"Could we talk about yesterday?" Chad asked from the doorway. He had meant to go downstairs and start a pot of coffee. He'd barely slept and needed every ounce of caffeine to function, but when he saw June's door open on his way down, he'd wondered if she was in a better mood to talk. Hopeful, he had stood at her threshold, and knocked before peering in.

June turned around as she finished buttoning up her work shirt. Her hair in a slick ponytail hung high on her head. Her face had just enough makeup to seem natural. Her pencil skirt hugged her hips and bottom perfectly.

"I have to go to work, Chad," she said with a hint of regret and rushed around packing her things into her handbag. "I start in half an hour."

Chad bit his bottom lip, a little hurt. "Look. I was only helping you the other day. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He took a step into the room tentatively. "If there is anything I can do to make this easier for you?"

"No. It's not that, Chad. I'm fine." She headed for the door, avoiding his gaze, but that didn't stop him from catching sight of her red eyes.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. I have to go now." She tried to slip past him, only to have him block her path.

He tried to meet her gaze, which she kept averting. "Look at me," he pleaded. "I need you to look at me, June."

Her blood-shot eyes darted up to meet his curious ones. Something raw and torn peaked from them. "You've been crying?" he asked, shocked.

"No."

"Jesus, June. I'm not a pervert. You need not avoid me or cry about," he fired, officially offended. "I'm not a creep, thank you very much! I thought you knew that by now."

"Ha!" She pushed him away or at least tried. Her hands pressed against his chest, half-expecting him to shuffle back from the force, but he held like a tree. "Rich, coming from a married man who couldn't tell me his wife likes to pop in whenever she's in town."

She pushed him again, fueled by anger. He budged, but only a little and voluntarily took a step back from her. The gap was sizeable enough to allow her to get past him once more. He thwarted her effort to get away again and grabbed her by the arm to face him. "What? What do you want now?" she yelled, attempting to pull away from his touch as if repelled by him.

Chad let her go. "What wife?" he asked in a hush. A part of him, the part familiar with bad news tingled, twisting and screaming at him, she's back. The effing lunatic is back. But another part of him desperately wanted to hear otherwise.

"Cassie!" June snapped furiously, only to see unmitigated horror wash over his face at the name. "Guess you hadn't counted on me meeting her?" she snorted bitterly.

"I'm not married, June. Never have been. We've gone over this, remember?"

"Likely story now that I know the truth." She made her way towards the stairs, pushing him aside. "How long were you going to pretend to be single? Till I slept with you? Is that it?"

Chad, rooted to his spot, glared at her in rage. "June, listen carefully to what I'm about to say," he began, his voice trembling with anger he was keeping under wraps. She wasn't the one he was livid at. "Do I look like I'm married?"

June shrugged, one leg hovering over the steps, ready to march off. "How would I know? I'm just some stupid girl you met a few months ago."

"Look around. Did the house ever look like a woman lived here with me? Do you see any wedding photos on the walls? Or couples photos? Me with another woman, this Cassie?" he spat the name indignantly. "Does my room look like I share it with anyone, let alone a woman?"

June shrugged again, triggering Chad into action. He marched forward, took her wrist, and despite copious wriggling and forced her, the most stubborn woman he'd ever met, into his room for the first time, despite the messy bed that would have usually embarrassed him.

Once inside, he let her go as quickly and stepped away so as not to intimidate her. "Please, have a look. I won't bite," he mumbled, hurt, yet still angry.

♡

June, despite the shock and surprise she felt at his aggression, couldn't help herself. She glanced around the room, tremendous guilt slamming on her like a tsunami. His room was neat, barren almost, very much Chad in a reserved, subdued way. Not at all like Cassie, bubbly, inquisitive. She watched Chad march forward and slide the door to his closet open to further appease her curiosity. There was nothing feminine there.

Speechless, she was about to apologise when she spotted a flamboyantly pink G-string peeking out from under his duvet and turned to him with a scoff. "What's that then?" She moved across the room and pulled the duvet further. She really had to get to work, and this was none of her business, anyway.

She squared off and faced him. "Look, I don't even care if you're married. It's none of my business. I just wish you hadn't needed to hide it from me." She headed for the door. "Anyway, I have to go. I'll see you later."

She glanced back at Chad once more before leaving, in time to catch him caressing the light blue sweater Cassie had worn the day before, now hanging in his cupboard. He even took a sniff. She shook her head in disbelief. No wife, my ass!

June took it as a sign he missed his 'wife'. And before Chad could make more excuses, she was out his door and heading downstairs. Bitter that she had played with the idea that they had something, something she wanted to explore if he was keen.

The moment she reached the ground floor, that delusion died.

"June, wait. Did you say you met her yesterday? And was she wearing this?" he yelled behind her.

She glared up at him as he held the sweater out over the railing. "Yeah, so?"

"I have to call the police," Chad declared categorically, disappearing from view.

"Way to be dramatic, Chad. I have to call the police? Call the police for what? That you can't deal with being called a liar?" she ranted under her breath, heading for the front door.

"Where are you going?" he asked, scrambling downstairs, hot on her heels. His phone propped against his ear. He held her back by her arm, gentle despite the desperation on his face.

"Triple zero. What's your emergency? Police, Fire, or Ambulance?" She heard the operator's voice float out of the phone and curiosity made her stop fleeing. Chad was actually calling the Police.

