Chapter Fifty

As stunned silences went, the one that followed her confession was epic. It went on and on, stretching the air until she thought it would snap. That Dan might never speak to her again.

Mira didn’t blame him. Saying the words out loud had been as shocking to her as to him. She’d buried the truth so deep inside her that for long periods she could forget those ten minutes when she’d stood in front of a registrar, barely nineteen, burning with ideals, going through a ceremony that had seemed meaningless to her. Marriage was an outdated institution.

Just another way of controlling people, so why not use it against the system?

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was only when, pregnant with Toby, Nate had asked her to marry him that the reality of her situation had dawned on her.

Maybe that was why she’d told Dan to expiate herself. She was never

going to be able to put it right with Natenow. But his total stillness, total

silence, was so frightening that she reached out, instinctively,