Jesse drew up to his full height, still prodding at his nose. It looked thoroughly broken, the skin around it tinged in a green, sickly coloring. Blood ran in spatters down his scrubs. “You can push all you want,” he told her. “But I’m not ready. We move forward now, and you won’t survive.”
He left without a look back at either of them, reversing over the curb as he peeled backward out of the driveway. The moment he was gone, Thomas turned to face her. The skin of his right knuckle was split open, the bone out of joint.
“What did he mean?” There was a hard edge in his voice. “He saidyou won’t survive. What does that mean?”
Your hand is swelling.
“I don’t care about my hand.”
We should ice it.
“I don’tcareabout my hand, Vivienne. I want you to answer the question.”
She swallowed a breath. What if she did? What if she confessed? What if she told him every ugly little thing she’d done? What would he think? What would he say?
It was a dangerous game to play. She knew exactly how it would go—he’d run and tell Philip, and then everything she’d worked for would be ruined. He was only in this for the money. He’d made that perfectly clear.
Losing her nerve, she signed,I’m going to get you ice.
“Vivienne—”
She turned and headed away from him—up the stairs stacked with potted topiaries, through the wide doors glazed in frosted glass, down the wide, empty hall of endless eggshell white. Thomas kept pace with her all the way, his silence as vast and as dark as a thunderhead.
Neither of them breached the quiet until they’d reached the kitchen. He waited as she fished one of her mother’s migraine masks out of the freezer and folded it over his fist. He hissed when it touched his knuckles but stayed otherwise still.
“What’s his name?”
The question was deceptively casual. She focused on icing his hand and didn’t answer.
“I’ll find out on my own,” he said. “You know I will, so you might as well tell me now.”
She pried up the mask and peered beneath.Your pinkie looks broken.
“I want a name, Vivienne,” he said. “You have until the count of five.”
Or what?
“One,” he said, in lieu of an answer. “Two.Three.” His phone rang in his pocket. He silenced it. “Four. F—”
The ringing started anew. Vivienne dove for his phone, letting the mask drop to the floor as she fished it out from his pocket. She answered it before he could snatch it away, setting it on speaker.
Instantly, a girl chirped, “Tommy? What the hell, I’ve been calling you all day.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been occupied.”
“Yeah, I bet pole dancing is a really booming business,” said the girl on the other end. “Mom has been on my case to call you. She wants to know if you’ll be home for your birthday.”
“I don’t know yet.” He eyed Vivienne meaningfully. “I’ll have to call you back.”
The girl didn’t appear to have heard him. “You only get one birthday a year. Do we have to have cake without you? I’ll eat it all, and you know that gives me a stomachache. Do you want me to have a stomachache, Tommy?”
“Now’s not a great time, Tess.”
There was a pause. Then, “Oh my God. Oh. My.God.Do you have a girl there with you? You absolutely have a girl there with you. I can hear it in your voice.Tommy!Do you have agirlfriend? And you didn’t tell me and Mom? No, wait—” From the speaker, there came a huge, air-sucking gasp. “Is shepaying you?”
“Yes,” said Thomas, and hung up without a goodbye.
Easing the phone out of Vivienne’s hand, he slid it back into his pocket. “You don’t have to cooperate,” he said in a voice that sliced her open, “but Iwillfigure out who that was.”
