“He gave it to Akia,” I bite out. “Right?”
“It’s not that simple. I believe, thanks to your email, you’ve opened new doors for yourself. We’ll have a lot to discuss this week.”
“But Akia got the auditorium job and the raise that goes with it?”
“Yes. But I managed to keep your pay the same. That’s what I’m telling you. We have more to discuss. I promise.”
“He still took what was mine.”
“Yes, but—”
At some point I’ve entered the bookstore in a blur and walked up the stairs toward my loft. When I spy not one but two big boxes with a red ribbon, I stop dead in my tracks, aware Kara is saying something, but I have no idea what. “I need to go right now, Kara. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I do what I would never, ever do another time. I hang up on her.
I’m angry, the kind of anger I don’t know as my own.
I unlock my door, open it, and grab the boxes. When they’re on the island again, I am out of control. I set my purse down and dare to dial Adam. The minute he answers, I say, “I’m done. You’re done. No more packages. No more games. No more gifts. I’m done.” I don’t give him time to reply. I hang up on him.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Present ...
Rain suffocates me, and a roar of thunder is followed by a flash of lightning, a flash that illuminates the features of the man standing above me. I can see him; I can see his face. He is no one I know, but it doesn’t matter, not with what I’ve discovered, what I now know as the truth buried beneath the atrocity of lies. I know everything now. Everything. Adrenaline surges through me, and I scramble backward in the midst of mud and slush, then rotate and push to my feet. Somehow I manage to place one foot in front of the other, to actually run, but my back is to the stranger. I’m a target, and I expect that at any moment I will be dead. A bullet will pierce my skull or my back. Or the stranger’s big body will topple mine, and hands will find my throat, choking the life out of me.
Any minute now I am certain I will be dead.
This is always where the story ends.
This was always going to be my ending.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The past ...
Adam calls me back immediately. I don’t answer. I decline the call. He doesn’t try again.
I’m not sure what that means, but I don’t care right now.
Energy consumes me, and none of it is good energy, either. It cuts, it slices, it has me shifting, pacing, uncontrollably moving here and there, and all around. Some might call this pacing, but it’s more than simply pacing. There is no straight line. There is no place I can zig or zag where I feel settled and stable. Kevin is dead. My father is walking right back into the quicksand ofLion’s Den, and it’s going to swallow him this time, suffocate him. It might even end him. My mother—well, my mother is my mother. Always stuck on the numbers on the page, not the people behind those numbers.
And then, of course, there is me, the biggest fool of us all.
I’m captive to a crazy stalker, and I allowed it to happen.
I was foolish enough to actually think this good-looking, successful man saw me, really saw me, and was interested.No.No, that is simply untrue. I’m still invisible. That’s why I lost my auditorium job, not because I screwed up the presentation. Akia is charismatic. He can meet a person one time and they are enamored with him. I stood at that podium, and while I thought I was seen as a foolish girl, I was as Ialways am—the Invisible Girl. My work didn’t matter. My words didn’t matter. Even my parents aren’t seeing me, hearing me. My father of all people has gone dark on me.
The boxes with the big red ribbons catch my attention, and anger burns in my belly. Is he trying to buy me? Seduce me with money and gifts? And if so, why? Why is he doing this? I walk to the counter, grabbing one box and then the next, ripping away the red ribbons. I find clothes and shoes—Gucci, Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent among the labels. Three total outfits, all outrageously expensive. No one spends this kind of money on someone if he plans to walk away. Adam is not going away.
My fingers tangle in my hair, and I scream in frustration, literally scream. Loud music begins to blast from the bookstore below, and I eye the window. It’s dark outside. My God, I didn’t come straight home from the meeting. I don’t even rememberwhatI did. Where I went. I force my mind to calm and retrace my steps.
I walked home. No, I amend. I walked and walked before I came home, trying to calm myself. I check my call log and realize now that Kara called me at nearly seven. The meeting was at four. Why didn’t Adam call me until then? And Jesskeptcalling me. Jack called me, too, a total of five times. I check the current time. It’s now eight at night. Hours have passed me in a wave of everything wrong—and nothing right.
A new text hits my phone from Jess:Call me now or I’m coming over. Even Jack called me worried about you.
Damn it, shewillcome over.
I don’t want to see her right now.
I punch her call button and she answers with, “Mia? What the hell is going on? You had us all worried.”
