Ch. 9: Rules of the Game

The morning came in grey and quiet, the way it always did before everything changed.

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. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do.

Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Emily said. "I'm asking you to listen."

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

She thought of all the versions of herself she might have been, and wondered which one he saw.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

Whatever came next, there would be no pretending it had not begun.