A Night With A Stranger novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Bed He Wouldn't Use

He walked out of the security office without a word, and I followed him.

He went through a door marked STAIRS and let it swing shut behind us.

I found him halfway up the flight, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

His shoulders were shaking.

I stood on the landing and didn't know what to do with my hands.

"For six days," he said into his palms, "I believed I did it."

"I know."

"I looked at you across a table and thought, this is the woman I hurt." His voice cracked on the word.

"I stopped sleeping in my own bed because I couldn't trust myself in it."

"Evan."

"I wrote you a check to make it stop."

He lifted his head.

His eyes were red, and his face was wet, and he didn't wipe it.

I had never watched a man cry like that, without any noise and without any shame.

I sat down on the step next to him.

"I have to tell you something," I said.

"What?"

"On Monday morning the urgent care called me. They had run the blood I gave them on Sunday." My throat was tight.

"They found a trace of the drug. A small one, but it was there."

He turned his head slowly.

"Monday."

"Yes."

"Before the board meeting. Before you moved in."

"Yes."

"You knew I'd been drugged too, and that it meant I might not have done anything."

"I knew it meant someone else had done something to me," I said. "I didn't know what it meant for you."

"But you suspected."

"I wanted you to be the villain."

It came out raw.

"It was easier," I said. "If you were the one, then there was a name and a face, and I could hate you and be finished."

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