“I threatened to tell the entire company what was happening. Tell them that my own father was blackmailing me into perpetrating a fraud just to secure a merger that shouldn’t be happening in the first place. Said I’d hold a press conference right there in Central Park. The truth would come out. He would be finished.”
I simply could not imagine a world in which someone said that to Mitchell Hunter’s face.
“And he didn’t...shoot you or something?” I tried half-heartedly for humor. Anything to lighten the mood. Anything to get that despondent look off Nick’s face. “Have you drawn and quartered? Hauled off in chains?”
The humor missed the mark. But he flashed me a tight, obliging smile.
“He simply reaffirmed our original terms. Said that I could hold a press conference if I wished, but that he would still release the pictures. They were still as damming as ever. They would still follow you around for the rest of your days.”
A belated shiver ran through
his shoulders, and he turned his eyes away.
“Then he told me to go out and get a ring.”
And now here we were.
Trapped inside to avoid the relentless pursuit of the press. Doing our very best to grapple with genuine feelings springing from the worst of circumstances, while at the same time, trying as hard as we could to keep up that glass barrier around us.
A single tremor, and it could come crashing down. And no matter how hard we tried to out run it, no matter how deep we chose to hide...neither of us was getting away unscathed.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, staring up at him. “I’m sorry about...all of it.”
The very public death of my career wasn’t the only thing the two of us hadn’t talked about. There was another subject, a far darker subject that we had taken great care to avoid.
Threats and blackmail weren’t the only ways Mitchell had found to hurt his son.
It was quite possibly the only thing in the world that we had neglected to discuss at dinner the previous night. And after having fallen asleep in the man’s arms, it was quite possibly the single greatest tragedy I could imagine.
Nick looked away, purposely avoiding my eyes.
“It’s not your fault. Of all the people involved in this twisted situation, you are the only one—Abby—who is entirely without blame.”
“That’s not true,” I said fiercely. “You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.”
He lifted his eyes and gazed down at me—suddenly looking years older than he was. A sad smile played about his lips, and he brushed a cluster of bubbles away from my eyes.
“That’s a very kind assessment,” he answered softly. “But I’m not sure if it’s true.”
We took the rest of our shower in silence—our playful mood vanishing in a heartbeat, as suddenly, neither one of us knew what to say. The second we were finished, Nick snapped off the water and handed me a towel.
I watched out of the corner of my eye, as he dried off quickly and headed to the bedroom to dress for the party. There wasn’t a shred of emotion on his face as he went robotically through the motions. Just the resigned steadiness of a man who had long ago admitted defeat.
I stepped out of the steam and into the cold with a silent sigh.
Maybe I had been wrong earlier—when I said that I was the one who could never really walk away. Mitchell wasn’t my father. Maybe it was the other way around.
Chapter 13
AS WAS USUAL, NICK only needed a moment or two alone to compose himself. To get that mischievous smile back on his face, and make sure it stayed there—no matter the cost. By the time I joined him in the bedroom, wrapped snugly in a towel, he was already recharged, revitalized, and up to his usual tricks.
The dress that I had laid out for the party—the white one I’d bought the previous day at Barneys—was nowhere in sight. Its empty hanger hung lonely from the door frame. The sole witness to a crime of fashion committed without remorse.
I stared at it for a moment, then slowly turned to look at the perpetrator.
“...Nick?”
He glanced innocently my way, adjusting his cufflinks all the while.