Escape Girl by Michelle Dayton

Author:Michelle Dayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781957748085
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2022-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Early August—Six Weeks Ago

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

“UGH.” I let out a frustrated grunt and forced one eye open. Like I did every night since coming to London in May, I rolled the wrong way in the hotel bed. No clock on the nightstand. With another exasperated huff, I rolled the other way—3:00 a.m. Yes, it was my typical insomnia time. But for once, I’d been having a solid night of sleep until something had woken me.

Thrum, thrum, thrum. There it went again. My phone was set to vibrate, and it was giving itself quite a workout under one of the pillows.

I blinked my bleary eyes clear in the darkness. Who the hell was calling now? My case was high profile and intense, but I was already working fourteen-hour days. Usually the hours between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. were uninterrupted. My stomach dropped to the floor. There were only a few reasons to call someone at 3:00 a.m. Suddenly frantic, I grabbed for the phone. What if my father had collapsed or something?

It was Bobby. I hadn’t answered his calls in months, but he’d never called in the middle of the night before. If something was wrong with my father, he’d be the one to know and call, wouldn’t he? Shit.

“Hello?”

A pause. Then Bobby’s voice, unforgotten despite months of trying. “Em. Em! Oh m’God, is ashually you, na yer voice mail thing.”

My fears about my father faded. Bobby wasn’t calling me in the middle of the night because of a medical situation. He was slurring his words. I’d never actually seen Bobby after too many cocktails, but I supposed at this stage in our separation, it wasn’t that surprising to get a drunk dial.

“How many drinks have you had?” My voice was calm and even, like I was giving a deposition.

“All of them!” He laughed, and I could picture the expansive arm movement that accompanied his charming hyperbole.

I sighed. Sometimes I wanted to talk to Bobby so much that the craving crawled over my skin like an itch. Even now, hearing the deep pitch of his voice made my breath uneven. But if he was going to ask, again, why I’d left, I had nothing new to say.

“I miss you so much,” he said, adding space between each word in a clear effort not to slur. “What did I do to make you leave? What did I do to make you not want me anymore?”

I leaned back against my pillows, flattened by the pain in my chest. “Nothing. You did nothing,” I whispered. “I told you before. I made a mistake. I thought I could balance a marriage and my career. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t make it work.”

Bobby groaned. “And I told you before that I don’t believe one word of that excuse. I know your face and I know your voice. I know when yer peddling bullshit, Em. You don’ need to protect m’ feelings, but I wan’ the truth.”

I did the math in my head; it was only 7:00 p.

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