That was the deal. Xavier watched from a distance. He’d swing through public events that made sense for someone of his stature in town to attend. He saw Jeremy in the café and sometimes at the park when he was younger. “He kept tabs on you. You never had sleepovers or visited his house, except for a community event here and there, but he’d see you.”
“You kept him away.” Jeremy’s voice grew louder but anger still hadn’t made a full appearance. He seemed too lost in confusion to settle on another emotion.
I had to. I knew things. Dangerous things.
“That was to protect both of us.” I inhaled but the punch ofoxygen didn’t help. Skip the particulars. Go with broad strokes. That was the only way through this that didn’t threaten the way Jeremy saw himself. “He enjoyed his ruthless reputation. Tried very hard to live up to it.”
Would anyone even notice if you were gone, Hanna?
Xavier repeated the line so often it imprinted on my brain.
He chipped away at my defenses and homed in on the hollowness I felt after losing Mom. At never having had a father. But—and this part sucked—I let him. “I bought into the man he wanted me to see.”
“Vague.” Jeremy continued before I could respond. “Did he hurt you?”
He’d asked the question a different way before. This way was harder to answer because the answer was yes. Definitely. When I figured out he messed with my birth control and had this disgusting bet with Patrick about which one of them would sleep with me first I was furious. Humiliated. Sickened by the sight of both of them.
It’s the nature of men, Hanna. We compete for beautiful women, plant our seed, dominate the gene pool to prove our strength and secure our dynasty. Patrick needed to understand where he stood. I showed him that he was weaker. Beneath me.
All of the negotiating I had to do. All the boundaries I had to draw. The threats I had to throw down. The dangerous game I had to play while I dodged land mine after land mine.
Jeremy didn’t need to know any of that. Hating Xavier wouldn’t serve Jeremy at all. He could build up this pretend, better-than-reality version of Xavier and miss him. The real version of Xavier didn’t deserve one minute of Jeremy’s time.
“Not physically, no.”
Jeremy was smart enough not to ask the next question. The obvious one. And I was grateful. One day we could talk about the emotional devastation. Maybe. But not today.
He pushed off from the counter and headed back to the kitchen table, revealing the clock above the stove, ticking down the hour. I’d had no idea how much time had passed since I sat by that fountain at Xavier’s house. The outline of a few stray tree branches showed in the darkness outside the window over the sink.
“I’ll install the house’s alarm system tomorrow morning. We should have put it in when we did the one for the business a few years ago.” He grabbed the boxes and his car keys and headed for the front door. “I’ll be downstairs.”
Hunkered down in the office. Away from me. Message received.
A knockout punch of sadness made the muscles in my knees give out. I grabbed on to the nearest chair and held on while exhaustion flooded through me. Through the hazy mix of bad memories and new fears, I kept my focus on Jeremy and what he needed, which sounded like space. “There’s food in the fridge down there. Daniela wrote out the cooking and heating directions.”
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. Didn’t turn around. “I can’t imagine what would be so bad that would make you decide it was better to go it alone with a newborn, not take a ton of money or live in the security of that big house.”
“I know.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Will you tell me? Not tonight, obviously, but soon.”
“We’ll keep talking about what happened. About Xavier. About what his death will mean for you. About the trust and that house and the money.”
Jeremy nodded, then left without pushing past my nonanswer.
Disaster avoided.
He deserved to know some pieces. Others might destroy him—how I got pregnant, why I stayed in Sleepy Hollow, why Xavier didn’t take me to court and demand custody or steal Jeremy away. So many secrets.
How would I tell the most damning one? The one I figured out and it changed everything.
Xavier did kill his wife.
Chapter Thirty-One
Stella
Mom walked around in a daze. Arriving at Xavier’s house in time to see the forensic team take away the body bag sent her into a dead faint. I couldn’t blame her. The display shifted the attention to her but, for once, her shock and agitation hadn’t grown out of a pulsing need for drama. We’d last walked across that same sacred ground together picking flowers for Xavier’s service, not knowing we were treading across the bones of missing family.
