Irreplaceable by Nolon King

Author:Nolon King [King, Nolon & Street, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

THE WEIGHT of the day was still clinging to Will as he prepared for bed beside Nina.

His trip to Chicago had been demanding, more draining than productive. Testing the new software had proven to be even more tedious than expected, and he’d had to put up with Bruce’s nonstop oversharing, which got more revolting as the trip went on. He didn’t know how Annie could stand being married to the man.

Another reason to think that Annie wasn’t a good influence on Nina. He’d been unable to hide his annoyance upon learning that Nina had asked her best friend to visit the second he had left the house and she hadn’t mentioned it to him.

Rosie would never have gone behind his back like that.

But then, if Nina had been Rosie, he would have taken her to Chicago with him.

Nina spit into the sink as she finished brushing her teeth.

Then she said, “Did you go out at all while you were in Chicago?”

Why would she ask that? Was she descending into jealousy? There was no way she could know about the other thing he’d gone to Chicago to do.

“Nope.” He caught her eye in the mirror and shook his head. “All work. Testing until we were too tired to do anything else.”

But even as the words left his mouth he could see that Nina seemed skeptical, more than usual.

No one, not even Bruce, had known about his other errand.

Except Sarah, who’d seemed surprised to see him on her doorstep and had strenuously denied stalking him.

She had denied leaving the dead bird in their living room, too.

Of course he hadn’t believed her, because Sarah was the only one who would ever send him a message like that. After that whole mess with the cockatiel⁠—

No. He wasn’t going to think about that. He’d been younger then, and still devastated from losing Rosie. Sarah had looked a lot like Rosie too, although her nose was less sharp and her blonde hair wavy rather than curly.

But her character had been nothing like Rosie’s. He hadn’t seen the warning signs of her jealousy until it was too late. Then she’d blamed everything on him. And the police believed her.

He’d thought Nina was above that kind of jealousy. But he’d learned his lesson — no talking about Rosie, no matter how many times she asked. Nina had to believe that he was over his first love, and that she was the only woman for him.

Will could sense her discomfort as they settled into bed, emanating from her body like a silent alarm. He lay back, exhausted, yearning for the comfort of sleep, but Nina’s nightstand lamp was still on, and she seemed glued to her tablet.

“I’ve had a long day, Nina. Made even longer so I could get home to you sooner, since you were so unhappy about being ‘stranded.’ Can we please turn off the light?”

She hesitated, then with a quiet sigh, she powered the tablet down and reached over to turn off the lamp.

The room fell into darkness, save for the faint moonlight filtering in through the curtains.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.