She needs to confess, so he can help her, because releasing herself from Jed’s clutches, while falling in love with Robert, is proving too overwhelming for her to handle by herself.
As she lies there, watching him, she leans in and inhales between his shoulder and chin. She loves smelling him exactly there, absorbing the faded cologne, the unmistakable scent of Robert that always makes her feel safe.
She thinks about shaking him harder, ensuring he wakes up so she can finally rid herself of the burden of knowledge she has carried alone, but she hesitates. What if he doesn’t believe her? What if he feels betrayed and ends it? What if he never wants to see her again?
She climbs out of bed and curls up on the sofa in the bay window, wrapping herself in the cashmere blanket draped over the back, as she looks out over the water and waits for the sun to come up.
On nights like this, she knows she won’t go back to sleep. On nights like this, the only thing to do is wait until morning and carry on as if everything is fine.
Robert is fast asleep, dreaming the dreams of the drugged, blissfully unaware that the woman he is becoming increasingly dependent on, the woman he is finding he adores, has secrets she is struggling with.
Robert is wary. He feels with Tracy, much as he did with Penelope, that there are secrets there, a hidden well that he is determined to tap into. As a writer, he creates stories around everyone he comes across, but with Tracy it has been almost impossible. She will tell him she is being open with him, but he cannot help feeling that there is far more there than meets the eye.
He wonders what it is that she is not telling him, and hopes she reveals whatever it is soon, for he didn’t expect to fall in love at this stage of the game, and wants to protect himself from any hurt.
He was not looking for anyone, but had he been, he might have looked for a companion perhaps, someone to keep him company as they grew old together, someone with whom to share these golden years, rather than a passionate, obsessive love that he really ought to have grown out of.
And yet there is something so invigorating about feeling these feelings again.
Tracy has become his muse, has inspired him to write as he has never written before. He has told his story, and it has been the easiest and most cathartic book he has ever written.
Of course he has to make changes, needs to make some serious edits before anyone ever sees it, but he has written this book with a passion and verve he hasn’t felt for years.
Tracy has turned writing back into a creative process. For so many years it has just been a business, a treadmill, turning out thriller after thriller, engaging research assistants, writing as painting-by-numbers, fitting the formula, keeping his readers happy.
He hasn’t written like this since he was a young man. Perhaps it was easier because he was writing something he had actually lived, didn’t need to weave in facts and figures supplied by his assistant, but he is certain he has been inspired by Tracy, and he wakes up every morning, glad to be alive, looking forward to writing, and looking forward to being with his muse.
Annabel may not have had anything to drink, but Adam has. Not so much that he is drunk, but certainly enough to have made him relaxed and open in his admiration for Annabel.
They started the evening in a stilted manner, focusing on the party, writing lists, using their shared goal to bandage any awkwardness there was, but by the time they sat down to eat, they had started talking properly, Adam asking Annabel about her father, about her childhood, fascinated by everything she said in her musical, clipped English accent. He could have listened to her all day.
Or all night, as the case may have been.
“So how long are you planning on staying? ” he asks, making her a camomile tea.
“My visa is six weeks, and I’ve been here three, so not much longer.” Her face falls. “I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone, and I can’t believe I have to leave.”
“You like it here? ”
“More than like. I love it. I wish I could stay. I was thinking that if I went back home, I could just shoot back for another three months.”