Fair point.
Audrey turned to the side, eyes on her brother. “What does this mean? What happens now?”
“It means I need to talk to Beth. I have to see if she knows why Will Hobbs targeted Trevor,” I said. The words felt like acid, but they were the truth. “She might be our only hope in figuring out what the hell is going on.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alejandro
“Are you okay in there?” Audrey’s voice floated through the closed bathroom door.
I opened up and stepped out into my bedroom, shirtless, jeans riding low on my hips. “I thought I locked that.”
“You forgot,” she said, already halfway into my room like she owned the place. “And I opted not to knock.” She stopped a foot away from me. “How’s the wound?”
“Which one? The one on my back where that woman stabbed me multiple times?” I tapped a finger above my bandage. “Or this new one?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she erased the space between us, resting her hand flat against my chest, right over my heart.
My pec muscle involuntarily twitched beneath her touch. “My wounds don’t seem nearly as bad as yours must be.”
“My heart feels ripped out. Like it’s not even in there anymore. I feel numb. Is that normal?”
“You should never feel that way.” And now I was angry all over again at Mitch, and now at a real dead man—Will Hobbs—for making her feel this way.
She trailed her fingers down the center of my chest, soft and slow, like she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.
When she reached the ridges of my abs, she followed the line to the waistband of my jeans, teasing just above the edge of my boxers.
“Underwear.” Her voice was glass, fractured and on the verge of totally breaking. “We keep circling back to that topic.”
“Oh, we do, do we?” I rasped as she skated her finger along the band of my boxers, my abdominal muscles tensing at her touch.
I caught her wrist, halting her before things went somewhere they couldn’t go again.
“You’re in shock. That’s why you’re reaching for something else. But this isn’t what you want or need. Not now, at least.”
That call with Trevor changed things for them, didn’t it? It had to.
“Mitch would’ve never ended up marrying you had my ex not introduced Trevor to Will Hobbs.”
Her expression cracked, and I saw it hit her—the sting of hindsight.
“And then you and Trevor would still be married,” I added, voice rough. “Chase wouldn’t have been caught in all this. His family wouldn’t have been torn apart.”
“How do you know what happened in Afghanistan is why we ended up getting divorced? I told Ryder that, not you.”
I released her wrist and stepped around her, grabbing my shirt. “I saw it in your eyes on that call. His too.” I yanked the shirt over my head, the movement pulling at the wound in my side. “It’s not hard to figure out that kind of trauma screws with a person, especially when it was his decision to go in the first place.”
“Oh.” Her small voice had me turning around. “I know what you’re doing.”
I frowned. “And what’s that?”
“Pushing me away. Putting up walls.” Her voice trembled. “After that call, you regret what happened between us, don’t you?”
Yes. No.I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Right now, I only knew I needed to soldier forward and lock down my emotions for everyone’s benefit.
“He’s jealous of you, you know. Mitch.” She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, reminding me of when she’d lifted it to help me better see the pink lace between her legs. “He was fine with me going to Trevor’s after the break-in, because he knew nothing would happen between us. It was what he wanted, clearly. But those photos he sent of us were personal. They were a warning not to fall for you. A reminder I was his wife. Until death do us part.”
