Page 81 of The House Guest

I offered a wave, and he returned it, a slight but sad smile on his face.

As I drove off, I wondered how I could possibly get through the next few days without giving myself away to Casey. Surely he’d know something was wrong. I wondered if I should tell him what was going on, but it still didn’t seem like the appropriate time. There was more I needed to learn, not only about Dorian’s life, but about my own feelings on the matter, before communicating anything to Casey. Nothing I’d known before today was real. It was going to take me more than a day to absorb the truth.

My mind raced as I drove, and just like the day Dorian had shown up at my door, I didn’t know how I’d gotten from point A to point B when I arrived at the preschool. When Rosie’s teacher opened the car door, I put on my best smile to greet my daughter. Rosie grinned proudly as she handed me a picture. It was mostly scribbles with some cotton balls and glitter glued to it. To her, this was just like any other day, while my world had been turned upside down yet again.

“So pretty, honey,” I managed.

The teacher buckled Rosie in. “Have a great weekend, Primrose.”

Weekend?Gosh, I barely knew what day it was.

“You, too, Sharon,” I told her.

When she closed the door, a pang of guilt returned. This little girl assumed I’d been home while she was at school. Meanwhile I’d snuck off to see a man who wasn’t her father. I’d done nothing wrong, yet I couldn’t help feeling deceitful.

So naturally, I did what any guilty mom would do: I took Rosie for a treat.

“Do you want an ice cream cone from McDonald’s?”

Rosie bounced up and down. “Yay! Yay! Yay!”

I chuckled. “Okay, then.”

I passed the turn that would normally take us to our house and drove instead to the drive-thru. After getting her a cone and myself an iced coffee, we went home.

Back at the house, I cleaned sticky ice cream off of my daughter at the kitchen sink and then set her up at the small table in the living room with a coloring book and some crayons. I promised to join her in a few minutes—right after I escaped to the bathroom and sobbed like never before.

CHAPTER 22

Dorian

I’d been sitting in the living room rubbing my temples when Benjamin returned from the market.

“How did it go?” He shut the door behind him.

I ran a hand through my hair. “I don’t know. It wasn’t enough time. I basically threw a bunch of information at her and watched how overwhelmed she got.”

“Will you see her again?”

“She’s gonna come back on Monday at the same time.”

He offered a hopeful smile. “That’s good, right?”

God love him for trying to remain optimistic when all odds were clearly against me. The idea that Primrose would leave her family for me seemed even more improbable after seeing her face to face. The time we’d spent apart had changed both of us. And while my feelings for her hadn’t wavered, I couldn’t get a sense of how she felt at this point. She hadn’t had enough time to even digest everything I’d unloaded on her.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “It was surreal seeing her again. The same beautiful Primrose, but at the same time, worlds away.”

“Well, you’ll have another opportunity to connect.”

I stared into the fireplace. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little too soon to throw in the towel?”

“I needed her to know the truth. But can I really expect her to leave her family to be with me?”

“She has a daughter—and aboyfriend. She’s not married.”

“She’sgettingmarried,” I countered.