a smile on her face that she hoped would satisfy him. ‘Hiding something? Why… why would I be hiding something from you, Vince?’
‘You think you’ve been acting normally since you arrived from L.A. then, do you?’
She kept staring at him, because looking away would only serve to make him more suspicious. But she couldn’t stop the feeling of nervous tension in her stomach, tying itself up in knots, almost making her breathless. ‘Things… things have just been a little crazy, Vince. You know how it is. You know how busy I’ve been.’
He leant back against the wall, folding his arms, not taking his eyes off her. ‘Which is why I thought that, once you got to Vegas, you’d want to relax. You’d want to take some time out, to be with me.’
‘I do want to be with you.’
‘You do? Because, you’ve got a really strange way of showing that, honey. I think I can probably count on one hand the amount of waking hours we’ve actually spent together.’
Charley felt the panic rise up in her, mentally trying to push it aside, knowing she had to do something to placate him, and quick. Otherwise he was going to push her to the point where she had no choice left but to tell him the truth. And that couldn’t happen. He couldn’t know about Jimmy; for the sake of their marriage, their daughter – their life together – he couldn’t know about Jimmy. She didn’t want him in that position. She didn’t want him in that danger.
She stood up and walked over to him, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it, willing him to hold her and he did, sliding an arm round her waist, pulling her close.
‘I’ve missed you so much, Charley. You’ve been here and yet, I’ve missed you.’
She looked up at him. Her handsome, strong, wonderful husband. She really didn’t like shutting him out, but it was necessary. In her mind it was the only thing to do right now. Kenny had everything under control.
Thinking about Kenny, and what had happened between them – what was happening between them – was something else she had to push to the back of her mind and she closed her eyes for a brief second, blacking out the memory, letting her husband kiss her in a way she hadn’t let him kiss her in a long time, shutting everything else out.
‘Okay, now, that’s the Charley I know and love,’ Vince smiled, holding her tight against him. ‘Where’s she been, huh?’
Charley smiled back, running her fingers through his hair, trying to pretend everything else wasn’t happening, that it was all normal and just as it should be. Even if it wasn’t. But it could be, for a little while. If she let it. ‘It doesn’t matter where she’s been, Vince. Just that she’s back.’
Oh, God, she wanted everything to go back to that status quo she was so used to. The normality and routine she’d gotten used to living, she wanted that so badly. But until Jimmy Cash showed his hand she couldn’t do anything other than live her life looking over her shoulder. Outside of this room, anyway. But here she was with a man who loved her beyond anything else, and she needed him. She really needed him.
‘I thought I was losing you,’ Vince whispered, slowly slipping the straps of her dress down over her shoulders.
‘Oh, baby, you’re not losing me.’ Is that what he’d honestly thought? That something was going on with someone else? Her mind quickly wandered back to Kenny and she tried to shut that memory out again, because whatever had gone on there, it had meant nothing. It was just something they’d both needed for their own private reasons, and they understood that. So it wasn’t wrong, was it? It wasn’t wrong when there was no intention of anyone else ever finding out. When all they were doing was comforting one another in the only way they could. Yeah, Charley, you keep telling yourself that. ‘I promise you, Vince. You aren’t losing me.’
And that was all he needed to know, for now. As long as he knew it was nothing to do with him, then that was fine. That was okay. But Vince Maine wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t’ naïve enough to think that whatever she was telling him was the whole truth, because he knew it wasn’t. He knew Charley inside out now; he could tell when something was on her mind, and something was