Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
Reese
I feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest and my bladder is suddenly full.
I am so shocked to see Lawrence that I can’t help staring at him.
He’s still as good-looking as he ever was, but now I can see something else in his face, something dark and angry.
Was he always like that? Probably but I never wanted to see it.
Images of our relationship appear and I see the night we met, when he was dressed as a Viking warrior for Halloween, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
I see our first date and the first time we slept together.
I see us holding hands and going on holiday and I watch as Lawrence gets bigger and I get smaller.
‘Miss me, Reesy?’ he asks. I hated it when he called me that, just like Victoria hated Vicky.
He smiles and my skin crawls with how creepy he looks; creepy and dangerous. With his gun.
I mentally let go of any thoughts beyond getting out of here. I have a husband and children to get back to. I can see Victoria is getting angry and I don’t want her to do something stupid. Maybe if I talk to him, and can get him to talk to me, he’ll let us go. He loved me once.
‘Lawrence, I think you’re angry at me,’ I say, keeping my voice soft because I remember that he hated it if I raised my voice even a little.
He would accuse me of berating him. ‘Victoria has nothing to do with anything that happened sixteen years ago and really, it wasn’t my fault you cheated on me.
I don’t know what happened to Camilla to make her take her life, but whatever it was, that wasn’t Victoria’s fault either. You need to let us go.’
Lawrence steps towards me and as I try to move back on the bed, he touches my temple with the gun, the metal cold against my skin. ‘Shush, little Reesy, shush now. It’s time for me to talk.’ My whole body is trembling. This cannot be happening. It simply cannot be happening.
‘Stop this,’ snaps Victoria. ‘Are you insane?’ She lifts her head, juts out her chin and I can see that Victoria my protector is here. She looks fierce and strong but she must be as terrified as I am.
‘Tell her what you did, Victoria,’ he says, the gun still close to my face.
‘She knows what I did to Camilla,’ says Victoria. ‘I’ve told her everything. Camilla’s choices aren’t our fault.’
‘Yes, they are,’ he roars, spit flying from his mouth, hitting my cheek and making my stomach turn. He sounds insane.
‘Lawrence, please, please,’ I say softly, looking up at him and resisting the urge to wipe my face in case it makes him even more angry.
‘Can we just talk? Explain it to me. You tell me what you think… what Victoria did. I’m listening.
’ I use the same soothing tone I use when Max is throwing a tantrum.
I keep my body relaxed, despite my furiously beating heart. Insane people do insane things.
‘She made Camilla confess to you,’ he says softly.
‘It was a stupid one-time thing. No one had to know we slept together. And you almost deserved it, Reesy, for saying all those nasty things about me. I forgave you and you should have forgiven me. But you didn’t even have to know,’ he says, scratching through his hair with the hand that isn’t holding the gun.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Victoria didn’t know until Camilla told us.’
‘Vicky,’ says Lawrence, moving right up to her and touching her cheek with the gun. ‘Now’s the time for the truth, Vicky.’
I look at Victoria whose face is flushing as she shakes her head. ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she says.
Lawrence pushes the gun up against her temple, hard enough to make her head move sideways. ‘Tell her,’ he says softly.