Page 180 of Never Tell Secrets

“Yes, but I’m discovering there’s a fourth man, the man I am with you.” He stared at me as if he was seeing into my very soul and I wondered what it was he was searching for. “The man that I am with you isn’t always the man I want to be.”

That I did understand. He turned me into someone I didn’t like sometimes too. “Change takes time and patience has never been your strong suit. We still have another month of our three month deal left, right? Give yourself time.”

He didn’t look convinced and the uncertainty in his face had fear prickling the back of my neck.

“Maia will escort you to the airport. You’re taking my plane home.”

“Alfie—”

“I’ve already cancelled your flight.” He cut me off, leaving me wondering how he could bounce so effortlessly from a man whocarried me back to my own bed, to a man that controlled me when it suited him.

He gave me a helpless shrug, as if he were acting against his own will. “Some things are never going to change, O’Connell.”

The flight home was uneventful. Maia had left me at the airport after I’d rejected her offer of accompanying me home. I tried not to feel guilty about pushing her away but there was only so much I could face in one week and three out of four monsters wasn’t bad.

I arrived home to an empty apartment, tired yet wired. I curled up on my couch, waiting for that paranoid feeling to hit, the feeling that I was being watched. It was there, but it was faint. A wave of exhaustion hit me and despite the day still clinging to daylight, I allowed sleep to swallow me.

The room was shrouded in darkness by the time I woke, gasping for air, memories of Alfie’s dripping, rotting corpse from my nightmare still haunting me.

Immediately, I wanted Keira, but the lack of shoes kicked off by the front door told me she wasn’t home yet.

I pressed a hand to the Alfie-shaped shrapnel in my chest, wishing for the millionth time that it would let me go.

Without thinking, I grabbed my phone to call him. I panicked as it started to ring–what was I doing? Before I could hang up, the line connected.

“Lo, are you alright?”

“I…I had a nightmare.” The words spilled out of me and even as I said them I cringed, realising what an idiot I sounded.

“Tell me about it,” he answered.

So, I did. I talked about the nightmare I’d had about him more times than I could count and as I spoke, he listened. When I was done, I knew his brows would be knotted together, tight with concentration.

“In my nightmares, I poison our Evergarden with my touch and it kills you.”

I could see the image he’d painted clearly. It made perfect sense that he would have nightmares like that, Alfie’s subconscious was a dark and twisted place. But so was mine.

“Do you still dream like that?” I asked him.

“Not so much now.”

“Me either.” A soft silence settled over us. He sounded tired, I wondered if he’d slept at all last night. “Alfie, maybe we dream less now because we’re healing?”

“Or maybe our dreams are a warning that we’re still not ready.” That was the second time he’d spoken like that and I didn’t know what to make of it. “Lola, I miss you.”

I closed my eyes, allowing my walls to sink and let myself feel. “I miss you too.”

“You shouldn’t. After everything I’ve done, you shouldn’t miss me.”

He was right, I shouldn’t but I still didn’t like to hear him talking like this.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s late, go back to sleep.” Before I could argue, his tone softened. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

I decided to let it go and said goodnight. His words left me feeling fearful, but fearful of what I didn’t know. If Alfie was another man I would think he was about to let me go, but Alfie Tell didn’t let things go, he held on like a Pit Bull. At least, that’s what old Alfie used to do.

I stood, the moon outside wondering what I was doing awake so late at night, or so early in the day depending on how you looked at it.

I headed for the kitchen and made a coffee, then I grabbed Ryan’s latest letter from the post pile and settled in with it. The boy was a good writer for a ten year old, he had an incredible imagination which was no surprise, but him having the patience to write consistently was unexpected. Ryan was like a pinball, bouncing off in all directions, it was hard to imagine him sitting down to write every day. Yet, here was his scrawl scribbled all over the coloured pages. His illustrations of one-eyed pirates and monsters from the deep ocean were as familiar to me now as my own floral sketches.