Chapter 9

"Let me test that," he offered. "You have known all along what they were planning."

It was not a question. "No," Charley insisted. "I told you I did not know."

But even as she said it, her insides were creasing guiltily because perhaps she had seen it coming, only if it had been so much simpler to just block it out.

"I did not have you down as a liar, Charlotte," he said coolly.

"I’m not lying!" Frowning, annoyed with herself as well as with him and this horrible position she’d been put in, "I did not see it coming," she insisted a second time, "but I admit I feel some responsibility because I think I should have done."

"Because you knew they were lovers?"

Did he have to put it as calmly as that? Shifting her tense stance, "Yes," she answered, deciding to be blunt with him since he didn’t seem to possess a single sensitive nerve in his body. "For a while, several years ago."

‘Childhood sweethearts.’ His hard mouth flicked out the semblance of a smile.

A bit more than that, she thought