Abby’s smile faded. “No, not yet. And I’m still not comfortable with that. We’ve become friends, and—well, I need to find a way to tell them. Obviously that part won’t be easy, particularly as I’ve almost been here for a month.”
“Don’t do it yet.” She didn’t want to complicate things. And she knew, without a doubt, that if they knew who Abby was, it would complicate things.
“But—”
“It’s important to me that you stay under-cover.”
“All right.” Abby said it grudgingly. “I have a day off tomorrow. I thought I might go and see the house where you grew up.”
Alexandra kept her expression neutral. “I doubt it even still exists. There has been a lot of development around that area. It was a long time ago.”
“Talking of a long time ago—I wanted to ask you something. Is it possible that you were at the hotel at the same time as Edward, the concierge? Evie mentioned that he’d worked there for thirty years, but I don’t think that’s right. Our records show twenty-eight. But I’m wondering if they’re wrong.”
An email pinged into her inbox. A name she didn’t want to see.
A name that made her hands shake.
It was a good thing she was sitting down because she knew without testing them that her knees felt like water.
“Mom?”
She stared at the email without opening it. She was a grown woman. It was ridiculous that she should react like this. She could handle it. Shewouldhandle it.
Panic ripped through her, together with emotions that she’d not felt in a long time. It was like being back there again and she was feeling all the same things.
Her heart was hammering. Her skin felt clammy. Was it her heart? It felt like something terrible was happening.
“Mom?”
Abby’s voice cut through the clouds in her head and somehow she managed to answer.
“I have a work issue I need to deal with urgently. I didn’t expect this meeting to overrun.”
“It’s my fault, I know, for keeping you waiting. Again, I apologise. But before you go do you remember—”
“I’ll speak to you next week. Keep sending those reports.”
“But—”
Alexandra cut the connection and closed her eyes. The pain in her chest grew worse. Breathe. Breathe. Everything was fine. It wasn’t her heart, at least not in a physical sense. It was panic. And she was mortified that her mind and body could betray her like this.
She’d really hoped this wouldn’t happen. She’d told herself that it wouldn’t. Forced herself to think positive thoughts. She’d constructed a good life for herself, one she controlled.
But she’d forgotten that life had a nasty habit of waiting until everything seemed calm and well before punching you in the face.
She opened her eyes and stared at the email again.
Her finger hovered and then she deleted it, the way she’d deleted all the others.
She hoped it would be enough.
12
Abby
Abby took a shower, pulled on a clean linen shirt and a pair of jeans, and slammed the door to her room behind her.
Her mother had hung up on her. She’d actually hung up on her. Who did that?
