Then I’ll go to Bertram’s apartment. He’ll try to turn me away, but it doesn’t take much to catch him off guard. He can’t say no to me. Elodie is the one who pointed it out, the afternoon that we got lunch after meeting with Bertram.“You don’t come on too strong,”she’d told me.“Your sex appeal has softened edges, like a soap opera filter.”
I’m still trying to figure out whether that was a backhanded compliment.
I spent last night planning this part out, given that I couldn’t sleep after my argument with Waylen. I’ll take a softer approach—as a romantic prospect. He practically handed me this idea on a silver platter.
I’m drafting up a script in my head. How should I play it? Demure and sweet? Confident and cocky? Something to match his energy and reach the real Bertram, not the part he’s playing when he has someone to impress. If I get him vulnerable and soft, he’ll either open up and tell me the truth about Erin’s app and where Annie is, or he’ll show me his true colors. Either way, I’ll have him.
The screeching of tires echoes throughout the garage. I turn my head just in time to see a black Honda speeding toward me. Even the windows are tinted an impenetrable black.
There’s a phenomenon known as the deer-in-the-headlights look. Something is speeding toward you and you know that you’ll die if you don’t get out of its path. And yet, your feet won’t move.
I stand frozen on the gray concrete, smelling the exhaust and listening to the rev of the engine.Move, I hear my own mind screaming at me.
And then, suddenly, there’s a flash of light, movement,and I’m on the ground. Something crashed into me, but it wasn’t the car. I hear the squeal of its tires as it speeds down to a lower level and out of sight.
My heart is hammering in my chest. Hands grab me under the shoulders and hoist me to my feet, and when I look up, I’m staring into the infuriatingly pretty eyes of Bertram Casimir. His brow is furrowed in concern. “Are you all right?”
“Why is it that cars are always chasing me when you’re nearby?”
“Trouble always seems to find me even though I go out of my way to avoid it, and I can see you have the same problem,” he says. He has the sense to look chagrined. “Come on,” he says. “Get in your car. My driver will follow us out and make sure you’re okay.”
“What do you mean ‘us’?” I ask. “You can’t think I’m letting you intomycar after—well, everything.”
The rev of an engine on the lower parking level gives me a rapid change of heart. Whoever is trying to hit me is back, and I have more than a sneaking suspicion that Bertram can offer some insights into this situation. I barely give him time to buckle his seat belt before I throw the car in reverse and peel out of the spot. Mr. or Ms. Black Honda Civic is back and going full throttle.
I am fully aware that Mr. X has limited means of tracking me. He’s laid up in a hospital bed with nothing but the Find My app to follow my movements. He can do nothing if I find myself in hot water—which seems inevitable ever since meeting Bertram Casimir.
Bertram must have had me followed, the same way he did when he brought me to that strange picnic.
“Shit,” I mutter, as we approach the tollbooth at the exit. There’s a striped bar between us and the street.
“Go!” Bertram says.
“But—”
He reaches over and jams my knee down so that I’m forced to slam down when I tap the gas pedal, sending us careening forward. The striped bar snaps like a twig, and I wince at the metal crunch it makes against my paint job. Waylen is going to kill me, if whoever is pursuing us doesn’t get the privilege first.
I speed out into traffic, incurring the wrath of a dozen angry car horns. I blow through two red lights, relying on a wish and a prayer to avoid a collision. Somehow, Bertram’s driver keeps pace with me, acting as a buffer between us and whoever is chasing us down.
We’re five miles from the hospital before I glance in the rearview mirror to see that nobody else is following us. I let out a shaky breath. Beside me, Bertram is just a bittoocasual about what’s happened, as though being chased by a murderous stranger is a routine thing to happen at ten a.m. on a Tuesday. He directs me to get on the highway, southbound, in the lane that will eventually take us to New York.
Mr. X will see my location and wonder what the hell is going on. I’ll make up something when he inevitably calls. No need to worry him when he can’t help me anyway.
“Okay, what is happening?” I glance at Bertram, who is turned around in his seat and making sure his driver is still following us.
But if I was expecting an explanation, I had another thing coming.
“I warned you to stay out of my life,” he snaps. “But youcouldn’t stop meddling, and now you’ve made trouble for us both!”
“Meddling?” I cry. “I haven’t done anything. I was in the hospital visiting a friend.”
“You know what I mean.” His voice is low, not quite seething. “You’ve been all over the place asking about me. You went to one of the wedding venues I toured. You and that little friend of yours contacted my ex.”
“Elodie isnotmy friend. And anyway, no, I didn’t—”
“You’re lying.” He sounds less angry now. There’s something else on his face—the darkened eyes, the clenched jaw. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was afraid.It’s all an act, my logical mind tells me. This man is a murderer at worst, and a thief at best. Knowing my luck, he’s both. What could possibly scare someone like that?
I tamp down my argument and switch tactics. I decide to be sweet, a damsel in distress. Exactly his type. “Bertram.” I say his name gently. “I’m here with you. I’m doing what you’ve asked. I’m driving who even knows where, instead of going to work. You have to give me something. What’s going on?”
