Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
ADAM
“ I said, what are you doing here?” I growl.
Isabelle’s brown eyes are as wide as saucers. She bites her lip, glancing down at the computer, then back up at me. “I thought you were in bed.”
I’m speechless for a moment. How is that an explanation for what she’s doing here? Does she think that justifies invading my personal space? “And that gives you permission to come into my office? The ONE place I told you not to go?” I point at the security camera in the corner of the ceiling. “I get an alert whenever someone is in here. Now I’ll ask one more time, what are you doing here?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “I couldn’t sleep. So I was going to read in the library, but this door was cracked open, and…” Her voice trails off and she shrugs.
My mind is spinning. The things she could have seen and done in here…it’s my biggest fear.
She’s going to expose all my secrets, selling them to the highest bidder.
“Who are you really?” I ask, my voice rising. “A lawyer? A member of the paparazzi? Someone from Tristan Jackson’s team?”
She furrows her brow. “No. You know that.”
“You’re going through my computer!” I shout, taking quick steps over to her. “The information you had access to…” I shake my head. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”
“My father is your manager,” she says slowly. “You trust him, don’t you? Besides, you’re the one who said I needed to come up here.”
I’m standing just a few feet away from her now. “Maybe Jim set me up. Everyone has their secrets.”
“Not me!” She rushes over to me, closing the gap between us. Her face lights with indignation. “I swear to you, I had no malicious intention. I haven’t slept for the last three nights, and I’m starting to go crazy. I just wanted to go to the library, and I accidentally knocked over the glass rose, and I bumped into the desk and?—”
“You knocked over the rose?!” I can’t help the panic that rises in my voice, and I run around her to the shelf, where my mother’s prized glass rose sits safely on the shelf. What kind of story is Isabelle inventing? I pick up the rose, inspecting it for damages, then turn back to her. “It looks fine to me.”
“I caught it in time!” she insists. The moonlight from the window illuminates her face just enough that I can see angry tears glistening in her eyes. “You don’t believe me?”
“How could I? You come here just in time to get snowed in, you’ve been asking all kinds of personal questions about my family, and now I find you in my private office looking at sensitive documents. What am I supposed to think?” I grunt in frustration. “You need to get out of here. Now.”
Her jaw sets, and her eyes are on fire. She stands in place for another moment, then says, “If you want to know the truth, then watch the recording. ”
“What?”
She points up at the camera. “Watch me in here. You’ll be able to see that I’m telling the truth.” She turns on her heel and rushes out of the room. I wouldn’t be surprised if a fireball was hurled at me in the process.
I run a hand through my long hair, furious at myself for leaving the door cracked open. For trusting her. For letting her stay here, keeping her fed and warm, when all she wanted to do was expose my secrets.
And they’re not just my secrets.
She could completely ruin Lily, after everything I’ve done to keep my sister safe.
I glance at the computer screen, a document sent to me from Bethany. It’s exactly what everyone is dying to know. An explanation of how Tristan dropped the assault lawsuit against me in exchange for my silence about our financial ties and what he did to Lily.
In a way, I’d love for it all to come out. For Tristan to be exposed. But I don’t want Lily to suffer the consequences. The media’s attention on her would be unrelenting, and she’s too fragile for that.
I sit at the desk, turning the glass rose in my hands. It looks perfect, which makes me doubt her story of dropping it even more. But, then again, she told me to watch the recording.
I set the rose down on the table and click around on the computer until I find the folder with tonight’s footage in this room. It takes a few minutes to find the right moment, but eventually I see her enter the room.
She was right; the door was cracked open. I watch her take a few steps into the room, slowly turning her head and looking around. She doesn’t rush to the computer, but she seems to be taking her time, observing her surroundings. The first thing she notices are the pictures hanging on the wall of me and my siblings. She pauses at each one, tilting her head to look more closely. Then she goes back to my picture and touches her fingers to my face.
Instinctively, I put my hand on my cheek, right where she placed her fingers, and feel my scar.
She murmurs something to the picture that I can’t quite hear. Then she turns and walks toward the shelf of trinkets. She looks up and down at the various memorabilia my family collected over the years, including the glass rose my mother brought home for me from Paris.
“So you never forget the things we love,” she had said.
And one year later, she was gone.
Just as Isabelle claimed, I watch her touch the rose, which sends it flying off the shelf. My heart leaps, but Isabelle catches it in time, bumping her rear end against the desk.
“Cheese and rice!” she exclaims, rubbing her sore spot, and I smile despite myself.
Her gaze shifts to the desk. “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” she says, rushing to the computer. This must be when she realizes that the screen is on.
“What are you doing here?” I hear my own voice, barely two seconds later, low and menacing. Even I’m startled by it. I listen to our conversation, finally able to admit that I was wrong in accusing her so quickly of having ulterior motives. Not that she cowered in fear, though. She held her ground, just like Lionel said she would.
I haven’t gone toe-to-toe with someone like her in years.
But again, she was in my office. Trespassing and disobeying the one rule I made while she was here. I’ve given her everything she could ask for, and she still snuck in.
I’ve seen enough. I pause the video, contemplating my next move. My eyes drift to the family photo below my computer monitor, and my thoughts drift to my mother. What would she want me to do?
Yes, Isabelle was in the wrong. But she’s going to be here for some time more. Even if the storm stops, we have to wait for the snow to melt before she’ll be able to drive back down the mountain. I don’t want to spend the next few days miserable, feeling guilty for the way I treated her.
With a sigh, I set the rose safely back on the shelf of trinkets. I should apologize, as much as I don’t want to. I exit the office and head over to her room. She said something about not sleeping, so I doubt she’s asleep right now.
I knock on her door three times and wait patiently. Nothing. I knock again. Still nothing.
“Isabelle?” I say through the door, hoping my voice sounds less aggressive than in the video. “I’d like to speak with you.”
Still nothing.
I try again. “Isabelle?”
“Mr. Stone?” Lionel’s voice sounds from the hallway, his wiry frame dressed in a robe and holding a candle for light. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” I reply, my voice clipped. “Isabelle was in my office and we got into a disagreement. I wanted to speak with her.”
“Sir, she just left.”
“Left?” I repeat. “What do you mean?”
“The front door opened. I received an alert on the system.”
Where could she even go? It’s still snowing, and her car can’t make it down the mountain. I know from experience how easy it is to get lost in this forest in the snow.
My vision fills with the memory of someone else who nearly died out there. I can still feel her tiny body shaking in my arms. I can’t let that happen again.
“Get my coat and my snowshoes,” I say to Lionel. “I’ll go find her.”