“It’s lovely to see you again, Nina. When do you think you’ll be able to tell your fiancé about the good work the foundation is doing?”
Swallowing hard, I struggled to form any real answer to Karl’s question, my mouth suddenly too dry to allow my tongue to work. Everything we’d done—all the playacting and being seen by the press that had made me feel like a traitor to the man I loved—all of it had been for nothing.
Gage swooped in to whisk me away seconds later, acting more like a lover than a bodyguard and saying something about looking forward to when we got home, but it was too late. I’d ruined everything with my stupid slip up.
By the time we reached the car, I could barely hold back the tears. Gage tried to follow me into the back seat as Jensen started the engine, but I pushed him away.
“Nina, I should be seen leaving with you so people keep believing we’re together.”
“No!” I cried as I tried to close the door. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve fucked it all up. Karl knows I’m not with you and Tristan isn’t gone for good.”
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks. We need to keep up the act,” Gage protested as I continued to tug on the car door.
“Let me go! It’s over now!” I screamed, forcing him to back away enough to allow me to grab the door from him and slam it shut. Slumping back against the seat, I closed my eyes as the tears began to roll down over my cheeks and sobbed, “Jensen, please take me home. I want to go home.”
As he raced over the roads of Dutchess County, I texted Tristan the bad news. I’m sorry I messed up. I didn’t mean to. Wherever you are, please know I love you and never meant to ruin everything. I’m sorry.
For the first time in all of this, I was scared.
I expected to see Daryl waiting for me when I got back to the house, but there was no one except Ethan who stood trimming the shrubs on the side of the house near my bedroom. Even though I had no idea why, I was drawn to where he was, needing to talk to someone about all the emotions tearing through me after my encounter with Karl. I knew it was ridiculous. He couldn’t even hear me, but it didn’t matter. Maybe it was better he couldn’t hear what I had to say.
He watched me as I walked toward where he stood, putting down his clippers when I stopped in front of him. For a moment, he looked confused, but then he just smiled and I could have sworn he reminded me of Tristan.
God, I was losing my fucking mind.
Signing, I asked, Do you mind if I sit here with you while you work?
He shook his head and smiled again. Very slowly, he finger spelled, T-h-i-s i-s y-o-u-r h-o-u-s-e.
It was. Actually, without Tristan, it felt more like my prison than my house. I still loved it for the memories we’d made here, but now it felt empty without him.
Like me.
Ethan signed Do you want to talk? and I shook my head. I did want to talk, but the one person I wanted to talk to was nowhere to be found.
He didn’t seem to know what to do, so he just stared down at me until he signed, How was the g-r-o-u-n-d-b-r-e-a-k-i-n-g?
All of a sudden, the real fear that I was standing in front of someone spying for Karl exploded into my brain. That would explain how he’d known I’d be at the groundbreaking that morning. I hadn’t attended any Stone Foundation functions in months. Why would he think I’d be at the one today?
“How did you know where I was?” I asked, forgetting to sign until I saw the confused look on his face. I asked him again through sign language and watched as he signed, One of your bodyguards told me.
There was something wrong now that I stood there with Ethan. Daryl might believe he was okay, but I didn’t. Signing, I said, Take off your glasses, please. I want to see your eyes. I needed to see exactly who this person was who seemed to know things about me.
He seemed reluctant to do as I ordered, so I told him again what I wanted. Slowly, he slid them off his face and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the sun. I studied them for a long moment, sure I’d seen eyes like his before but unable to remember where. They were a deep blue color, but not dark like Gage’s. If he didn’t have such a scruffy beard, I imagined Ethan would be quite attractive, even though his hair was much longer than I liked.
That didn’t mean I felt any less uncomfortable about him, though. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about him now that made me question why Daryl had made such a point of my firing Chip in favor of this guy.
All sorts of terrible thoughts swirled in my mind. Was Daryl the one who’d told Karl I’d be at the groundbreaking? Had he been keeping Tristan and me apart all this time? Was Tristan even safe, wherever he was, as Daryl had continually claimed all these months?
Ethan signed something, but I couldn’t understand any of what he said and left to find Daryl to get some answers. I found him waiting for me in the dining room, looking like he always did as I stormed in, ready to demand he tell me exactly what the hell was going on.
“Nina, I heard what happened. You should have let Gage come with you.”
Pointing my finger at him, I barked, “You better start explaining what the fuck is up, Daryl. How would Karl know I’d be there? Something’s pretty fishy about all of this. I want to know where Tristan is right now!”
“You know I can’t do that, Nina. I have no idea how Karl knew, but I’d never put you or Tristan in danger.”
He wasn’t going to tell me anything more than that, so I left to go back to Ethan and see if he was easier to crack than his friend. I found the hedge clippers on the ground next to the shrubs, but he was gone. Looking around, I spied him walking quickly across the lawn toward the property’s edge.
Where the hell was he going?
I took off after him, hampered by three inch heels and the ridiculous suit I still wore. His much longer stride made catching him impossible, but at least I was able to see him. I thanked God we hadn’t seen much rain recently as my heels barely sank into the still solid ground that in late April hadn’t forgotten the cold of winter quite yet.
He walked right off the property through a hole in the fence, and I followed him into a field full of much higher grass and weeds. His pace never slowed down, so by the time I found myself in Millbrook, my stockings were torn and my suit was covered in thorns and pickers.
Why he was going home in the middle of the day I had no idea, but I fully intended on finding out. I watched as he entered an old building, presumably his apartment building, breaking into a full run so I didn’t lose him. Following him up the wood stairs, I saw him enter a door at the end of the hallway and stopped to catch my breath.