Ch. 13: The Price of Silence

If someone had told her a year ago that she would be standing here, she would have laughed.

Money could buy a great many things, she had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. Money could buy a great many things, she had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

Emily crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Emily said. "I'm asking you to listen."

Emily crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do.

He had built his whole life on being certain. She had a way of making certainty feel like a cage.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

She did not sleep that night. There was too much to lose, and far too much to want.