“Get Giselle out of my house. I’m on my way.”
“Already done.”
“Where’s Mila now?”
“Locked upstairs in your bathroom.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Giselle:So sorry for upsetting your wife. Call me.
I stepped into the foyer,and Anton was waiting in the hallway.
“What happened?” I shrugged off my wet coat.
Anton looked pained. “Giselle came to the front door and, against my suggestion, Mila came to talk to her. Giselle thought you told her to meet you at the house.”
I thought about how I had blown off Mila to take care of the fire. The idea of Giselle showing up and saying she was supposed to meet me looked really bad. “I didn’t ask her to do that.”
“Mila did not believe her. Next thing I know, Mila was yelling at Giselle. By the time I managed to get Giselle out the door, Mila had already locked herself upstairs.”
“Thanks for your help tonight. I’ve got it from here.”
He gave me a regretful look. “Okay, boss.”
My bedroom was dark,and I could see the glow under the closed bathroom door.
I knocked softly.
“Go away, Anton.” Mila sounded stuffed up. “I’m not coming out.”
“It’s Axel.”
A long pause, and then the rattle of the lock, a fumbling handle and the door swung open.
Mila looked small and sad. The tip of her nose was red, and so were her eyes. She had obviously been crying.
It took everything in me to resist pulling her into my arms.
“My emergency was a fire in the yard.” I pulled up the footage I had filmed for insurance. “Look at the timestamp.”
She looked down at the phone and watched the flashing lights of the fire trucks, the flickering flames and the crackle of mass destruction. “This happened tonight?”
“I didn’t have plans with Giselle.” I took the phone and switched to my messages, showing her my texts to Giselle.
Me: Emergency at docks, can you meet me there to discuss
Giselle: On my way
Mila was bent over my phone, hiding her face as she studied the texts in agonizing silence.
Then, without meeting my gaze, she handed my phone back to me.
I tried again. “I’m sorry Giselle showed up here. It was a complete misunderstanding.”
Mila stood there looking at me, and then without warning, she shut the door in my face and locked it. “I’m done talking.”
This wasn’t how I wanted to leave things. “Can you come out and talk to me?”
