I thought I’d have a slow morning.” He put his arm around her waist and held her to him. “You seem good this morning.”

“It was a good swim. My head feels straighter this morning. I think it’s the weather, too. I like the first sunny day after a rainy spell. Everything smells good, and the air has weight.”

He laughed. “Most people hate humidity, you know that.”

“I like it. The world feels more real.”

He loved this woman with a depth he hadn’t yet fathomed. Setting his coffee aside, he wrapped her in both arms and kissed her, clutching her tightly to his bare chest. When she kissed him back, sincerely and without hesitation, her tongue alive with his, he groaned and pulled back. “I like seeing you like this, bella.” In fact, he wanted to throw her phone over the balcony and into the pool below, and keep her here, innocent of anything but their love.

Smiling shyly, she pulled away. He let her go—she wasn’t ready to give him more of her body.

As he watched, she turned and went to her phone. “Huh. Bruce called. I hope he’s okay.”

“Why would he call?” Nick didn’t like the way his pulse had picked up speed, and he strove for, and found, control over it.

“I don’t know. I just talked to him a couple of days ago.” She tapped the screen, going to voice mail. While she listened, Nick rinsed out his cup. When he turned back around, Beverly was staring at her phone.

And it was time.

“What is it, bella? You look upset.”

She lifted her eyes and stared at him, speechless.

“Beverly?”

She swallowed. “It’s Chris. He…he…died last night. He ran off the road in the rain. He’s dead.”

He went to her and took the phone from her hand. “I’m sorry.” That was a truth that he could say. “What can I do?”

Standing motionless and silent, she didn’t respond at all.

Again, he said her name, and again she responded to that, her eyes shifting to him. “I don’t…understand.”

“Would you like me to call somebody, see what I can find out?” Nick felt like he was reading from a script. He was not unfamiliar with lying; it was a part of his world. But lying to someone whose trust he valued—that was foreign to him.

But the truth would hurt her more.

“No. I don’t—I—I don’t need to know more. My God. Chris is dead.”

He led her to sit on the sofa, and she went, docile and pliant. “I’ll cancel my day and stay with you.”

Still with that look of dazed absence, she shook her head. “No. I’m okay.”

“I’m staying, bella. I won’t leave you today.”

At that, she smiled a little, one side of her lovely mouth lifting a fraction. “Do you ever take no for an answer?”

He smiled back and brushed her wet hair back from her face, the pressure in his chest increasing at the sight of the trust in her tiny smile. “Depends on the question.”

“Okay.” She stood back up, and he followed. “I—I have to…to…”

“What?”

“Take a shower.” With that, she walked through the apartment and to the bathroom.

Nick stared after her. He had not expected this reaction from her, but now, as she closed the bathroom door between them, he understood that he should have. She had been on autopilot for weeks, describing herself as numb, and her responses to anything had been accordingly flat. Only recently had she begun to break through that. She was reverting to robotic flatness, and that scared Nick more, made him feel more guilty, than a deluge of tears would have.

He heard the water in the shower running.

And then he heard something else. Moaning.

There were her tears.

Knowing full well that she’d closed herself in the bathroom for privacy, Nick went to the door. He tried the knob—it wasn’t locked. So he opened the door and went in.

In lieu of a bathtub, Beverly’s bathroom had a large, walk-in shower, tiled in iridescent glass tiles. All of her towels and bathroom accouterments were in pinks and purples. Surprisingly, Nick had grown used to living in such a feminine environment. In the past two months, he’d spent easily ten times as much of his down time in her apartment as his own. Even the magenta wall didn’t bother him as it once had.

She was sitting on the floor of her shower, her arms wrapped around her folded legs, sobbing. He was glad to see it. Despite his regret for the cause of her tears, the show of emotion gave him hope. Real hope.