The house greeted her with silence. Nina ordered takeout, though she wasn’t hungry. She forced herself to eat at least a salad.
When the delivery arrived, she realized how strange it felt to have dinner alone. An odd emptiness, though maybe that was for the best. With Frank gone, life hadn’t changed much. Except now she was alone in this big house.
She chewed a piece of tomato slowly, set her fork down, then rose to wash her hands. She went to the cupboard. A can of cat food stood there. She took it, grabbed a small dish, and walked to the door.
The neighborhood stray—a ginger tom—should’ve been around somewhere.
She stepped outside into the cool night air, crouched by the fence, opened the can, and emptied it into the dish.
“Where are you, little one?” she murmured, glancing around. The cat had been hanging around for months. He’d come skinny and starving, but now he’d filled out nicely. Still, he refused to let her pet him. She’d even bought him a little house, but it remained empty.
Nina sighed—seemed he wasn’t coming tonight.
Then two polished shoes appeared right in front of her.
She froze. Her pulse jerked, her breath caught. Slowly, she lifted her head and her whole body went cold.
Jasper Garth.
Her blood turned to ice. How was he here? How did he get onto the property? Why hadn’t she heard his steps? What did he want?
A horrifying thought struck her: it was night, she was alone… he could do anything he wanted.
Nina jerked back, trying to stand, but her legs gave out and she slipped onto the cold, damp ground.
Jasper looked down at her calmly. In the darkness his eyes glinted with something sharp, unreadable. His face was emotionless.
She let out a strangled breath, scooting backward with shaking hands. He didn’t move—just extended a hand toward her.
She stared at it, frozen, not even considering taking it.
“Should we talk out here?” he asked, his voice low and even.“Or will you invite me inside?”
CHAPTER 19
She stared at him, and something inside her twisted painfully.
He was here. Real. Alive. The nightmare she’d buried decades ago standing right in front of her.
“Let’s go inside,” he said calmly, but there was an edge of authority in his tone that sent a shiver straight through her.
Nina stepped back, her heart lodged somewhere in her throat.
“No.”
Jasper looked at her the way an adult might look at a child throwing a tantrum—as if she had no right to tell him no.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Nina.”
She let out a bitter, shaky laugh.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing a man like you would say.”
She pushed herself up from the ground, still refusing to turn her back on him. Standing this close to him felt like being locked inside a cage with a predator. He’d shown up in the middle of the night—there was no universe where that meant anything good.
He knew her name.
Which meant he’d been pretending when he acted like he didn’t recognize her.
