Suddenly Last Summer (O'Neil Brothers 3)

“He’s not on the phone. He’s waiting outside.” She looked dazed. “I didn’t know you had a twin brother.”

“He’s here?” Sean straightened. “I’ll be back in a moment.” Wondering what could possibly have brought Jackson to Boston without warning, he pushed through the doors. One glance at his normally calm brother’s tense shoulders told him this wasn’t a social call. “What’s wrong? Is it Gramps?”

Jackson’s mouth was tight. “Gramps is fine. But we need to talk. Is there somewhere we can go?”

Worried, Sean gestured toward the end of the corridor. “There’s an office we can use just along here. So what’s going on? You’ve never come to the hospital before.”

As soon as the door closed, giving them privacy, Jackson rounded on him. “Damn you, I warned you not to mess with her.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Élise. She’s gone. And it’s your fault.”

“Gone?” Sean felt his mouth go dry. “Gone where?”

“Back to Paris.”

“Paris?” He thought about what she’d told him. Thought about what the place meant to her. “No. She wouldn’t have done that.”

Jackson thrust a piece of paper at him. “Read that.”

Sean unfolded it and saw it was a printed copy of an email. Élise’s name was on the top. “It’s addressed to you.”

“Read it.”

Mon cher Jackson, I am so very sorry to let you down but I can no longer stay at Snow Crystal. It is very sad for me because I thought I would be here forever, but I see now that is not possible. I hope you will forgive me. I will never do anything to harm your family and staying will make it awkward for Sean to come home. Do not try and argue with me or come after me because I know I am right. I am supposed to give you notice, but I have trained Elizabeth and Poppy and they are both very good, and all the other staff, they are good, too. Snow Crystal has a strong team. Me, I shall go back to Paris. I should have done it a long time ago but I am a great big coward and it was easier to hide here with you where it was safe. I will miss you and Kayla, Brenna, Tyler, Jess, Elizabeth and dear Alice, and of course, Walter, more than I can say, but perhaps one day when you have forgiven me you will visit me and I will show you Paris. The nice parts, not the tourist parts. You saved me when my life was so very terrible and I will never forget that. Do not worry about me, I will be fine. And do not be angry with Sean. The fault is mine, not his. I didn’t mean to steal his family. Again, I am so very sorry to let you down. Élise.

Sean scanned the email again. “I don’t believe this. She wouldn’t walk out on you. She just wouldn’t.”

“That’s what I thought. Seems we were both wrong.”

“She hero worships you.”

“Which just goes to prove how bad she must be feeling to do this.”

Sean swore under his breath. “I can’t believe she’d choose to go back to Paris.” He thought of her, alone and anxious in a city she’d vowed never to return to, and something knotted in his gut. “Why the hell would she do that?” He ba

rely had time to finish the sentence before he was slammed back against the door and Jackson’s fist was locked in the front of his shirt.

“Damn it, you know why she’s doing that! She’s doing it because of you! She says so in the email. I warned you to stay away from her but you just couldn’t do it, could you?”

Staring into the furious eyes of his normally even-tempered brother, it took Sean a moment to gather himself. “Let go of me, you’re wrinkling my shirt. And you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She was happy at Snow Crystal. She had a home. We’re family to her. And now you’ve gone and trampled the whole of that just so that you could burn up the sheets with her for five minutes.”

“It was more than five minutes,” Sean snapped, “and she was hiding with you because she was too afraid to live her life.”

“So you thought you’d help her live it?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Pushing his brother away, he paced to the center of the office.

Why would she do this, when Paris held nothing but bad memories for her? Why?

“You’ve got no end of women to pick from, but you just had to have Élise.”

“I’ve told you, it wasn’t like that.”

“So you’re going to pretend you didn’t get involved with her?”