liced through a gap in the heav

bed with a vic

washed over her entire body. The memories of the

ce relaxed and, for the first time, vulnerable. He looked y

she s

stain on the pri

. Her

a sterile, passionless marriage. They had slept in se

, in a drugged and drunken haze, she

was a bi

dn't face the cold morning light and the inevi

ifle a gasp of pain. She found her clothes in a heap

d it on. It hung loosely on her frame, the sleeves covering her hands, but

es and crept out of the hotel

cold steering wheel and let the silent tears come. The sh

and strange. She went straight to her bathroom and stepped int

mouth. She stared at her reflection in the steam-fogged mirror. The woman looking back

Carlyle, Jon

nd brutal. He sat up, groaning, and the

the blood on

fro

he cloying perfume, the struggle, the familiar

d bee

s sharp and angry. He dialed his e

," he commanded, his voice like ice. "I want names. And get

ho entered my room." He knew, but he needed it on paper. He needed

isheveled hair. The situation was spira

living room, dressed in a high-necked, long-sleeved dress. S

dying on his lips. Her expression was so distant, so

erted to what he kne

ally loud in the quiet room. He slipped

" he asked. "It

her eyes empty of any discern

e said, his tone harsher than he intended. "Hav

s die. He had hoped, for a foolish second,

, the divorce was

ating finality

flat. She stood up and pic

rgument would have been. He wanted a reaction, a fi

door, the space between them

hed for th

o, he could easily discover the lie, and in the process, expose everything else she was hiding. The cancer. The real reason she was at the hospita

, the sound of a car pulling up the driveway reach

Sharpe! Your gra