Free Declare (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #4) by Michelle Irwin Page B

right?”
    Alyssa giggled. The sound of it was like angels fucking singing or some shit—it was enough to soothe the beast that wanted to make an impression in someone’s face with my knuckles.
    “That’s exactly what I needed to hear,” I told her. “That makes my shitty-arse day that much better.” I leant in and touched a gentle kiss to her lips.
    We sat on the couch and I listened as Alyssa spilled about her day. Apparently, some new chick had started in her office. Some bird named Lily or something. Alyssa listed it as the low of her week, saying she’d met the girl on her trip to London, and they didn’t exactly hit it off. As she spoke, she leaned further and further away from me. She cast odd looks in my direction whenever she looked up from her hands, which wasn’t often as she’d been staring at them for most of the conversation.
    “What is it?” I asked.
    I saw Dr. Henrikson nodding out of the corner of my eye. I could see this was what he was trying to get us to do—ask questions and communicate with one another.
    “It’s just that, well, you know her,” Alyssa muttered into her hands.
    I shook my head. “I didn’t meet anyone you worked with there—”
    She cut me off. “At the bar.”
    I couldn’t understand what she meant at first, but then I remembered. After almost a week of waiting for Alyssa to call, I’d been ready to give up the search. Then, she’d called but hung up before I could speak to her. With the new hope and information the call had left me with, I’d waited in front of her hotel for nearly an entire day.
    Then, I had given up well and truly and decided I needed to get my own needs serviced. I’d dressed up, gone to a bar—an Australian-themed one recommended by the cabbie—and . . .
    “Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you worked with her. I didn’t even know her name.” The words tasted poisonous, and worse, they weren’t even a lie.
    A tear dropped from Alyssa’s eyes, closely followed by another. “That’s worse,” she whispered. “You would have screwed her, wouldn’t you? I mean, if I hadn’t been there.”
    I ducked my head so I wouldn’t have to meet her gaze if she looked up at me. She knew the answer as well as I did. After all, she knew my past. She knew everything about me. I’d thought she’d accepted it, but obviously being faced with such a sharp reminder of it must have bought the pain back.
    “Yeah,” I whispered, refusing to lie to her even though the truth was a barbed pill. “I would have.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her nod once as her mouth mashed into an unhappy line.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, turning to her and grabbing her hand softly. “I was an arse. A fucking jerk. I know I’ll never be able to apologise enough for what I did when we weren’t together, for the way I treated you and, well, fuck, everyone really, but I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me completely.”
    “I have,” she murmured. “At least I thought I had. Seeing Lily today just sent my mind back to the place I was in while in London. I was so scared, and so angry, and I just didn’t know what I wanted. I couldn’t believe your reaction to Phoebe was so strong—or so negative.”
    I bobbed my head in shame, still unwilling to meet her gaze. “It was just a shock. I should never have acted like that.”
    “No,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t have.”
    Those four words, and the pain that echoed in them, hurt me more deeply than almost anything else she had ever said. I bit my lip. I knew apologising again wouldn’t do anything.
    “But you shouldn’t have found out like that, either. I should have found the courage to tell you on the plane. Or when you were in hospital after Bathurst.”
    Instead of focusing on the what-ifs and the regret, I decided to turn my mind to what we had.
    “That doesn’t matter now. What matters is this . . .” I held her hands in mine, tracing my thumb over the line of her