45
When it started to get dark and he still wasn’t back, I allowed myself to begin to worry. This wasn’t like him, never had been. He was always carefully in control, and that meant knowing where everyone was at any given time in relation to him, yet I hadn’t heard from him all day since he’d stormed out of the apartment when I’d walked in on him and his father.
I had heard them arguing in his office. In fact, that was what had woken me. I had reached over in my dozy state to touch him, to greet him good morning, but he wasn’t there. I frowned and listened to the voices outside, and I could hear they were aggravated.
I climbed out of bed and paused outside the door, and sure enough, I could hear the two of them going at it. I couldn’t make out every single word of what they were saying, but I was pretty sure Kristo’s father was getting a divorce. I was stunned. When I had seen him and his wife together, they had always seemed completely in love with one another. I had no idea what could have happened to tear them apart, but I figured this was for Kristo to deal with and not for me to listen in on, so I went to grab myself a coffee and something to eat and left them to it.
I nibbled on the slice of toast I had made and found I didn’t have much of an appetite. At first, I thought it was just a mild hangover from going a little too hard the night before, but it soon revealed itself as something else. I didn’t want to overthink things, but I felt as though we’d made a few good steps forward the last few days. The fundraiser the day before had been the biggest one, when the line between fiction and reality seemed to slip and slide and threaten to drop away entirely. I could have been sure that when he touched me, there was more to it than just a show, and when we got home, he’d proven once and for all that I was right. He wanted me, badly, as badly as I’d always desired him, and nothing was going to change that. We’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms when we were done, and I couldn’t keep the big-ass smile off my face, my skin prickling where he skimmed his fingers up and down my spine to soothe me as I dozed off next to him.
But this, a divorce in the family, especially with a couple that the two of us had spent time with in the past, was going to be a kick in the teeth. I didn’t want to overthink it, but I had a feeling it had spooked him, enough that he’d run out that door as though the thought of being in this apartment with me for another split second was terrifying to him.
I had tried to keep myself busy through the day, but it was hard when my mind was somewhere else entirely. Eventually, glancing around to make sure he wasn’t going to come back and catch me in the act, I ducked into his office to see if there was anything in there that could give me a hint toward what the hell was going on with him.
I gingerly went through the papers left out on his desk, but they all seemed to be related to the business or just notes that he had taken and forgotten about—a name with a number here, a quick sum there. It was odd, like getting a look into the inner workings of his mind. I felt like I was invading something, seeing something I should never have seen, but I went on.
Eventually, I went into one of his drawers, and I finally saw a name I recognized on them—Landon. I pulled it out, expecting it to be a copy of the contract he’d held on to for future reference, but as I looked at it, I realized that the Landon wasn’t referring to me but Jolene. I leafed through the papers quickly, and sure enough, it seemed to be the paperwork for setting up a trust for my sister. I raised my eyebrows. This was new. He hadn’t mentioned anything like this to me.
I carefully returned the papers to where I’d found them and started to look again—more papers with my name on them but nothing I could make any sense of. I stuffed them back in the drawer and turned to march out of the office, checking my phone as I did so. Still nothing from him. Where the fuck was he? What was he doing? Who was he with? When I’d signed up to be his wife, I had no idea that it would involve me hiding out at his apartment fretting about him like this.
Suddenly, the door opened, and I jumped. I hurried through to the living room, but my heart dropped when I saw someone I didn’t recognize.
“Who are you?” I demanded as the man walked into the room.
“I’m Neil Castle, Kristo’s lawyer.” He extended his hand to me, and I remembered seeing that name somewhere on the paperwork I’d just been looking at. I shook his hand and shrugged apologetically.
“If you’re looking for him, he’s not here,” I told him. “I have no idea where he is, actually. He left this morning, but he hasn’t been back.”
“No, I understand that.” The lawyer cut me off. “He called me and told me to meet him here. He’s on his way, from what I can gather.”
“Right.” I pressed my lips together and did my best to hide my annoyance that Kristo had bothered to call his lawyer and send him down to the apartment before he had reached out to me. But there were so many questions pulsing at the front of my mind that I could hardly keep them all straight. What was his lawyer doing here? Where the fuck was he? Why had he sent his lawyer down here first?
“Can I make you a coffee?” I offered, feeling useless. The lawyer shook his head and glanced at his watch.
“I’m not going to be here long,” he replied, and I felt a little shiver of panic run up and down my spine. How did he know that? What the fuck was going on? When was someone going to catch me up here? I felt stupid, out of the loop, like I was some kind of idiot child who everyone was protecting from the reality of whatever was going on right here and now.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a familiar car outside, and my heart leaped when I realized Kristo was finally home.
“That’s him,” I told Neil excitedly, but the lawyer’s face didn’t even twitch, as though he had been expecting him right at this very moment.
I could hear Kristo parking and coming up the stairs to join us, and I felt the soles of my feet prickle with—was it excitement? No, that would have been too simple. It was something else entirely. I was ready to forgive him if he would let me, but I had a feeling he wasn’t going to.
He came through the door, and I felt my heart loop with relief in my chest when I saw he was all right. But then I noted the expression on his face. I hadn’t seen that one before. Anger, sure, but something else, too, something deeper. I felt as though the bottom had just dropped out of my stomach, and I wanted to go to him and take his hand and ask him what the hell had been going on and where the heck he had been all this time and what he was doing setting up a trust for my sister. But I stayed rooted to the spot, silent, instead. Alarm bells were ringing in my head, and I had a bad feeling that whatever was about to happen, it was going to change everything for good.
“Are you ready?” Neil asked Kristo, and Kristo glanced at him and nodded. His eyes had taken on a glassy hue, as though he was having trouble thinking straight. Neil straightened his shoulders, put his briefcase on the counter, and clicked it open.
“Then, we’ll begin.”
Kristo jerked his head for me to join them, and I tried to ignore the pit in my stomach that told me this conversation was going to blow my life wide open, and there was nothing I could do to stop it happening.