The Edge of Eternity. Amanda Stevens

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ten. And even on those nights he didn’t go straight to bed but would sit in the living room with a drink, sometimes watching television, sometimes staring into the dark.

      He nodded. “I’ll make sure to get away early. I’ll see you at seven-thirty.”

      He came around the desk then to walk her to the door. His shoulder brushed against hers, and Elizabeth was surprised to find herself growing quite breathless again. She could smell his cologne, a rich, classy scent with seductive undertones. Yes, that was Paul. Rich, classy, seductive…

      The dark gray pin-striped suit he had on was one of her favorites. But then, Paul could wear anything and look good. He was tall and slender, his body toned from the miles and miles of running he did every week. At thirty-six, he had the physique of a man a decade younger, but the lines around his mouth and eyes gave his face maturity.

      Elizabeth had never met any man—and never would, she suspected—who compared in any way to Paul Blackstone.

      At the door he gazed down at her, and it was almost as if…for a moment it seemed as if he might…

      The door opened and Nina Wilson came in. “Boyd Carter is on line two—” She stopped short when she saw Elizabeth, and her expression became contrite. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you still had someone with you.”

      “My wife was just leaving.”

      My wife.

      Elizabeth glanced at Nina, and for a moment, the woman’s gaze darkened with something that might have been fury. Then she seemed to shrug it off and smiled. “It was nice meeting you…Elizabeth.”

      Score one for you, Elizabeth thought as she left the office. Because by using her first name, Nina Wilson had effectively put them on equal footing.

      AS PAUL BLACKSTONE watched his wife leave the office, an uneasy premonition tickled along his backbone. So she wanted to have dinner with him tonight. What was that all about?

      He wanted to believe that the overture was a good sign. Elizabeth might finally be emerging from the dark place she’d crawled into eighteen months ago. Somehow he didn’t think so, though.

      He understood her despair. There had been times in the past year and a half when he’d wanted nothing more than to pull the covers over his head and hide from the world rather than wake up to face another day without his son. But life had to go on. He had a living to make. Mortgage payments, bills, responsibilities that didn’t stop because life no longer seemed worth living.

      Eventually he’d been able to see the sunlight again. Dimmer, yes, but it was there if he looked hard enough. But Elizabeth…

      Paul closed his eyes briefly. He very much feared that she would never find her way out of the darkness, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

      Trying to shake off a growing sense of doom, he took the call from Boyd Carter, but his mind wasn’t really on the conversation. When he finally hung up, he swiveled his chair around to stare out the windows. The sun was still shining, but the rainbow over Elliott Bay had long since faded. And in the distance he thought he saw rain clouds gathering over the snowy peak of Mount Olympus.

      He let his mind retreat back to the visit from his wife. What did she want to talk to him about? Reconciliation? A fresh start?

      Wishful thinking, he decided. He was fairly certain that she’d decided it was time to end the travesty that their marriage had become. And maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to let go. Maybe it had been time over a year ago when she’d sobbed in his arms that she didn’t want to go on. That without their son she had nothing to live for.

      Paul understood her grief. He did. But, God, how that had hurt him. How it still hurt him that she hadn’t been able to turn to him for comfort, but instead had pushed him away.

      But as devastated and grief-stricken as he’d been that night, the worst had been yet to come. A few days later he’d gotten home from work to find Elizabeth unconscious in their bed. Unable to rouse her, he’d called the paramedics, and they’d rushed her to the hospital, where the sleeping pills had been pumped from her stomach.

      When she’d finally awakened a few hours later and seen Paul at her bedside, she’d slipped her hand from his and turned away.

      She’d blamed him for saving her. Blamed him for pulling her back from the darkness.

      “Why can’t you just let me go?” she’d whispered in despair.

      Because I love you, he’d wanted to tell her. Because you mean everything to me.

      Instead he’d turned and walked out of the room, and nothing had been the same between them since.

      Elizabeth had been moved into the psychiatric ward later that same day and had begun sessions with Dr. Julian Summers, a specialist in grief therapy who had come very highly recommended.

      She’d responded to treatment almost at once. It was like a miracle. Almost overnight the color had returned to her cheeks, her eyes had lost that vacant look and she’d even put on a few of the pounds she’d lost after the accident. Paul had begun to hope for the best, but when she’d come home a few weeks later, she was a changed woman. The breakdown had made her stronger in a lot of ways, but she was no longer the woman Paul had married. She’d become a polite stranger who shared his apartment and even his bed, but one who had no desire to share her life with him.

      Paul hadn’t known what to do or say to get her back. The worst thing he could do was pressure her in any way, Dr. Summers had warned him. So he’d backed off. He’d given her the space she seemed to want and need. What else could he do? And the next thing he knew, the chasm between them had grown so wide he didn’t have a clue how to breach it.

      Maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough to reach her, Paul thought now as he rubbed the back of his neck. In some respects, it had been easier to let her drift away than to fight his way back to her. He’d had his own grief to cope with. His own guilt.

      And now Elizabeth was ready to end it.

      He knew it. He could feel it. They’d become strangers, but in some ways—important ways—he still knew her so well. They’d been together for thirteen years, and during that time he’d learned to read her expressions and interpret her body language. The nervous flutter of her hands always meant something was on her mind. Something important.

      She was going to ask him for a divorce tonight, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that either.

      Maybe it was what he wanted, too, Paul decided. He was tired of walking on eggshells. Tired of the loneliness. The silence. The grief that never seemed to lose its grip on his heart.

      It would be nice to have someone to go out to dinner with again. Someone with whom he could share a leisurely Saturday afternoon.

      It would be nice to have a woman in his arms again. He and Elizabeth hadn’t been together in over a year, and he wasn’t cut out for the life of a celibate.

      He sometimes still found it hard to believe how far apart they’d drifted when they’d once been so close. They’d had what he’d always considered the perfect marriage. Friends first, then lovers. They’d done everything together, shared so much of themselves with one another that it had been hard to tell where he ended and she began.

СКАЧАТЬ