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I need a shower.












The house was dark and quiet when she got home, with no seething Justin waiting at the front door this time, just echoing silence as she made her way upstairs and back into the spare bedroom. After a hot shower, she collapsed into bed and didn't stir until the following morning, when she woke to bright sunlight.

She sat up in confusion as she tried to get her bearings and realised that she wasn't in the spare bedroom anymore. A quick glance around confirmed that she was back in the master suit and a glance down at the empty space beside her confirmed that Justin had indeed slept beside her. She peeked down at herself and was relieved to note that she still had on the t-shirt she had worn to bed.

She checked the clock and groaned when she realised that she had slept to nearly ten in the morning. Pushing the tumbled mass of her hair out of her face, she got up and was alarmed when the room started spinning wildly around her. She stumbled a couple of steps before reaching for the headboard of the bed and steadying herself. She frowned slightly as she tried to recall the last time she had had a decent meal... definitely not the previous day's breakfast, which had come back up after that overheard phone call, or lunch which had been spoiled by Justin's appearance at Rick and Lisa's place and dinner had been a non-event.

Even though Rick and Lisa had urged her to eat the night before, Isabella just could not stomach the thought of food after the day she'd had! Saturday had been much of the same; all she'd had to eat was popcorn at the movies.

Now she was paying the price for all those missed meals. Heading for the shower she decided to treat herself to a decent brunch. Monday was the housekeeper's day off and they had no other live-in staff so she had the house to herself. She was looking forward to just spending the day on her own, trying to figure out what her next move would be. She couldn't leave him and it seemed that he couldn't leave her. So what now? Sighing she decided to switch off her brain until after she'd eaten lest she lose her appetite again.


Less than an hour later she was dry-heaving over the commode in the downstairs guest bathroom. Just the smell of frying bacon and eggs had been enough to set her off. After her stomach stopped revolting, she stumbled out onto the patio, as far away from the nauseating smell of cooked food as she could possibly get, and sank down onto a chaise longue overlooking the huge infinity swimming pool.

"No..." she whispered staring blindly at the edge of the pool, where the aquamarine water of the pool seemed to merge with the darker blue of the ocean and the cobalt blue of sky. "No no no no... no... please God! No..."

She buried her face in her hands and rocked back and forth slightly. Her system was just off-kilter because of the gut-wrenching events of the last forty-eight hours. Naturally she'd feel nauseous after not eating in so long. It was all perfectly logical... she was simply overreacting.

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