The End of Her - Shari Lapena Page 0,39

yesterday.’

Now he feels anger wash over him. Is there anything Kerri doesn’t tell Niall? Did she have to mention it? Does she have no loyalty to him?

‘I didn’t cancel. I asked her to reschedule.’

Niall looks up from his desk and meets his eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t feel up to it,’ he says bluntly. ‘I didn’t feel properly prepared. I thought it was better to appear too busy and have to reschedule than do it unprepared.’

‘So why weren’t you prepared?’ Niall asks, raising his voice. ‘You’re always prepared – at least you used to be. What the hell is going on?’

Patrick begins to breathe a little easier. Niall doesn’t know – not yet, anyway. Erica’s keeping her mouth shut so far. ‘Nothing’s going on. I’m sleep-deprived, I told you. Sleep deprivation can really mess you up. They use it as a method of torture – didn’t you know?’

Niall looks back at him and narrows his eyes. ‘That’s not it, Patrick, so don’t try to bullshit me. Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.’

Patrick tilts his head back and decides to bluster his way through. ‘Why wouldn’t you believe me, Niall? When have I ever been less than completely honest with you?’

Now Niall shrugs. ‘I know. You’ve been a good business partner and a good friend. I’ve always trusted you. It’s just – I’m worried, Patrick. You seem – off lately, as if something is bothering you. I wondered if maybe you were having marital problems, if that’s what’s been distracting you.’ He leans in slightly, and says, ‘You can tell me, you know.’

‘Maybe I should ask you how things are at home,’ Patrick says, with an edge to his voice.

‘Why would you say that?’ Niall responds quickly.

But Patrick doesn’t want to push it; he doesn’t want to let Niall know he knows about him and Erica. Doesn’t want to let him know he has a history with Erica himself. Better let sleeping dogs lie.

‘To see how you like it,’ he says. Then he shakes his head, gives a tight smile. ‘Forget it. I have a short fuse these days. Everything is fine. I just need to get some sleep.’ He gets up. ‘I’ll take another look at how to offset some of those costs on the Melnyk project.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

STEPHANIE BLINKS HER eyes. For a moment there, she completely forgot what she was doing. She feels a wave of dizziness and grabs the kitchen counter. She can hear the twins babbling from the living room, content for the moment, at least.

Right, she’d come into the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

She was going to get herself a coffee and try to think for a minute.

She reaches for a clean mug out of the cupboard and pours from the carafe. She feels like shit. She has to eat better. She has to get more sleep. Would it be wrong to fall asleep on the sofa with the twins safely in the playpen? She closes her eyes again for a minute, then blinks a couple of times and reaches into the refrigerator for the milk. It seems like she’s doing everything in slow motion. She feels detached, as if she’s watching herself go through the motions of getting her coffee ready. Weird. She shakes her head, quickly takes a couple of gulps of caffeine. Sleep deprivation can really mess with your head. She knows if she stares at the pattern on the wallpaper for a minute it will almost put her into a trance.

Things are still calm in the living room. She pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and sits down. She doesn’t want to go back in the living room for a bit because she knows that as soon as she does, the twins will see her and start demanding her attention. For now, she’s better off here.

She presses her fingers to her burning, itchy eyes. She needs to think. But her mind is such a crazy mess right now she can’t make sense of anything. If only she could talk to someone, lay it all out clearly, get someone else’s perspective, someone objective – but there’s no one she can possibly talk to about this. Patrick is too close to it, and he’s freaked out himself. She wants to tell Hanna, but she can’t, even though she and Hanna have become close over the last few months, as first-time moms. Patrick would be furious if she told her.

Although it might be in the newspapers soon enough.

Her