Aubrey shot me a smile. A chilling,I know what you didsmile.
My heartbeat took off on another wild race. My knees buckled. A quick grab of the table’s edge kept me on my feet. I wasn’t forty yet but inching closer. I guessed this was how a stroke felt. That, or a mental breakdown.
My brain refused to operate with any speed or efficiency. Aubrey likely wanted me that way. Unprepared. Vulnerable. Exposed. Kudos to her because she’d achieved exactly that.
But one thing, one person, shook me out of my stupor. Jeremy. I needed him out of here. Away from her. “Hon, why don’t you go back—”
“We knew each other when you were a little kid. Not even in kindergarten,” she said.
“Okay.” He sounded more confused than okay.
“My name is Aubrey.” She extended her hand to him. Showed off her perfectly manicured nails, painted the color of chocolate milk. “Aubrey Tanner.”
Jeremy froze mid-handshake.
The reaction only made Aubrey’s smile bigger. More terrifying.
She nodded. “Yes, that Aubrey Tanner.”
I tried to form words. Any words.
Jeremy’s gaze shot from Aubrey to me. He looked as puzzled as I felt. I wanted the awkward meeting over with but that wouldn’t happen until Aubrey decided it could end. She was the one in charge and she knew it.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Jeremy stumbled a bit over the words but got them out.
For once, I wished his manners sucked.
“Are you moving back to Sleepy Hollow?” Jeremy asked.
Holy crap. Please say no.
Aubrey looked in control and so above all of this. “That would be interesting.”
I wasn’t in the mood for cryptic bullshit or this visit... or her.
“I wanted to stop in and say hello, but I have some other people to see,” she said.
Jeremy nodded as if he didn’t know what else to do.
That made two of us.
Aubrey stared at me for a few fraught seconds. The sharp intensity of her expression scared the hell out of me.
She winked. “I’ll see you soon, Hanna.”
Chapter Four
Stella
Lukas Grange, the one person I both dreaded seeing and ached to see. He was also the first person I called after the most unsettling morning of my life. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen we once shared. The conservative navy suit did nothing to tame his sandy-blond hair and no-worries surfer look. Interesting for a guy born on the East Coast and raised by the staff at a prestigious private boarding school while his parents attended to their busy business lives and overactive social calendars overseas.
Today actually qualified as my second worst day ever. Funny how Lukas starred prominently in both.
He spent a few seconds hovering, judging, before he nodded in the direction of my hand. “How many of those have you had?”
My third glass of wine. I’d downed the first two after I stormed in the front door and dropped my coat on the hallway floor. “One and don’t judge me.”
He made a big show of looking at his watch. “It’s a little after noon.”
