Chapter 196

It had been three days since Orla had last seen Arni—three days in which she had had time to focus on her work and re-balance her own sense of self.

Where another woman might have found it galling and humiliating to have a man walk away after having started to make love to her, Orla could only feel relieved that Arni had done so. She had been given a second chance to protect herself from her own weakness, and for that she could only be profoundly grateful.

But being grateful wasn’t doing anything to ease the ache that had woken her from her sleep last night—and the night before, and the night before that. Orla stared grimly at her laptop screen, battling determinedly to will away such potentially dangerous thoughts. Was this the way her mother felt about the married man she had once told Orla was her father, whose desertion she claimed had pushed her into the arms of a series of other men?

But then her mother had told her so many different stories, changing with her mood and her need