Julian's Stand in Wife

That was the freedom Betty had been looking forward to for a long time. It was time she had to herself to let her hair down.

Julian didn’t want to interrupt her.

Julian left her door and turned to walk back to the master bedroom he shared with Diana. He lifted his hand, and knocked on the door.

Diana heard the knocks, but didn’t stand up. “What do you want?”

She sounded sullen and clearly upset, which frustrated Julian.

“Diana…” he coaxed in a low voice. “Open the door for me, come on.”

Everyone in this house was ignoring him, and it was souring his mood.

He had seen that Diana was clearly in a bad mood, but because he wanted to see Nina off first, he didn’t rush to talk to Diana about it.

“Nina has something she wants me to convey to you.”

Nina…

Diana thought again about her best friend, who said such hurtful words not long ago. She suppressed the pain overflowing from her heart, and said, “There’s nothing to be said. I want to be alone.”

leaned against the

“Nothing much.”

did say unpleasant stuff about

said something unpleasant about Nina. She actually called her a third

well

give up

that Nina would heed her

on Jim’s side had

pleaded with Jim to talk things through with the Jennings. However, there was no news from

about it,

a month since she last met

never initiated

that was true of Jim,

to her surprise, he did—very swiftly, too. His voice was warm and soothing as he asked, “Ms.

nodded. “Professor Hughes, it’s

only when she needed help. Suddenly, she found herself unable to voice

he asked,

at the tip of her tongue, and hurriedly responded, “Good, good. Thank you for your concern, Professor Hughes. The babies and I are fine. The check-ups have all