She swallows without hesitation, not even flinching at the burn. Interesting.
I kneel in front of her and reach for her hands. She pulls back instinctively.
“Let me see.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended.
She extends her hands slowly, palms up. The scrapes are ugly, peppered with debris that needs to come out before infection sets in. I grab antiseptic wipes and tweezers from the kit.
“This is going to hurt,” I warn her.
“Everything already hurts.” Her voice is raw from crying.
I start cleaning the worst scrapes, pulling out bits of gravel and dirt while she hisses through her teeth. To her credit, she doesn’t pull away.
“Tell me what happened,” I say while I work. “The whole story.”
She takes a shaky breath. “I went skiing with Kai earlier. It was nice. Good, actually. He’s fun.”
I nod, using a clean wipe on her other palm.
“When I got back to my room…” She trails off, and I can see her throat working. “Logan was there. With Chelsea. They were—they didn’t even hear me come in.”
“How long have you known?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral.
“That he was sleeping with her specifically? Today. But I’ve caught him cheating four other times with different women.” She laughs, but it’s bitter. “I kept staying because I thought—I don’t know what I thought. That he’d change.”
Bullshit. She’s lying, or at least not telling the whole truth. Nobody stays through five instances of cheating because they think the guy will change. There’s another reason. A better one.
But I don’t push. Not yet.
“And you came here how?” I move to her knee, carefully cutting away the torn denim to expose the wound underneath.
“I just started walking. It was snowing hard, and I wasn’t paying attention. I hit ice and fell.” She winces as I clean the deeper cut on her knee. “Fell right into that tunnel. I didn’t know where I was, so I just kept walking until I found…”
“My private wing.” I finish bandaging her knee and sit back on my heels, looking up at her. “This area isn’t on any of the estate maps. It’s separate from the main house for a reason.”
“I’m sorry for intruding.”
“Don’t be.” I stand and extend my hand to help her up. “You’re welcome here. More welcome than my son deserves to be, apparently.”
She takes my hand and lets me pull her to her feet. She’s unsteady, favoring her injured knee, and I slide an arm around her waist to keep her upright.
She smells like snow and blood and something floral underneath. Her body is warm against my side despite the freezing tunnel she just crawled through.
“Come on,” I say, guiding her toward the door. “You’re not staying in that room tonight.”
I take her down the hall to one of the guest suites in my private wing. It’s smaller than the rooms in the main house but more comfortable. King-sized bed with down blankets. Gas fireplace already lit. Attached bathroom stocked with everything she might need.
“Stay here tonight,” I tell her, helping her sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ll have someone bring food and medication for the pain.”
“Grant—” She looks up at me. “Thank you. You didn’t have to?—”
“Yes, I did.” I cut her off. “Get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
I leave before she can argue and pull out my phone to text the head housekeeper. Within minutes, I know there’ll be food, water, and proper pain medication delivered to her room.
Now I need to deal with my idiot son.
I find Logan in his room, phone pressed to his ear, laughing at something.
