I drop my eyes immediately to evade his truth-serum glare. I don’t answer him.
“Do you have a plan, Joshua?”
My eyes once again rise to meet his and I stay silent. He sits back knowingly on his chair and watches me.
“Tell me about your plan,” he asks. “How would you kill yourself?”
I frown and drop my head again. “Stay out of my head, Nicholas,” I whisper.
“Tomorrow was to be your wedding day,” he replies.
I nod as my eyes search the floor to escape his gaze.
“You should have been in Kamala today with Natasha arranging things for tomorrow,” he says quietly.
My heart drops and I nod. “Thanks for reminding me,” I whisper.
“You hadn’t forgotten. Don’t bother pretending you had,” he replies.
I smirk knowingly at the floor.
“What do you think Natasha is doing now?” he asks.
My eyes tear up and I shrug. “Don’t know,” I whisper as I run my hand over my stubble.
“Tell me something.” He sits back on his seat again and folds his arms. “If it was you who had been murdered and Natasha had been left alone and then convicted of your murder, what would you want her to do?” he asks.
I roll my lips. “I know what you are doing and you can forget it. Natasha is gone and she is not coming back,” I stammer.
“It will get easier,” he whispers. “I promise you it gets easier.”
“How would you know?” I snap through my tears. “Living without her will never be fucking easy. I will never be happy again.”
He sits forward. “Joshua, I lost my husband. I know firsthand the depth of your grief. I could have happily killed myself a thousand times.”
I sit back shocked. I didn’t expect him to say that.
He stares into space as his thoughts go to another time. “Olivier was intelligent and funny.” He pauses as he remembers. “We met in a café in Paris.” He smiles softly. “It was like a movie. We fell madly in love. I had released my first three books and he was a solicitor so I moved to France and we became inseparable.” His eyes meet mine. “He loved me so deeply—I was his only one,” he whispers.
My eyes tear up—like my Natasha.
He shakes his head as he becomes visibly upset. “The years we were married were the happiest days of my life. And it’s my fault he’s dead,” he replies through haunted eyes.
I frown.
He shakes his head in disgust at himself. “We had a skiing trip organised for months but I was trying to become this hotshot author.” He pauses as he thinks. “And then three days before we were due to leave for our trip I got a call from my publicist saying that I had been asked to appear on a morning show and it would be great for my career. I wanted to go, but Olivier wanted to go skiing and he went on the ski trip alone.” He shakes his head in disgust at himself and his eyes meet mine. “I wasn’t worried at the time. I was excited about my great opportunity and I thought I would just fly down and surprise him when I finished the promo stuff.”
I drop my head in sadness. I know how this story ends.
Nicholas’s eyes glaze over as he stares into space. “He had a bad fall on the slopes but instead of going to the hospital he just went back to the hotel alone.”
I blow out a deep breath as the room falls silent and we both become engulfed by our grief.
“He had a brain aneurysm in the bath two hours later and drowned. He was alone and he would have been frightened and in pain.” Nicholas wipes his tears away angrily. “I know about being so distraught that you would rather die than face another day alone,” he whispers.
My bottom lip quivers and I drop my head.
“I know how it feels to just want the pain to stop. You would do anything to just not feel anymore,” he whispers.