Sloane pulled her eyes off the silhouettes through the window and turned to face him. The twinkling lights overhead sparkled and danced in his unguarded eyes. And that was just it—Emmitt felt safe with her. He trusted her. Had she betrayed that trust entirely?
It was a dumb question. She was there incognito—on a secret mission he knew nothing about. Yes, she had betrayed his trust, but he would forgive her. They all would once they learned the truth about Anna.
“Yes?” she squeaked.
He secured both of her gloved hands, rubbing a thumb over the backs while releasing a slow breath through pursed lips. “I want you to know how much this means to me, to have you here. The fact that my family is getting to know you…it makes me happier than I’ve ever been.”
Sloane imagined a world where she had nothing to hide. A place where she could accept Emmitt and his family’s love without a thought to the case that brought her here. She could not imagine anything better.
She allowed the very thought to put a smile on her face and hoped it wasn’t tainted by the growing sorrow in her heart. A sorrow that said she was about to lose it all. “Me too,” she managed while pulling him in and tossing her arms around him. She squeezed him tight as his arms encircled her, overcome with a desperation to keep him in her grasp forever.
“This is the happiest I have ever been too,” she assured. “And it is all because of you.”
She sighed, knowing their world would soon take a drastic shift, one that would rob the family of one of their own. And that, Sloane realized with a fresh and stinging ache, was all because of her.
* * *
Sloane sat on the edge of the tub, hovered over her phone in a panic. She’d feigned a migraine the other night to get out of the salon day with Andie, Ty, and Betty. And if Sloane would have known what was good for her, she would have done that same thing today.
Coming to Andie and Trenton’s home, being surrounded by their incredible family and the sheer joy that radiated between them—that in itself had Sloane wishing with everything in her that she could unsend those pictures due to timing alone.
But add to that her interaction with Ava, who was Anna Fielding in the flesh, and Sloane was starting to see exactly how easily the Duran family had gotten lured into her story. Anna was soft natured, incredibly sweet, and intelligent too. Nothing about her seemed false or fabricated—traits Sloane usually detected with ease.
If she didn’t know better, Sloane would say that Anna was a genuinely loving woman with a sensitive soul and generous nature. She went out of her way to make Sloane feel comfortable, sharing a few embarrassing stories even, of when she was new to the inn as well.
The interaction had been just enough to raise a question Sloane hadn’t been willing to consider before: What if she was wrong?
The question was more than a gut punch. It was a mind blow too. It would mean that Sloane had been working for the enemy, that she had just, in fact, fed this woman to the wolf himself. A mere twenty minutes ago, in a moment of desperation, she had sent a text to Gabe asking if he could do something for her.
She glanced down at her phone and reread the thread.
Sloane:See if Anna Fielding ever filed a domestic violence report. It is urgent.
It was the type of search that would work best on one of their laptops, since she and Gabe had direct access to files that were generally hidden beneath layers of red tape. She had not been sure he’d respond right away. It was Christmas Eve after all, and the guy did like to party. But no more than thirty seconds went by before his response came in.
Gabe:On it.
Those two words caused a wave of nausea to rise like a relentless tide within her. But it was the following text that came in twenty agonizing minutes later that sent Sloane rushing for cover in the bathroom just a moment ago.
Gabe:You might be onto something.
Bouncing dots appeared in the open text box, which meant Gabe was about to send more.
The blade of dread was back in her gut, bigger and sharper than before. Sloane wasn’t sure she could handle it. Gabe’s text, as short as it might have been, already said it all. Anna’s story had merit.
Please, Lord, do not let me be wrong about this.
But that wasn’t a fair plea. Truth was not malleable. Something was either true or false. Fact or fiction. And Anna’s story…
Her phone let out a buzz.
Sloane focused on the image that popped into full and horrific view. Anna Fielding, her face red and swollen, her lip cut, and her eyes…one was so bad she could hardly open it. But even that could not mask the haunting look of despair in her gaze. She looked like an entirely different woman, as battered on the inside as she was on the out, but it was undeniablyher.
A sick chill coated Sloane’s skin as she stared at the evidence before her, a wave of nausea rising within.
A new text popped in below it.
Gabe:This thing got buried years ago after Anna refused to press charges. You think she was running for her life to escape him?
