I pushed my chair back and half rose.
It was the quiet in his voice that did it, not pleading, just certainty.
I lowered myself back into the chair, but I didn’t let go of the table.
For a moment, the dining room noise dropped away, and all I could hear was the low hum of the ship and my own pulse in my ears.
A thousand ugly possibilities crashed through my mind at once.
I didn’t let go of the table.
Was this my husband’s lover? Had they been together for years? Or perhaps he was a business partner Marcus had wronged? Had my whole marriage been a stage set, I’d never have been shown the back of it?
The man slowly shook his head, almost as if he’d guessed exactly what I was thinking.
“No,” he said softly. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then who are you?” My voice sounded thin, foreign, borrowed from someone else. “Why would you say something like that to me?”
