Chapter 61

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

ZAIN

Voices reach me, both female, before I enter the kitchen, where I find my mom and Ashley sitting at the table, heads close together as they look through a book.

My eyes stop on the T-shirt Ashley is wearing, and I frown. I'm pretty sure it's not what she was wearing when I left. But that reminds me …

"We need to go to your place so you can get a change of clothes."

At the sound of my voice, the women give two very different reactions.

Ashley jumps, and my mom twists around on her seat.

"Darling, you're back. I was just showing Ashley photographs of you, Jason and Louisa."

"Why?"

"She said she didn't see Jason much when she was growing up, and even less once he turned eighteen."

I shrug. "Whatever." I redirect my gaze to Ashley, who is still facing the table. "Are you ready to go? "

She doesn't reply, but pushes back her chair and stands. When she turns, my frown deepens.

Is that one of my shirts?

She must guess the direction of my thoughts as one hand plucks the front of it. "I spilled tea down my top. Your mom gave me this to wear while mine is washed. I … hope that's okay?"

"Sure … What's mine is yours." My tone is flippant, and it's her turn to frown. I ignore her, and turn to my mom. "Dad said you have questions."

"I do have questions. I want to know why you're both wearing wedding rings. Ashley won't discuss it."

"There's an obvious answer to that one. We're married."

"You've been home for three days. You've spent less than two days together. Where during that time period did you find time to get married?"

"We got a special license on Monday morning, and got married Monday night."

She's looking at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. But it reminds me that I'm not doing anything to make her believe I've married Ashley because I can't keep my hands off her.

That thought makes me laugh inside.

I want to wring her fucking neck. Does that count as not keeping my hands off her?

No, you don't. Not anymore. The little whisper of disagreement surprises me.

I don't want to acknowledge the fact that watching her react to my interrogation and her own interview had already raised questions, before she hit me with her comment about Detective Holson.

I don't want to view her as anything other than the cause of my imprisonment, but if I want the plan I hashed out with Sheriff McFadden to succeed, I have to try and put that to one side.

"Are you listening to me?" My mom's sharp words snap me out of my thoughts.

I mask the fact I wasn't listening by checking the time on my watch. "We really have to go, Mom. Can we do this later?" I hold out a hand. "Are you ready to go … babe? "

"Babe?" Ashley mouths the word at me, a look I can't decipher on her face.

"We need to get to your mom's place, wait for you to pack what you need, then come back here for dinner. Unless Mom has changed the time she likes to eat from six to later?" I arch an eyebrow.

"Six o'clock sharp. That way we have time to relax afterward, and let the food digest before bedtime."

For some reason, Ashley turns pink. It takes me a second to connect the dots.

Bedtime. And I've told her we're staying here tonight.

She's probably wondering how I'm going to get around the fact we're married, but not sharing a bed.

The answer to that is simple, but I have no intention of putting her out of her misery with an explanation any time soon.

When she doesn't move, I take a step forward and reach for her hand. My fingers close around hers. She doesn't resist, and lets me draw her out of the room .

"What did you tell her?" I keep my voice low.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. You looked very cozy in there."

"What did you expect? You left me with your mother . I could have told her what you're doing."

"She wouldn't have believed you. You're already on the same level as the devil in this family."

"She might have."

"You obviously don't believe that, or you'd have taken the chance and done it."

She doesn't say anything in response to that. Because I'm right, and she knows it.

Opening the front door, I guide her down the steps to the car.

"Are we really going to my mom's?" she asks when we're inside.

"Unless you want to live in the same clothes you're wearing now for the next fourteen months."

She bites her lip and turns her head to look out of the window as I steer the car down the drive and onto the road.

"I told your mom about not remembering the first part of the interview you showed me. She talked about something called false memories."

I snort.

"You don't believe that?"

"You haven't given me a single reason to believe you didn't know what you were doing." I say the words, and I sound like I mean them, but the truth is, I'm questioning just how much of what she said was suggested to her so often it became the truth .

Anger shaded my thinking when I first watched her interview, but now … Now I need to go back to Knight's notes and read them with a clearer mind.

There's still something that doesn't fit right about her part in what happened to me. But it's clear to me now that it's not all her fault. That my focus might have been on the wrong person. That she might be as much a victim of circumstance as I was. She just got off lighter.

After my conversation with Sheriff McFadden, that thought solidified further, and I now need to adjust my plan.

I glance at the girl beside me.

The problem is I can't explain any of that to her. Which means I have to carry on treating her the same way I started, otherwise she'll question my change in attitude. And I can't afford for her to believe I'm going to allow her to walk away without any kind of retaliation on my part.

I also need the world to think I've fallen headlong in love with her.

It's like living in a sitcom … except it's not fucking funny and it's not fictional.

"When you go inside, if your mom is there, you say nothing."

"She'll see the ring."

"Take it off, and give it to me." I reach out a hand, and a second or two later, she drops the ring onto my palm. "Pack clothes, tell her you're staying with me for a while. You can invite her to mom's place for the MO-TV interview tomorrow."

"What are you going to tell them?"

"Who?"

"The channel."

"The truth."