She nodded.
“I’ll take it downstairs.”
“Thanks.”
“For what it’s worth, if I could have seen into the future, I would have done something to change your trajectory.You wouldn’t have landed here if I could have helped it.”
“Hayden had made a joke the night before I married Dominic that he was going to pull the fire alarm right before the I do’s.”She half-laughed.“Not that a hiccup like that would have kept Dominic from getting what he wanted.”
“Well, I didn’t even go to your wedding.I don’t know what that says about me.”
How horrible had she been to wish the man she’d always dreamed of would attend her wedding to another man?Everyone she’d ever known had been there.Everyone Dominic had met, done business with, or had hoped to had been there.The night had been a spectacle.She never should have walked down the aisle, but at that point had been too scared to unwind herself from the mess.
“Why weren’t you there?”
Callum rested his hand on the doorknob for a long moment before he turned around.
“You could see the future dumpster fire that was my life.”She let out a heavy breath and shook her head.“You don’t have to say it.”
He just watched her.She kept waiting for him to agree, for him to pity her all over again.
“I didn’t want to watch one of the kindest, most beautiful women I’ve ever known walk toward a man who didn’t appreciate a thing about her.”
Chapter Nine
Callumhadsaidtoomuch.
Hours had passed since the sweep team had made quick work of Alicia’s house, inspecting around Callum, the two women, and three wary animals.Hours had passed since he’d walked out of Grace’s bedroom after an honest moment.He had said nothing that wasn’t true.But he had said nothing that would build her trust in him.
Nope.He’d left them both with the same question: Why had he said that?
At least the rest of the one-on-one time before his moment of oversharing had gone well.Definitely awkward, but fruitful.She’d produced every name and location that Dean needed.
Other than that, Grace had not had much to say, and he couldn’t get a read on her.She ran hot and cold, defiant and quiet.The conversations swung back and forth, and he was questioning whether it was in Grace’s best interest for Vivian to replace him.
Then again, there was no way in hell that anyone on his team would be the one to protect her.That reaction alone was enough of a problem that he needed to recuse himself from this assignment, but he couldn’t.She pulled him in like a moth to a flame.
The grandfather clock struck ten in the living room as Alicia and Grace cheered, sliding the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place.
“Finished?”he asked.
Stretching her back, Alicia preened.“That has to be a world record.”
Grace immediately dismantled the puzzle.Nothing stayed put in her life for long.
He wanted her to linger.He wanted to catch up, but that would only be more of the questions he’d run her through earlier.Those had been clinical, procedural, and he wanted more depth.What she thought and why.Not as it related to keeping a low profile, but how or why she made decisions.Except that everything she did appeared to be only about hiding.
She worked.
She hid.
She moved.
She worked.
She hid.
What a crappy life.
