Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,168

just got so sick of all the secrets, all the text messages and whispered conversations and no one was telling me anything. I didn’t know what to think. Then when we went for a walk and Sean started acting all weird and I just lost it I guess. I just needed to get some head space – some time alone. I had no idea that he would follow me - it didn’t even occur to me to worry especially as I was going to talk to him tonight anyway.”

The nurse nodded as she replaced the chart and then quietly exited the room. “You have ten minutes, Mr Granger.” She said before she closed the door behind her.

“I know, baby,” Vaughn said as he looked into her eyes, “and I am so sorry that we didn’t tell you anything but we all felt that it would be best not to worry you. You needed to use all your strength to get better and we didn’t want anything to jeopardise you making a full recovery. I was trying to sort it all out.” He stopped and grinned wryly. “He was just smarter than I gave him credit for but I won’t be making that mistake again.”

Elise reached out with her other hand and traced the worry lines on his face, smoothing them away and rubbing her thumb along his lip to iron out the remains of the frown.

“I’m okay now though, I’m safe. I promise to listen to you in the future.” She murmured and he briefly captured her thumb in-between his lips. They both allowed the movement to continue for a second longer and then she pulled her thumb away.

“Where is he anyway?” she asked, referring to Dale.

“Downstairs. The police are still questioning him. He hasn’t admitted to following you – he claims it was a coincidence that he was behind you. According to him, you are still very happily married and he has no idea why there is all this fuss.” Vaughn spat the words out as though it pained him to talk about it.

“What have you told them, Vaughn?” she asked, her voice small in the quiet of the room.

“Nothing. None of us have said anything. You asked us not to involve the police and until we have your agreement, we won’t. But Elise, you are so fucking way off the mark on this one. You need to tell the police and tell them now. That way he can be locked up and we can all get on with our lives.” Vaughn was getting angry again and she knew that he didn’t understand why she didn’t want to get the police involved.

“But what then, Vaughn?” she asked. “He won’t go to prison for all that long - if he even gets a prison sentence at all. What happens when he comes out? He’ll still be after me – you know he will. This is his pride that we are talking about and, despite everything, I am sure that Dale is still the proud man that he used to be. If he goes to jail, that will ruin everything for him and I don’t know if I can be responsible for doing that to someone else’s life. Especially not to someone who I once loved. I know it doesn’t make any sense to you and it doesn’t make a whole lot to me either, but I just can’t bring myself to press any charges. I won’t. I need to talk to him first and hope that I can get him to see sense. You have to trust me with this, Vaughn. Even despite everything that’s happened, I need to do this my own way.”

Vaughn looked at her in disbelief as if he couldn’t understand the words that had just come out of her mouth.

“I don’t understand why the hell you continue to defend that piece of shit, Elise.” He said. “Sure I buy the whole ‘I loved him once’ crap, but Christ, he has nearly killed you twice in less than one week – why the hell do you owe him anything? Do you want to know what was going on, Elise? Do you want to know why we were trying to protect you?” He paused and looked at her his fury continued to build. “Do you?” he spat out.

Wordlessly she nodded. She had a feeling that she wasn’t going to like this but she needed to know everything. She had to know what she was dealing with when she