Silence.
“Tyler!” I finally snapped, at wits’ end.
He must have heard the murder in my voice because he actually answered me. “Since Cordy’s dinner.”
That was weeks and weeks ago.
And I hadn’t noticed because he’d conveniently hidden them behind his gym bag.
“Why’d you buy them?” I said in a small voice.
He sighed, the next words spoken low, like he didn’t want to say them. “I read that you have to eat at regular intervals, and saw how restricted the diet was, so I bought them in case we got stuck in traffic or something and you didn’t have anything else on you.”
I finally turned back around in my seat.
He glanced over as we passed beneath another light, eyes steely. “Don’t read into it. This is more about me than it is about you.”
“Isn’t it always?” I sniped, but regardless of why he bought them, I was grateful, because I needed to put something in my stomach.
I turned again and snagged some applesauce and crackers. Sounds of crinkling filled the car as I opened them. They weren’t my usual brands—these were organic—but the ingredient lists looked fine.
“What was your plan?” I asked, popping a cracker into my mouth.
Tyler’s forearm flexed as he squeezed the steering wheel, the only sign he’d heard me speak.
“With the employees,” I pressed, unwilling to let the conversation drop no matter how hard he tried to ignore me. “You were going to blackmail them, right? Force them to give you information?”
Silence.
I bounced a cracker off the side of his face.
He flinched sideways like I’d punched him, and shot me a look of warning. “Don’t do that again.”
“Then answer a question!”
“Why, so your brother will have more to give to the cops?”
“Does that mean he’s still alive and free to do that?”
His expression turned cagey.
My fingers curled as the urge to strangle him became unbearable. “Just fucking tell me.”
More silence.
“Pull over,” I said.
“Why? Are you carsick?”
“No. I want to slap you but recognize it’s not safe to do so while you’re driving.”
He shocked me by actually slowing down. And then pulling to the side of the road.
He hit his hazards and faced me. “Do it.”
I stared at him, hating that the rising sun had turned his skin golden, making him look angelic when I knew he’d been sent straight from hell to torture me. My hand shook with the urge to actually follow through. To pull back my arm and not just slap him, but punch him in the face, over and over again. This man had looked me in the eye while lying to me more times than I could count. He’d flirted with me, danced with me, forced me to parade him through my parents’ house, all while planning to burn the life they’d worked so hard for to the ground. I couldn’t even bring myself to think about all the other things we’d done together, or I might actually get sick.
“Do it, Stella,” he repeated, looking like he meant it, like hewanted it.
