Clearing my throat, I made a courteous nod. “Right. Of course. Then we’d have the cab take you to your destination. Wherever that is.”
“That would be lovely … Craig.” She seemed reluctant to say my name, although a faint blush appeared after she did.
There was an air of mystery about her that triggered something within. It felt as if it was compelling me to do something spontaneous, something drastic, and I knew I simply couldn’t chance it. Never again.
Hailing a cab wasn’t a hardship; in no matter of time, a licensed, black cab parked about a foot away, waiting with his blinkers on.
“I suppose this is goodbye …”
“Ava,” she hastily said. “My name is Ava.”
A smirk crossed my lips before giving her a final look. “Have a restful night, Ava. And do try to stay out of trouble for the rest of your stay.”
“You, too …” She gazed up, breathless and seeming reluctant to leave. “Goodnight.”
I wasn’t sure if she was hoping to exchange numbers or if she needed me to give her a hug, but I wasn’t readily giving her either. There was no need to ignite the ghost she was chasing. Therefore, I pressed my lips together instead, hoping she’d get the cue that she was prolonging the inevitable. After a minute of silence, she finally did, much to my relief. She made a final wave of goodbye, opened the cab door, stepped into it, and gave me one last glance that could be interpreted in so many ways before the cab whisked her away.
I stayed awhile, rooted to the spot where she’d left me, still deep in thought. A twin she had said, I thought with derision before a dark, cruel laugh emerged from me.
My life definitely hadn’t started out easy. Now and again, it still drove a hard bargain. Such as when it attempted to force me into forgiving people who had wronged me …
The word forgiveness certainly wasn’t part of my dictionary.
Chapter 3
Ava
It had been over an hour since I’d arrived back at the hotel. Still, I sat ramrod straight on the luxurious sofa, staring into oblivion. The driver, bless his heart, had seemed kind enough to give me a minute or ten as he patiently waited for me to gather my bearings before exiting his vehicle. In return, I paid him an extra hundred quid as a tip. Had tonight really happened? It kept circling my brain, making me wonder how on earth I would manage to move forth from what had occurred tonight.
Moreover, my mind kept coming back to the mystery man named Craig Chambers.
Same last name. Same face.
What were the odds, really?
Heck the chances were slim, yet fate had guided me to face the ghost of my demons. Everything about Craig—apart from that tiny scarred spot on his brow—was utterly alike to my fallen beloved. There was only a subtle difference to the smooth face that I remembered so well from a decade ago. Had he been alive, I was convinced Reiss would appear just as Craig did with that slight scruff and a confident persona accompanied by an easy smile that made his one dimple appear on his left cheek.
Even that one, tiny, insignificant detail …
Craig had possessed one, too.
However, since Reiss was dead, my mind furthered with theories and such. Surely, they could somehow be related. It could be his long lost, distant cousin. I was convinced Reiss’s familial gene pool could produce another man almost identical to him. It was merely a twisted, freakish accident that I had spotted him tonight.
I knew he wasn’t Reiss, although my heart didn’t seem to cooperate with that pertinent fact. My eyes had seen Reiss, and that was what my heart was acknowledging, nothing more.
Coming back to my nicely shaken up reality, the soft sound of my phone made me forget about Craig and Reiss altogether. While I reached for it, I saw my husband was calling me. I sat myself down, leaning back against the softly feathered cushions as I closed my eyes and pretended to sound normal.
“Hello.”
“Did I get you at a wrong time? You sound knackered,” Ashton mused, sounding rather happy, the exact opposite to the stressed out man I had to live with for months on end due to his newly appointed position in the company.
“I actually just got in. I was out in Park Lane with Allie and her new bloke.” Guilt ate at me as I contemplated if I should mention how embarrassingly my night had ended. We had been married for almost nine years; he knew about those random acts I did. Usually, I was quite honest and open with him. However, for some odd reason, I wanted to keep Craig Chambers hidden for the time being. There were a lot of questions and unresolved things I needed to ponder through before I decided to tell him about this uncanny chance.
“How are things at the office? You sound well.”
The stress from his promotion had him on pins and needles to the point of being beyond neurotic at times. For all the years I had known him, never had I seen him in such a state. Try though I did to soothe his ego and boost his confidence and esteem, the gesture always backfired on me. I became his walking and breathing rubbish bin, the person he could freely and openly unload on about all of his frustrations from work. Ranging from people he didn’t like working with, business transactions that were dealt with in a wrong fashion, company decisions that weren’t approached with care and ended with a lot of baffled and aggravated employees—I heard it all. Being a wife already gave him the right to “bitch” about his work life; however, what ticked me off more than anything was the damning man wouldn’t let me give an opinion about it.
Whatever he had just unburdened on me, he solely expected me to simply nod and forget about it, which wasn’t always the case with me. I liked voicing my opinions, and at times, he didn’t appreciate it, most especially when I pointed out what his role was and how he’d become at fault in the process. This resulted in arguments and tiny, befuddled fights that mostly ended up with him begging for my forgiveness and showering me with his usual love and attention. When Ashton got into this love mode, it was quite impossible not to thaw and forgive his dour attitude.
Tonight, he had simply called without the intentions of venting out anything at all. He only wanted to make sure I was quite all right while also mildly inquiring when I would be back in New York since he was getting lonely without me in the three-bedroom apartment we had in the Upper East Side.
I admit, talking to him made my tension ease a bit. I suppose there was something in his voice that calmed me. After all, it was only him who could soothe me after I confessed what I had done with Reiss and how awful I was to him after I rejected his proposal and what had transpired after the incident, although I still wasn’t certain when I would tell him about all that.