A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [107]
April
Griffin reread the letter twice to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. And then rage consumed him. How dare she play with his heart. And what about all those times she’d told him that she loved him? They had been nothing more than lies?
He closed his eyes and could envision how she’d looked the last time they’d been together. After making love they had held each other, stared into each other’s eyes and poured out their love. His hand shook with anger as he placed the letter back into the envelope. She was right. She had taken the coward’s way out and he didn’t intend to let her off that easily.
April had captured his heart and if he had to tear through America and Europe to find her, he would.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“And how was your visit with April?”
Erica glanced across the dinner table at her mother. Surprisingly, she didn’t detect the normally sarcastic tone in her voice whenever she mentioned April. Erica had been asleep when her mother had arrived in Lake Tahoe late last night and Erica had deliberately pretended exhaustion to sleep late this morning. She needed to give her body time to heal from pain and hoped her mother couldn’t look at her and tell she’d been crying the last two days. Her eyes were no longer as red as they had been but her heart was still aching inside.
She had checked her messages and saw Brian had tried calling her several times but she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say at the moment. The evidence she’d seen spoke for itself and, as far as she was concerned, there was really nothing he could say. And knowing there was no way he could redeem himself made it that much harder, because she loved him so much.
“Erica?”
Remembering that her mother had asked a question, she plastered a smile on her face. “My visit was great. It was good seeing her again,” she lied. No matter what, she refused to let her mother know what had happened between her and Brian. Karen had enough garbage of her own to sort through. Besides, the thought of her and her mother sharing a pity party only made her pain that much worse.
“And what about your trip, Mom? How was it?”
A huge smile touched her mother’s mouth from corner to corner. “It was simply wonderful. I wasn’t sure how things would turn out before I left but I think it was worth the trip.”
Erica continued to eat her food while her mother chatted away about people Erica didn’t know. But she could tell by the sound of her mother’s voice that getting away had been good for her. She was glad and hoped her mother’s attitude stayed intact when she made the request she was about to make.
“Mom, can we go home?”
The smile on Karen’s face left instantly. “Why? Aren’t you enjoying spending time with me?”
Erica breathed deeply. Good grief! The last thing she wanted was for her mother to assume that she was disloyal. But she needed to be alone to wallow in her own grief. “That’s not it, Mom, but I just want to go home now. I think we’ve been gone long enough, don’t you think?”
Karen nodded slowly. “Yes, I guess you’re right.” She hesitated for a moment, fidgeting with her napkin in a nervous gesture before saying, “I didn’t want to mention this to you. In fact I put it out of my mind until I was ready to deal with it.”
Erica had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Deal with what?”
Karen held her gaze. “I talked to your father a couple of weeks ago while we were still on the cruise.”
“Yes, he mentioned it when I spoke with him a few days ago. Why didn’t you tell me he called? Why did you have me believing that he hadn’t cared enough to do so, Mom?”
She saw fire flare into her mother’s eyes. “Because there was no way I could tell you he called