Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

body shivered. Her knees went weak and she pulled away, crumpling onto the nearby sofa. Eliot joined her, but she couldn’t look him in the face and instead gazed off to the side, focusing her attention on a wall painting of a Bed & Breakfast surrounded by lush trees near a lake. She couldn’t go back to that time. It was the most horrific experience of her life, losing their son at sixteen weeks.

But Eliot didn’t know the whole story. The secret she and Kat had been keeping from him. And no matter how much guilt consumed her, he must never know the truth. It was the only way to preserve their family.

Eliot put his hand on hers. “I’m sorry, baby. I shouldn’t have said anything—”

“No, no. I’m sorry. I know it was hard on you too, losing him. After the miscarriage, I didn’t want to think about another baby. Maybe I was afraid the same thing would happen again.”

He cupped her face and planted a long, unhurried kiss on her lips. Then he said, “It was so sudden. One minute everything was perfectly fine and the next, just like that, he was gone.”

“These things happen sometimes,” she said, as if the vague justification should satisfy him.

“But it hurt so much when you pushed me away afterward,” he said.

She held her breath. “What?”

“You wouldn’t let me go with you to the follow-up appointments after the miscarriage. You were adamant about going alone.”

How was she going to get out of that one? This is what happens when you tell lies.

“I’m...” she began.

He continued. “I felt as though you were shutting me out. It was a tragedy for us both, but you kept me at arm’s length.”

Her lips trembled. Tears circled. She whispered, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s too painful.”

He hugged her tightly and apologized profusely. “Please forgive me. That wasn’t fair of me. You’d gone through a major trauma—you weren’t yourself at the time.”

You have no idea.

Alicia pulled herself together. “No, Eliot, we went through a major trauma. I don’t ever want you to think that it didn’t happen to you, too, that your feelings didn’t matter. You were Jonathan’s father, and his loss still haunts you.”

He stayed quiet and rained kisses all over her face and neck. Before long, she let go of the grief and guilt, surrendering to the sensual onslaught. “Happy anniversary, baby,” he said. “You’re my heart, my love, my forever.”

Alicia was half asleep when an irritating, buzzing sound pulled her from the edge of blissful rest. She opened her eyes slowly. A soft glow sprang from Eliot’s side of the bed. But there was no Eliot. She reasoned he must be in the bathroom. Half-drunk with sleep, she dragged herself across the bed and reached for the phone on the antique nightstand. She wanted the whirring to stop, decline the call. She picked up the device, rubbed sleep from her eyes, then stared at the screen.

Nathan Hunt

Alicia hit the red ‘decline’ button and dropped the phone back on the nightstand. She was now wide awake. Once she crawled back to her side of the bed, she tried to fall back asleep. What on earth was so urgent that Nathan would call Eliot at this hour—after midnight? What time would it even be in New York? The time zones had confused Alicia’s body clock, but surely nothing could be that urgent, especially since it was highly likely that Nathan would know about the Paris meeting.

A naked Eliot returned from the bathroom and slipped under the covers.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said, spooning her.

“I was. Your phone woke me up. Nathan Hunt called. Remind me to tell him off.”

CHAPTER 10

“Sorry to barge in on you like this, Jack” Alicia said. “Donna told me your next patient isn’t for another hour or so.”

Jack gestured for her to take a seat in his office. “No problem at all, Alicia. How was Paris?”

Eliot’s confession in Paris about wanting another child and his reflections on what had happened to their son had shaken Alicia more than she cared to admit. The situation called for drastic action if she wanted to keep her family intact. So, the moment she returned from Paris yesterday, she had called the receptionist at Jack’s Needham office and hightailed it over for his earliest availability this morning.

“Paris was wonderful. Thanks for asking, but Jack, I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, sounds serious. What’s on your mind?”

“Evidence.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Evidence of what happened three years ago. Eliot’s asking questions, but he must never find out the truth.”

“I thought you said he accepted your explanation. What changed? Why is this an issue all of a sudden?” Jack picked up a croissant from a paper plate next to the photo of Leanne and the grandkids on his desk, and bit into it.

Alicia sighed wearily. She was still jet-lagged. So much happened in Paris and her head still spun, but she’d decided to tackle one problem at a time. The most important problem first: the one that could blow up in her face and ruin everything if she didn’t do something fast.

“While we were in Paris, Eliot mentioned trying for another baby. It seems that losing Jonathan hit him harder than I suspected, but now he wants to add another member to our family.” She explained Eliot’s probing questions and how the guilt had almost sent her into a complete meltdown.

“Yes, but I don’t see where I fit in,” he said, wiping off croissant crumbs from his mouth and sipping his Starbucks latte.

“Is there any way you could, um, accidentally lose the paperwork?”

“Pardon me?”

“It’s a lot to ask, I know. But files go missing all the time. Are there any notes in my file that differ from what we talked about? What Eliot knows?”

Jack took another sip of his latte, then broke off another piece of croissant and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, the tension grew heavy.

What if Jack