Seeing him remain silent, Annelise Valentine pressed him again. "What, resorting to the silent treatment again? Mr. Westgate, you're truly something else. Playing the profound, mysterious man whenever you face a question you don't want to answer. After all these years, has that trick ever failed you?"
"I haven't," Jett Westgate replied.
Often, silence isn't a sign of having nothing to say, but of finding the words impossible to speak.
'He wanted to tell her it wasn't that he didn't want to answer. It was that he didn't know how.'
'He was afraid that saying too much would sound like a weak excuse, while saying too little would seem perfunctory.'
'He was afraid of which words might hurt her again, afraid that any single word could make the wreckage of this evening even more irreparable.'
He could only stand there, looking at her, his eyes welling with tears again and again.
"Valentine, I'm sorry."
