“Do you want Ryder to be the one to interrupt? He will if you two don’t ...”
She was still talking.
Maybe?
I stopped listening.
She was now the bane of my existence, because my girl was still kissing me like she needed me to survive. Maybe we were both jet-lagged and delirious. But so be it.
“Beth lied,” Hollis declared, revealing an ugly truth I should have seen coming five miles and one gunshot wound away.
My mouth went still and Audrey froze against me, her foot finding the floor as I let go of her thigh.
Then, slowly, as one, we turned to the woman who’d intruded.
Hollis’s eyes narrowed as she looked directly at Audrey. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t Mitch who forced Beth to set up the meeting between Trevor and Will Hobbs at the ball. And it wasn’t Mitch who sent Trevor off to die.”
Chapter Fifty
Audrey
“Everything we thought we knew is wrong,” Hollis dropped on us before leaving us alone.
“This doesn’t make sense.” I followed Alejandro into the bedroom as he grabbed a clean shirt from his bag, leaving his wound undressed for now.
Once his shirt was on, he gently took my arm, guiding me to face him. “Whatever we learn out there, whatever goes down ... I got you. Right here, right now. We’ll get through this together.” He palmed my cheek with his free hand. “Even if it’s all been smoke and mirrors,” he continued, voice tight with emotion, “this—what’s between us—like you said,isreal.”
He leaned forward and kissed my temple like he’d done in the bathroom not too long ago.
“No one, dead or alive, can take that away. So regardless of what we hear out there, focus on that if the floor feels like it’s falling out from under us.”
Chills coasted over my arms, and he gently smoothed the pad of his thumb over my skin as if he could chase the shivers away. Maybe he could. He wasn’t just offering to be my anchor in the storm; he was sayingwewere the anchor. Together we could get through anything,and I had no clue how he’d said exactly what I didn’t know I needed to hear, but he was spot on.
I wasn’t in this alone.
We were in this together.
He brought his hand from my cheek to beneath my chin, tipping my head up so my eyes locked with his. “I’ve got you. Whatever the truth is ... I’m not going to let anyone hurt you or your family, and that includes Trevor.”
He was telling me he accepted Trevor as part of the family, which may not have been that easy to say. But it meant the world to me that he had.
He slanted his mouth over mine for a soft kiss, then stepped away. “Ready?”
“Areyouready?” My forehead creased, unease slicing through me.
He exhaled and went for the door, then stole a look over his shoulder at me. “I was so blinded by my hate for Mitch I lost sight of the truth right in front of me.”
“And that is?”
“That Beth only cares about Beth, and my entire life with her was a lie. She manipulated me.” He shook his head as if disappointed with himself. “And I actually thought maybe she was changing. Searching for redemption.” He faced forward again and opened the door.
“It’s not your fault.” I came up behind him. “And we’re all on the Mitch-hating train, and it’s still possible we’re notwrongwrong. Mitch is probably tied to all this somehow.” But then Hollis’s parting words came back to haunt me. “Guess we’re about to find out the truth, though.”
Alejandro stepped aside to allow me out first, then he followed me over to where Ryder and Hollis were standing by the desk, laptop open with Gwen on the screen.
Ryder looked up at me. “You’re going to want to sit for this. The both of you.” He gestured to two nearby chairs.
“I’d rather stand,” Alejandro commented.
