Free The Last Maharajan (Romantic Thriller/Women's Fiction) by Susan Wingate

dinners.”
    “Ohmygod. The gourmet chef cooks no longer?”
    “Will you give it a rest?”
    “We all change, Eu. It’s no big thing. I love everything just so. I used to be a slob. Big deal. There are many ‘used to be's’ in the world. What really matters is who we are today. Are we kind? Are we loving? That’s all that really matters. Did we love?”
    “I suppose.” She used her standard answer when she didn’t have a good comeback for her sister.

     
    CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    After dinner, Euly waved her sister goodbye from inside the lobby entrance. She couldn’t help but laugh when the valet brought around Enaya’s Mercedes. She watched her tip the boy. Enaya stood like Vanna White, winked at her and with a flip of her head she got into her sleek car. Euly laughed and rolled her eyes and they both blew a kiss goodnight to each other, Euly through a glass door of a hotel and Enaya through her glass window.
    A full day of traveling made her eyes heavy as she watched Enaya’s car drive out of sight. She smiled and turned to go to her room.
    Once there, she figured it was time she call her husband. After kicking off her shoes she sidled up onto the bed and leaned against her pillows. She dialed Geoff. After the third ring, she figured he would pick up. After the sixth, she hung up. She tried the number again thinking she dialed wrong and let the phone ring ten times before giving up.
    Geoff hadn’t mentioned he wouldn’t be home, had he? She racked her brain trying to remember what he had said before she got onto the plane but couldn’t remember him saying anything – not if he was going out, not anything. She only remembered their spat before leaving for Belle’s, about the car door, and how anxious she’d felt. Geoff could’ve been the bellboy for all she remembered of that morning. She remembered her cell phone.
    The display on her cell showed she had one message. Punching in the code she listened. Her face got hot in anger. From what he’d said, he had been trying her most of the day but she had forgotten to turn on the phone. Barely ever using it made it easy for her to forget about the thing. Their home sat in a crater of a dead zone and most often she used her land line. It was rare she bothered with the cell. It was meant for emergencies, really, and travel. It slipped her mind.
    When he was finished firing angry remarks at her, he hung up. She saw the phone in the room was blinking. There was a message there too. It was a similar hateful tirade that she needed to call him fast.
    “Okay. So, I’m calling you back. Where are you this time? And, why isn’t the answering machine picking up?” The words bounced onto the empty walls of her room and fell onto the floor unanswered. It was close to eleven. She was exhausted and would deal with him in the morning.

     
    CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
    “I can’t believe you forgot to turn your phone on again. How difficult is it, Euly.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand so he wouldn’t say anything he regretted into his cell. He breathed out hard, “Call me when you get this message.”
    His feet pounded against the concrete walkway outside Belle’s window. He paced in front and gazed in at her watching the doctors and nurses aspirate her lungs. This wasn’t good. She was beginning to go through that suffering-stage the doctors had warned them about before. And, where was his wife? She should be here with her mother not somewhere off in Phoenix for God knows what.
    He jammed the cell phone into his pocket and held it there in his left hand.
    He bent forward to look through the window as his mother-in-law. Her convulsive cough seemed exaggerated to him as he witnessed the nurse insert a tube into her trachea and withdraw any excess fluids that were in her lungs. At one point, she looked as if she were going heave. He felt an automatic reaction to gag when he saw her choke and gasp. Geoff held his hand up to his mouth and looked away. He loved Belle. It