Chapter 20: Ask Me Then

On Sunday night I went down to the bar of the hotel on Fifth Avenue where I was supposed to have been married.

I had not planned to.

Teddy was asleep in the next suite, and Rhys was in the shower, and I could not sit still.

The bartender was the same man.

He looked at me, at my stomach, and at the stool I had picked.

"Ginger ale," he said. "Right?"

"Right."

"You look better than last time."

"I feel better."

He put the glass down, and someone sat on the stool beside mine.

I knew the sleeves before I looked.

"Is this seat taken?" Rhys said.

"Depends who's asking."

"A man who flew in from London for a wedding and missed it."

"That's a terrible line."

"It worked on you once."

"I was very drunk."

"You were very angry," he said. "Drunk was only the excuse."

"Take me upstairs."

His face did not change, but his breath did.

"I'd like your name this time," he said.

"Estelle Cadwalader. Twenty-seven. Pregnant."

"Rhys Mercer. Thirty-four. Terrified."

"Of what?"

"Of tomorrow."

I put my hand over his on the bar.

"Not tonight," I said. "Take me upstairs."

He signed for the ginger ale and followed me to the lift.

He didn't touch me until the doors closed, and then he backed me into the mirrored wall and kissed me with his hand fisted in my hair.

I made a sound I had last made in this building.

"Say it again," he said against my mouth.

"Take me upstairs."

"We're in the lift."

"Then take me faster."

He laughed, rough, and bit my lower lip.

In the suite he did not turn on the light.

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