Page 124 of Lust & Lies
“Of losing you.”Again.
“I don’t know who told me this, but I remember someone once saying thathonest people had nothing to fear. As long as you’ve always been honest with me, always loved me, always cherished me, then you should never fear losing me, husband.”
Husband.
Guilt sliced through me. That one word could be the reason I lost her. My brother had asked me if I’d regretted what I’d done, all the lies, the scheming, the killing to get her by my side again.
My answer was still no.
But I regretted everything I’d let my grandfather pressure and blackmail me into doing, which caused me to becomesomeone else’s husband. That was my only regret. I would never regret the things I’d done to right that wrong.
But what if there was no making it right? What if there was no fixing what I’d broken? What if Noe still refused to forgive me once the truth was revealed? What was I supposed to do then?
“Have you always been honest with me, always loved and cherished me?” Noe asked, placing her palm against my cheek. “Have you, husband?”
Damn. I felt like crying.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
AIDEN
IN THE CAR, I COULDstill smell it. It was faint, but there. The stench of death. It had followed me from the gravel pit, and now it was clinging to my suit. A reminder of the secret I was trying to keep from Noe. I glanced over at her, wondering if she could smell it too.
“Do you smell that?” I asked, trying to take her mind off our previous conversation.
She sniffed, then looked at me. “Smell what?”
I wasn’t about to saythe stench of rotting bodies. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up at all. Perhaps she didn’t smell anything.
“Do you smell something?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe the workers had been smoking or something. I feel like the stench is on my suit now.”
She frowned slightly. “Now that you mention it, I do smell something. I thought it was roadkill from outside. I smelled it at the hotel site also.”
Shit. “Can you reach in the glove compartment for me and grab that small bottle of car freshener?”
“Sure.”
Opening the glove compartment, she grabbed the bottle and showed it to me.
“This?” she asked.
“Yeah. Mind spraying a little in the car to see if it gets rid of the smell?”
“No problem.”
Turning, she sprayed some in the back seat. Then she paused, inhaled deeply, and sighed.
“That smells good,” she said, holding the bottle up and staring at the label.
“It’s Sandalwood,” I told her. “You like it, so I keep some in the car in case we pass by something that doesn’t smell good.”
“You keep this in here for me?” she asked.
Yes. Because you always keep a bottle in your car, too. You hate the smell of blood and say Sandalwood helps mask it.
“Everything I do is for you,” I told her, unable to tell her the real reason behind the air freshener.
