Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1) by Elise Noble Read Free Book Online Page A

as if I was remembering. “First I froze, but then my first thought was to turn and run to my best friend’s house. We’d been really close since I moved to the area, and she only lived a couple of doors up. But when Jamie leapt off the trollop he’d been shagging, I found it was my best friend. Or rather my ex-best-friend.”
    “So, did you kick his ass?” Carol asked, furious on my behalf.
    That sounded so wrong coming out the mouth of a sweet little old lady that I had to stifle a giggle.
    “What? Isn’t that what all the young people say nowadays?”
    “I guess it is,” I said, refraining from mentioning she was no spring chicken. “If I could turn the clock back, I’d have given him a boot up the backside, but I wasn’t thinking straight.” I shook my head in mock disgust at myself. “I threw my engagement ring at him and left. I couldn’t stand to look at the pair of them naked any longer.”
    Carol reached over and squeezed my hand. “That’s quite understandable, dear.”
    “Still, I wish I’d have kept it. I could have pawned the diamond.”
    “You know for next time, though.”
    Next time? Boy, she had a high opinion of me, didn’t she?
    “I guess. I was worried he’d come after me, so I just jumped on the first bus to arrive. Turned out it was going to the airport. So I got on a plane. Then a train, then a bus, and then I ended up here.” I gave a helpless shrug. “I’m a bit lost.”
    I deliberately kept my story as close to the truth as I could, because I knew from experience it was easier that way. I’d had a lot of practice at pretending to be someone else and I’d got pretty good at it. My husband once told me, “If you’re going to be good at one thing, be good at lying. Because if you’re good at lying, you’re good at everything.” I’d taken his advice to heart, and like everything else I did, I practised. Practice makes perfect.
    “So where did you live? You said you flew?” Carol asked.
    “In America.”
    “Oh my, that’s a long way to come. No wonder you look tired.”
    “Yeah, I haven’t had much sleep over the past few days.” I yawned for effect.
    “So what are you going to do now? Are you going to go back home and have it out with him?”
    I shook my head. “I never want to see that pig again. There’s not much to go back to anyway. The house was his, and I didn’t work. He said I didn’t need to, that he’d rather I had more time to spend with him. I thought we’d be together forever. How could I have been so stupid?”
    “One of those control freaks, was he?”
    “Something like that. I’m glad I scraped my house key down his Mercedes on my way out the driveway.”
    Carol clapped her hands with glee. “Did you do anything else?”
    “No, that was it.” If it had been a real situation, the bastard would have been fighting for his release from prison in a country that didn’t believe in human rights.
    “Hold on a second. You came from America? But you don’t sound American?”
    “I’m English. I moved to the States to be with Jamie when I was twenty-one.”
    “Golly, you were together a long time then?”
    “I know.” I groaned. “A third of my life, wasted. It took him eight years to propose. That alone should have told me something. I think he only did it because I was getting restless and talking about getting a job. He obviously thought if I was his wife it would get me back under his thumb, and I fell for it. I’m an idiot.”
    “They say love is blind. You’re not the only one to have the wool pulled over your eyes by a man thinking with his little head instead of his big one.”
    I giggled again. Trust Carol to come out with something like that. “I know, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
    “Well, we’ll just have to take your mind off things. Keep you busy. It was what worked best for me after I lost my Len. We were married for forty years.”
    “I’m so sorry, Carol. That must have been far worse than what