"Police," Chad chirped down the phone, his eyes imploring her to stop walking away.

"I have work, Chad. I have to go!" she grumbled, half-heartedly. "I'm gonna be late."

Chad covered the phone. "You can't go. The police will want to talk to you. Either do it here, or they come to the café?"

"Why would they want to talk to me for?" she asked. Something in his voice told her he was being dead serious about this. "What's going on?"

"Sir, are you there?"

"Oh, yes, I'm here." Chad shuffled between the phone and June. "I've had a break-in, in my house and it's someone I have a restraining order against," he quickly muttered into the phone while June looked on, bewildered.

"You're starting to scare me, Chad." She dropped her handbag by the door.

Chad shook his head. There was no time for that. "Answer the question. Where did you see her yesterday? And how do you know it was Cassie?"

"She was in your study," June uttered, confused. "She was in your chair reading that journal you write in. She was whistling or humming. That's how I knew someone was in there. I thought it was a radio you'd left on or something when I walked in there."

Chad relayed the information to the operator, and after several minutes of conversation that seemed like code talk, he hung up and June glared at him in utter disbelief.

"So you're not married?"

He shook his head, a chuckle escaping him. "No, I'm not, never have been. I came close once, if that counts." He slipped his phone in his pocket and stood, waiting for her to say something.

June sat down on the couch and peered up at him. "So who was she then?" She felt panic grip her. She'd spent half the day with some random woman thinking she was Chad's wife and been jealous the whole time. Even when things like the constant reference to Chad as Zach, made little sense.

"I ate the food she made. We even sat around drinking wine like girlfriends while she waited for you to come home. But then she left suddenly before you got here."

She launched at Chad, grabbing his collar in desperation. "Who was she, Chad? How did she know so much about you or this house? I mean, she knew exactly where everything was, in the kitchen, in the laundry. Even your room. She was wearing your sweater, for God's sake!"

"She's a stalker, June. She's been stalking me for years," Chad answered, sitting her back down on the couch. "A few years ago, she came to one of my book signings. At first, it was normal fan stuff, you know? Things we had in common, how much she loved my books, how much she thought she could relate, so on. And then it became more frequent." He sat beside her, shoulders slouched, looking relieved that she wasn't rushing away anymore.

"She was present at almost every signing I had, every event I attended. Since she was a regular, we got talking about our lives, personal stuff."

She watched him, unable to stay seated anymore, get up and pace by the windows, glancing out now and then. "We became friends and eventually, one night, it turned into something it shouldn't have. I was in a foreign place feeling lonely and she was there. I was also drunk. After that, I came home and went about my life. She started calling me, on my landline, or my mobile. I don't even know how she got hold of those as I'm not listed anywhere for obvious reasons."

"Eventually, I started noticing things in the house moving around whenever I had gone on tours or just out. Minor things at first, then more and more. One time I was gone for weeks on a book tour overseas and, when I came back, I found photos of us as a couple. All photo-shopped, and brilliantly might I add. People probably would have believed they were real if it wasn't for my family or the fact that there was never an official marriage registered. Otherwise, Cassie had everything, our 'wedding' photos, fake certificate... She'd even moved some of her stuff in. When they finally caught her in the act, she had a wedding ring on her finger with a date engraved on it." He turned to her finally, letting go of the curtain.

June stared at him, horrified. It all sounded so crazy. Too crazy, and yet, there was nothing she could say or do, but listen.

"I moved after that. Went incognito. I stopped doing signings for a long while, preferring to send out signed books instead. This house is not even under my real name or my pen name. It's under my mum's maiden name, for reasons you now know."

He sat opposite her on the coffee table, barely meeting her gaze. "That night, the night she was arrested, I had just gotten back from a trip. I had no idea she was in the house. I had arrived late in the night and went straight to bed. I was so tired I didn't even notice a naked woman was sleeping in my bed."

June cupped her mouth in shock, hanging off every word. "She was in your bed?"

"Naked." He nodded.

"Then what happened?" she finally breathed, rapt, as her phone went off. It was the café. She shot up at once. "Shit. I'm late and I didn't even call in." She answered the phone, desperate to go back to his story.

"Sorry, Ben, I completely forgot to call you. I'll be a couple of hours. Something happened at the house and Chad and I are waiting for the cops to show up," she blurted all in a breath.

"You okay?" Ben asked with concern as a knock landed on their front door.

"Yeah, we had a break-in last night. They just got here. I'll call you in a bit if I'm gonna be later than an hour, okay?"

Before she could ask Chad anything else, he was opening the door for the men in uniform. She took a deep breath in, ready for their onslaught of questions.

"This is June," Chad said as the two policemen stepped into the house. "She's my flatmate. She's the one who discovered the woman in question yesterday."

"June. Do you mind telling us what happened yesterday and leave nothing out." The older of the officers smiled at her and took a seat on the couch.

"Sure." She sighed and settled in, nervously aware of the authority the men carried. Chad seated beside her for moral support, a consoling hand on her shoulder as if that helped. It didn't, not really. It only reminded her of the time, a similar situation, almost a year ago, where two men in a different uniform, covered in ash and shoot had consoled her on the back of an ambulance, at how life as she knew it was gone, scorched along with her parents in a house they'd barely called home.

"I found her in the study, probably around midday, maybe around one..." she began, a tremor in her voice, trying to banish that cold, cold night away from her mind.

(Image by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay)