Page 17 of The Atonement
CHAPTER TEN
PETER
Seeing Ainsley’s name on my screen was enough to send me over the edge. I worried about what I’d do—both for my kids and myself. If she was calling, it meant she was finally ready to talk, but maybe I wasn’t.
Maybe she should’ve tried to talk a week ago rather than shoving a needle in my neck.
I’d thought I was ready for this, but I wasn’t. I needed time. I needed to breathe. Because the last thing I wanted to do was lose control on my wife, and I was eerily close to that already.
Back at the house, I zipped around the bedroom. It was cleaner than before, with everything I could get rid of out of the way, the carpets vacuumed and shampooed, but still, the evidence of what she’d done lingered. The scent of the damage, of the smoke, was still present throughout the house. In the mirror, I could still see the faint bruising she’d left on my neck from injecting me over and over again.
She’d left quite a mess, and I’d been the dutiful husband, cleaning it up without complaint. But now…now she thought she had the right to call me out of the blue and expect an answer?
Maybe that’s what made me the angriest…
The audacity of it all. I’d driven around all this time searching for her, and now that I’d finally tracked them down, now she wanted to call me? I didn’t think so.
I tossed my suitcase on the floor and began stuffing it with clothing just as my phone buzzed again. This time, when I pulled it from my pocket and checked the screen, it was the office number that was displayed.
Fuck.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Greenburg, it’s Melodie.” My assistant’s voice was birdlike and too high pitched, even more so over the phone, but she was incredibly unattractive—with features that didn’t fit her face and a boyish haircut that meant I could do my job around her without ever getting distracted.
“Hi, Melodie. Everything okay?”
“Well, um, Miss Miller wanted me to call and see if you’d had a chance to check your email since yesterday. They’re waiting on your approval before they can move forward on the Haverman project. I told her you were off this week, but—”
“No, it’s fine. I haven’t had a chance to look yet, but I’ll do that right now, okay? Tell Gina—er, tell Miss Miller—that I’ll have it signed off by the end of the day.”
“Okay, sir.Thank you, sir.”
“Thanks, Melodie.”
I ended the call and pulled up the email on my phone, trying to read the blueprint on the too-small screen. I pinched and zoomed, moving it around to double-check the measurements. It wasn’t the kind of care I promised to all our clients, but I was sort of in the middle of something and I trusted Gina and Beckman. It was more of a formality than anything to get my approval.
I responded to the email quickly.
Looks great. If you need anything else, call me. I’m not checking emails this week. Thanks.
With that, I pressed send and returned to packing.
Leave it to work to get in the way of a crisis. The world doesn’t ever stop needing things from you, does it?
For now, at least, it would have to wait. I was going back to my mother-in-law’s. I’d wait all night or longer if that’s what it took. I would catch Ainsley—I’d be the one to do it, on my terms, not hers—and I’d bring her home. If it was the last thing I did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AINSLEY
Ipulled into the driveway and brought the car to a stop with a racing heart and sweaty palms. There was a truck I didn’t recognize parked in front of the house, though it didn’t belong to us. Who else could be there, though? A lump formed in my throat as I stepped out of the car and moved up the walk, already preparing myself for the worst.
Bloody images filled my mind, tormenting me. Had he hurt them? What would I find walking into that house? I squared my jaw.
He wouldn’t hurt them.
My husband was a lot of things, but I didn’t believe he was the type of monster who’d hurt our children. He loved them. No matter how unhinged he was, no matter how much he wanted to hurt me, I couldn’t believe he would take it out on them.
