Alice breathed in the sweet smell of spring as she stepped out of her car. She walked the short distance to the mailbox, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sun settling on her shoulders. The flowers along the path were already starting to bud and a few blooms of the hardier plants were already unfurling, their pretty yellows and pinks open and soaking up the sunshine, releasing their scent into the air to tempt the bees.
There was only one thing in the mailbox and it was for Will. They'd been together for about six months and she didn't have any qualms opening his mail. It was usually the odd bit of junk. What bills he had, he paid online with his mobile. She ripped the top of the envelope across the end and slid out the contents.
It was a receipt of some sort and a check.
Alice stopped walking in the middle of the path to the door. Upon closer inspection of the receipt, she saw that it was from a publishing house, one of the ones Will had been in talks with last month for his latest manuscript. Underneath the name of the publishing house was what she could only assume was the book title.
Oriane and the Search for the Grail
A shiver went down Alice's spine. The sun's rays no longer felt warm and all she could do for several minutes was breathe. Maybe Will had just taken the name and made up some wild story about the Grail. Maybe he'd simply been inspired by their—her—ordeal. She licked her dry lips and took another deep breath. She wouldn't get angry immediately. She needed to hear him out. She went inside their house, leaving whatever appreciation of the spring she'd been feeling outside in the dirt with the flowers.
Will was out, had left a note that he'd gone shopping for dinner. Alice sat at the dining room table and waited. She debated going into his office and looking through his things but she couldn't bring herself to breach his privacy like that. Finally, he came through the door, a paper bag in his arms. "Hey," he greeted her. He was smiling, content. He sauntered over and set the bag of groceries on the table and leaned over to give her a light kiss. She turned her cheek for him instead. "How was your day?" he asked. "Everything okay?"
"What is Oriane and the Search for the Grail?"
His eyes went wide and his smile lit up his face. "Oh, did my payment advance show up today? The Search for the Grail is my new book." He saw the mail that was sitting on the table in front of her and picked it up to read it. After a moment looking it over, he nodded, like everything was as he expected.
"Did you base it on my experience? My family's history?" she asked, her gaze on his hands and the paper there. She kept her tone as level as she could. She didn't want to accuse him of anything.
He opened his mouth to speak but seemed to pause first. Was he stalling? Coming up with a suitable answer? A lie?
"Will?" she asked, finally looking up to meet his gaze.
"Umm." He closed his mouth, his lips pressing out into a pout. "Maybe some of it."
"How much of it? May I see a copy?"
"Yeah, sure," he answered. He looked nervous as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other before turning and heading to his office. He took his mail, the receipt and the check, with him. He came out with a paperback book with a stunning photograph of Carcassonne on the glossy cover. He stopped a step away from where he'd originally been standing and handed it to her. She took the book from him and looked over the cover before opening it to the first page to start reading. She heard him clear his throat. The paper bag of groceries crinkled as he picked it up. "I guess I'll get started on dinner," he said.
It didn't take her long to recognise the story within the pages of the book. Some of it she recognised as straight from her own diary. She got up from the table and headed into their bedroom, pulling out her diary from the table on her side of the bed. She flipped through the handwritten pages until she found what she was looking for.
Word for word.
She brought both diary and book with her into the kitchen where the smell of greens cooking down was strong. Will was at the hob with a wooden spoon in hand, shuffling his weight back and forth. He glanced up and caught her reflection in the shiny tiles of the backsplash. He turned around with his eyebrows raised and a smile on his face, though the smile wasn't as bright as it had been before. "Dinner will be ready soon." His gaze dropped from her face to focus on the two books in her hands. His smile slipped away completely. He tilted his head and a look of resignation swept across his features. He bit his bottom lip, looked back up at her, and turned back towards dinner. "I didn't share the secret or anything. The cave, the real grail, none of that's in there."
"You snooped in my diary. You stole my words."
"Borrowed?" he asked. "It's dedicated to you. Did you see that? 'To the love of my life, Alice'."
"Am I supposed to be happy you're exploiting my story, my history, my life—and theirs—for a profit?" she asked. This time the anger she was feeling seeped out in her words causing each to be short and clipped. "How could you possibly think that this was okay?"
"I asked you if it was okay!" His words were nearly shouted. He stabbed at the greens in the pan in front of him with the spoon and reached up to turn off the hob. The snap the knob made as it clicked off was loud in the tense silence.
"When?" She honestly had no recollection of him asking any such thing.
He turned back around, crossing his arms, the wooden spoon still in his hand. "I said 'it'd make an interesting story, wouldn't it?'"
"That's it?" she snapped back, crossing her own arms over her chest. The corner of the paperback dug into her side. "That was supposedly asking my permission to use my story? To reading my diary? Discussing it with me? You had absolutely no right whatsoever to invade my privacy like that." She held out the glossy book. "Like this." Anger and hurt twisted up inside her and she wanted to throw the book at him. She didn't. She wanted to cry, her last relationship had ended badly because of trust issues too. She didn't.
"I'm sorry, all right?" He shuffled again, uncrossing his arms and propping back against the counter. "I didn't think you'd get so angry about it." He looked like he wanted to swear, his lips pursed and shifted like he was biting the inside of his cheek. He looked down and shook his head. "Dinner's ready."
She'd promised herself when Marc broke her heart—before her Aunt died, before she'd moved here, before she'd met Will, before all of this—she wouldn't let herself stay in a relationship with trust issues. It wasn't worth the heartache it caused. That promise came to the forefront of her mind now and she did the only thing she could to keep it. "I want you out of this house tomorrow."
He looked up at her with shock written on his face, in the slack of his jaw and the wide open way he held his eyes. Then he clenched his jaw and his expression closed, his grey eyes turned stormy. "We can't talk about this?" he asked, softer than they'd just been.
"No," she answered, feeling the weight of that single word bear down on her shoulders with the enormity of her decision. He was supposed to be the love of her life, wasn't he? Audric—Sajhe—had implied that theirs would be a forever love. She couldn't see how. He'd violated her trust. The truth of it felt like a sharp hot metal searing a hole into her chest. "No," she repeated, as much for him as for herself, "There's nothing left to discuss."
He bit his lips together, nodded. He turned and plated up dinner and then took his plate and a glass of water to his office. After some time, she could hear him shuffling books. Packing.
She wanted to retreat to their bedroom—her bedroom—to cry but she refused to do it with him in the house. She didn't want him to know how much he'd hurt her. She didn't want to give him an opportunity to seek forgiveness with soft platitudes and sweet caresses. She'd gone down that path before; she wouldn't do it again.