Page 42 of Stuck

Damn it, I really hated lying, but Elizabeth looked about fit to pass out with panic, and against my better judgment, I found myself saying, “Everything’s fine. I was calling to see how the meeting went.” Her shoulders visibly relaxed.

“It went about as well as we thought it would. No better, but no worse either. But if that’s all you wanted, can I fill you in later? I haven’t got long to get to the airport.”

“Of course. Have a good flight.”

I put my phone away, crossed my arms, and stared hard at Elizabeth. I wanted to be annoyed. Every time I thought I was getting somewhere with this woman, something else cropped up to rouse my suspicions—and concealing something as significant as this from her boyfriend was odd, to say the very least.

Except, knowing my own aversion to talking about my private affairs, I wasn’t sure I was in a position to judge. Elizabeth had obviously been keeping her father’s predicament a secret for a long time and had only told me because I’d seen it with my own eyes.

She squirmed under my gaze. “I’m not ready for him to know, okay? It’s a lot, and we haven’t been… you know… for very long.” She waved her hand about, and I guessed she was referring to the newness of their relationship. “Please don’t ask me to explain it any more than that, because I can’t.”

She suddenly turned around to open the cupboard behind her head, grabbed something in a red packet, and left the kitchen. When I followed her into the living room, I found her sitting on the sofa cross-legged, eating Maltesers. I had to smile—she was cute even when she was being ridiculous.

“You can go now if you want,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “I’m grateful for your help, but there’s nothing more you can do, and Kev will be here soon.”

“And Bingley will be back this evening. You should tell him what happened today.

“I’m serious,” I pressed when she started shaking her head. “He’d understand. And trust me, he’d be incredibly supportive. He was a rock when my father died—and he never once judged him or me for how it happened.”

She looked up at me sharply, the beginnings of understanding in her eyes. I looked down at the floor, my stomach churning with discomfort but a wry smile on my lips as I recognised that I had, yet again, revealed more to Elizabeth than I ever had to any other woman. And this was the mother of all revelations. But if she was keeping her father’s struggles a secret because she was ashamed of his behaviour, then I needed to show her that Bingley’s judgment wasn’t something she needed to concern herself with.

I walked slowly around the coffee table and lowered myself onto the sofa next to her, deliberately sitting somewhere that wouldn’t require me to face her. “I was close to my father, the same as you are to yours. That’s why it was such a complete and utter shock when he took his own life. I had no idea anything was wrong until it was too late.”

I’d agonised over the reason and the blame for my father’s death for twelve years. I probably always would. The fact that I’d never know the answer was difficult to bear and why I avoided talking about it as much as I could, but this had felt necessary. That necessity didn’t stop the cold, familiar panic from twisting my insides, and I surreptitiously sucked in a couple of deep breaths, willing my heart to slow down while I waited for Elizabeth to respond. I prayed she wouldn’t say she was sorry.

“That’s why you don’t like being in your flat.”

I officially gave up trying to predict anything Elizabeth Bennet said or did. It wasn’t even a question—she was simply letting me know she’d worked it out. A breath of incredulous laughter escaped me as I admitted, “Yes. That’s where he died. I found him.”

The room was silent except for the sound of my heart thundering in my ears as I sat, staring at the coffee table, trying to formulate the words I wanted to say that would explain what a huge support Bingley had been to me back then—and what a huge support he could be to her, if she let him. A gentle shove interrupted my careering thoughts as Elizabeth nudged my shoulder with hers and held out her bag of Maltesers in a silent offering.

I took one and ate it, the mundanity of the simple act unexpectedly grounding.

“Heathen,” Elizabeth said quietly.

I twisted my head to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

She smirked. “Normal people suck the chocolate off first. You straight up chomped that. I don’t think we can be friends.”

The way I was feeling about her at that moment, neither did I, and that was shaping up to be the greatest tragedy of my life. Which, considering our current conversation, was saying something.

“Good job you’ve never seen me eat a Ferrero Rocher,” I said gravely.

She breathed out a soft laugh, but her expression sobered, and she fixed me with a look that had my heart racing all over again. It was seeking, assessing, seeing. I felt excruciatingly exposed and inexplicably safe all at once. Then she absolutely felled me.

“It can be all but impossible to know when someone needs help. My dad needed it years before he ended up where he is now. None of us saw it coming. You couldn’t have either. But I understand the guilt. It’s hard to live with, even if it shouldn’t really be yours to begin with.”

This. Goddamned. Woman.

So much for trying to persuade her to confide in Bingley. It was a struggle not to get on my knees right then and beg her to break up with him. He was my closest friend, and I would never do anything to hurt him, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever not resent him for finding Elizabeth first.

Five minutes later, I was in the car on the way home to change before heading back to the office. Kev had arrived, forcing an end to our conversation and exposing the absolute absurdity of my insinuation of an affair between them. He was almost old enough to be Elizabeth’s grandfather, twice as tall and five times as wide as she was, with a wedding ring on his finger and a penchant for calling her “kid.” I was an idiot—and for more than that mistake.

I should never have gone to Elizabeth’s home, because now I knew her secret, and I was going to have to keep it for her. I didn’t like the idea of lying to Bingley, but alone in the back of my car with the privacy screen up and no one there to hear my thoughts, I could admit to myself that Elizabeth confiding in me about something she couldn’t bring herself to tell him felt bloody good.

19

ELIZABETH