When I’m with you, I can breathe again.
Nick could’ve said anything last night. Absolutely anything. But he’d chosenthat. The very same line from Gallant’s third letter, or a version of it. At the time, she’d shrugged it off, but now...
Her mind whirred. “Goddamnit,” she said to the ceiling, then jumped up and shed her coat.
Where was Gallant? She checked her watch. He’d left... wow, four minutes ago. Okay.
She stalked out to the living room, where a half-full glass of liquor sat on the coffee table, the ice barely melted. Flames flickered in the gas fireplace, mocking, and she swigged at the liquor. Hopefully, alcohol would loosen the ever-tighter winding of her nerves.
She replaced the glass and paced Gallant’s polished living room. The click of her heels seemed to tap out words.
When I’m with you, I can breathe again.
You know I can’t breathe without you.
Different enough, yet so very, very similar, and now, something else rose to niggle at her. Gallant’s screens, that night she’d gone into his office. Why would he write a letter on the computer first, andthenby hand? He hadn’t... copied those words from somewhere, had he?
Bile rose in her throat. No. Gallant wouldn’t do that. And yet the possibility sent out feelers in her mind, which spread like an infection.
Her stomach rocked. She glanced at her watch to find nine minutes had gone by. She cocked an ear, but no key grated in the lock.
She could sneak down to his office and peek. If she was wrong, she’d never doubt Gallant again. If not...
She swallowed.
Her heels clacked as she found her way to the hallway with the mirror. God, no wonder he’d asked if she was okay. She looked feral—shiny-eyed and feverish, like predator and prey rolled into one. She couldn’t even say which she felt more like.
Aubrey gave her reflection the finger and ducked into Gallant’s office. Across the room, the twin monitors glowed.
She held her breath and ventured close. When she jiggled the mouse, both screens blinked to life. The desktop wallpaper showed Gallant posing outside a palatial home. Maybe his first sale, or his most expensive. She didn’t particularly care.
She scanned the task bar at the bottom. No word processor, so he hadn’t been typing up a document to transcribe afterward. She brought up the browser, which offered her rows of listings on the MLS. Gallant had half a dozen tabs open, and she ran over them from left to right, landing on—
Her blood slowed to an ice-water trickle. Oh, no. No, no, no.
Nick Thacker’s Love-Letter-Writing Service.
With a shaking hand, she opened the tab, which brought her to a long message chain. She spun the mouse’s wheel, scrolling backward through the exchange.
Her tongue grew heavy enough to choke her, a useless chunk of rubber someone had stuffed into her mouth and left there. Oh god, not again. What the hell was it with this town?
Betrayal after betrayal after betrayal.
Her only consolation, this time, was that Nick hadn’t had the faintest clue. Then again, he hadn’t the last time, either.
With a cry of revulsion, she tossed the mouse aside. The thing clattered off the desk, dangling by its electronic tail. She stomped out, retrieved her coat from Gallant’s bedroom, and burst from the house, leaving the front door wide-open.
Fuck him. She hoped someone came in. She hoped they robbed him blind.
Just as she cleared the driveway, the Tesla jerked to a stop in the road. Gallant jumped out, a plastic shopping bag in hand. “Hey, where’re you going?”
She swallowed the fiery brick in her gut long enough to edge out a single word. “Home.”
He came around the car, his eyes wide, the bag rustling in his hand.
God, she’d comeso close. But now the handsome veneer peeled away, and she found herself face-to-face with the boy from high school all over again. The one she’d never even liked.
“Is everything okay?” He sounded bewildered. “What happened?”
