Don't Give Me Tainted Love novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Stay

I turned the phone face down on the desk.

Melanie had seen it anyway.

She lay under me on the couch with her eyes on the ceiling, and her whole body went from warm to stiff.

"He knows," she said.

"Roxanne called him. That's all he knows."

"He knows where we are." Her voice was thin. "He's been telling me for eight years that he sees everything."

"Look at me."

She did.

"He sent a text to a phone. He doesn't see this room." I pushed the hair off her forehead. "Nothing about tonight is his."

She swallowed and nodded.

Then she pushed gently at my chest.

I eased off her, and she sat up and gathered her blouse from the floor.

She did it quietly, one button at a time, with her back half to me.

I knew that motion.

It was the motion of a woman getting ready to leave.

"What are you doing?"

"Going upstairs." She kept her eyes down. "To the guest room. The terms said..."

"The terms are off."

"For tonight, I know. In the morning Eric will wake up, and he'll need us to be what we were."

"Melanie."

"It's fine. I'm not asking for anything." She stood and smoothed her skirt. "You were kind to me, and I needed it. You don't have to say anything now."

I came up off the couch and caught her wrist.

I did it gently.

She stopped at once.

"That's the second time you've said it," I said. "That I was kind."

"You were."

"I wasn't being kind."

Her eyes came up.

They were wary and bright and braced for something.

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