Realm of Darkness by C.F Dunn

Author:C.F Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2016-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

That had been the morning. I raced back to my apartment to find Matthew waiting for me.

“I’m not late, am I?” I asked, dashing past him to the bedroom, already taking off my jacket. “I’ve left the car in the car park – here’s the keys.” I chucked them vaguely in his direction, hearing him catch them as I pulled my long-sleeved top over my head, dropped it on my bed, and began to rootle for a clean shirt in my chest of drawers.

He came to watch me, an amused expression on his face. “Successful?”

“Mmm?” Bother, the shirt needed ironing. I found my espresso-coloured top instead.

“Your appointment – was it successful?”

I stuck an arm through and pulled the slim-fitting sleeve over my wrist. “Oh, yes, I think so, thanks.”

“Good.” He hadn’t asked why I needed the car, and I hadn’t told him. “Dan’s just called to say they’ll be here in about twenty minutes. There were no problems; it was a smooth flight.”

“Twenty minutes! That’s sooner than I expected.” I struggled to find the polo neck. Matthew located it and I pulled it over my head, emerging feeling scruffy.

“No, that’s precisely the time we said. Here…” He smoothed my hair and freed my ponytail from the confines of the tight neck. “Emma, before your family arrive, I wanted to tell you…”

I cast around me, barely listening; there was so much to do. “Have you seen my hairbrush?” He picked it off the end of the bed where I’d left it that morning. “Thanks. You were saying?” I dragged the brush through my hair; it stuck stubbornly in some knots.

“Emma, listen – you need to know that Maggie’s back at work and she’s coming to the wedding.”

My heart sank. “You told her?”

“Henry saw her last week. He gave her the choice of whether to come – we thought it better that way – and she took some time to think about it, but yes, she’ll be there.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It was what I wanted and why I’d said we should marry in the States after all, but part of me had secretly hoped that she wouldn’t come so that I didn’t have to face her and feign an affection she wouldn’t want, and I didn’t feel.

“OK,” I nodded slowly, “that’s good.”

“It’s a first step,” he said. “I know it won’t be easy for either of you.”

“For any of us,” I acknowledged.

“I think perhaps you should meet before the day, just in case.” Just in case she went bananas at the very sight of me. Despite trying to sound positive, little pucker marks running across his brow said otherwise. I reached up and kissed the telltale lines.

“I think that’s a very good idea. She’s your granddaughter and she needs to be there.”

His forehead smoothed. “I won’t let anything happen, I promise.” But we both knew that Maggie’s resentment of me went back further than our first meeting, deep into her childhood from which her recent breakdown stemmed, and nothing – or no one – could begin to guess how she might react.

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