Closing Books Read Free Page A

placed smile and got out of the car.  
    As she entered the kitchen, everyone kept their eyes on the food that was on the table, and no one said a word to her. Although they had all been polite to her, they had never been overly concerned about her.  
    Evelyn didn’t blame them. She was the one who kept everything to herself, and that had the tendency to keep everyone out.  
    In fact, she rather enjoyed people staying out of her business. It saved a lot of time and effort from explaining things that she rather not talk about.
    Kate looked up from the table and smiled at her, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.  
    Act normal. Evelyn sat and slotted her phone into the back pocket.  
    From the corner of her eye, she noticed Kate staring at her arms, which were red and slightly purple at certain areas where bruises were beginning to form. She quickly pulled her hands back and placed them on her legs. She was sure that if she refused to speak about it, Kate wouldn’t pry it out of her, not right now anyway.  
    And she was right.
    After a moment, Kate turned away from her and casually asked, “Where’s the work you mentioned?”
    “Oh, right.” She got up, shaking her head at her absentmindedness. “I’ll get it.”
    She turned and left the kitchen again. This time, she cast a brief glance over her shoulder, a glance long enough to see Dan staring at her. Their gaze held for a moment until she tore her eyes from him.
    It pained her to see the questions, or maybe accusations, in his eyes.  
    Each time, she had only turned from Dan when he had tried pushing her into a serious, committed relationship.  
    This time, she had simply shut him out of her life for what would appear to him as no apparent reason.
    It was difficult to be so near to him and yet be so clearly separated that they might as well be a thousand miles apart. She wanted so badly to let him understand why she pulled away from him, but she could never find the words and she didn’t know where to begin.
    Taking the files from her car, she ran her finger down one side of the files while kicking the door close.
    This was exactly what she needed—work.  
    With Kate being on honeymoon for the past few weeks, as her business partner, Evelyn should have been free as a bird. Instead, she scoured through the projects handled by the different teams they had and insisted on custom making pieces of furniture that was readily available in stores.
    She had even begun trying her hands at keeping a good set of accounts; something she’d always avoided at all cost.
    Her work was the one escape that kept her from thinking about how screwed up the other aspects of her life was.
    “Here are the few I thought you might be interested in. If you don’t want them, we can assign them to the teams. Let me know,” she said the moment she got back to the kitchen. “I have to go.”
    “Where are you going?” Kate asked as she took the files, her eyes staring intently at Evelyn.
    Pausing by the chair, Evelyn hesitated a moment, a moment that turned the curiosity on Kate’s face into suspicion.  
    “Nowhere,” Evelyn quickly said. “I just need to run some errands.”  
    Be casual. Evelyn reminded herself.  
    She smiled and gave Kate a pat on her shoulders. “See you tomorrow.”  
    Not giving Kate a chance to ask another question, Evelyn grabbed her bag and presents, made sure she kept a smile on her face, then left without saying goodbye.

Chapter Two

    Dan forced himself to keep his eyes on his plate instead of looking up at Evelyn’s disappearing figure.
    “What’s wrong with her?” Kate asked. “You haven’t gone out with her since we went on our honeymoon?”
    He pushed the food around on his plate as he looked up at Kate. “Something like that.” He tried to speak as nonchalantly as possible, but when he saw Kate’s lips thinning, he realized he wasn’t doing a terrific job of concealing his feelings.
    Months before the wedding, someone had set fire