Chapter 3
DUNCAN
My visit to the hospital tonight has one purpose and one purpose only.
To satisfy my curiosity.
Unlike the past ten years, tonight I’m not here to question why Elowyn never looked for me. Or how easily she accepted my disappearance. How her silence wounded me.
Now I have to figure out why she hasn’t replied to my—aka The Restorer’s—offer. We both know she needs the money. Badly.
Still, it’s been a week, and she still hasn’t texted the number I left on the invitation.
I don’t get it.
I mean, it would make sense if she knew who I was.
She doesn’t.
She doesn’t even know that once she says yes, I plan to get back at her.
And man, do I ever.
Breaking her comes first.
Seduction will follow when she’s at her most vulnerable. I’ll humiliate her. I’ll pleasure her. Make her want me despite herself.
Even after eleven years of celibacy, I can do that.
If I listen. If I watch. If I learn her body.
I’ll ruin her by waiting until she’s as attached to me as I once was to her.
Then I’ll tell her to leave. To never come back.
Give her a taste of her own medicine.
Barclay will get his later. Unlike Elowyn, he’ll bleed. He’ll hurt much worse than he does today. While I can’t and won’t ever beat Elowyn, I have no problem making her brother bleed.
But I can’t start until she accepts my offer.
So the question remains. Why hasn’t she?
She should have. I know better than most how it feels to have your life ripped away from you.
During the two years after I left Cobbledale, my world was turned upside down. While I waited for Elowyn to find me, I hid out in New Jersey, surviving on busboy tips and the small life insurance payout my parents left behind.
I kept hoping I’d hear from her eventually, so I worked myself raw.
Started building a future that included Elowyn, one where I could actually provide for her.
With no high school diploma, I had to think outside the box, so I ended up fixing things the way my parents did. Thrift-store artwork instead of cars.
Every day my old phone stayed silent, my heart took another hit.
Eventually, I got tired of staring at that black screen. Got fed up with hoping.
After two years of her choosing silence, I chose something else—becoming a monster.
Once I gained a reputation as The Restorer and money began rolling in, I worked harder than ever. I sharpened my mind, made smart investments, and turned myself into a millionaire.
The money I’ve accumulated is a weapon now.
Or it would be, if only she’d say yes.
This woman I don’t miss.
The one I definitely don’t love.
I’m just stalking her to get my answers.
With the hood of my sweatshirt pulled low, I linger in a dark corner of the hall. From my hiding place, I watch Elowyn mop the stretch of floor outside the triage area, the one spot in the hospital I’ve haunted for the past few months.
But today, unlike before, I look closer. Maybe I’ve been missing something. Maybe she’s happy here.
It’s not impossible. I haven’t been here too many times. So if she has friends here, they could be what’s keeping her tethered to this life. Like my parents, for example, whose modest income never mattered as long as they got to work side by side.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Elowyn.
Same as always, patients and their families pass her by without a second glance. Doctors and nurses barely acknowledge her existence.
And it isn’t just the way she’s ignored. It’s the hollow look in her eyes that’s impossible to miss.
The sluggish movements, somehow slower and more pained than ever, are so unlike her.
Back then, when I was grieving my parents, watching her move with ease and grace, even after everything she’d been through, felt like staring at a rainbow. A burst of color against gray clouds.
Not anymore.
She doesn’t joke or smile at anyone either.
It’s like someone turned off the lights inside her.
I’m supposed to be satisfied with that. Her, being a wallflower here, with the jerk of a brother waiting for her at home. She should be more willing—and soon—to pull away from all this if that’s the case.
Nothing about this feels even remotely good. Sadness overtakes me, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
Without friends, here or at Cobbledale, according to my PI, she could use someone on her side.
That someone was supposed to be me. She should’ve been my wife, and she isn’t.
Thought you didn’t want her as your wife anymore.
You bet your ass I don’t, I answer the taunting voice in my head.
I hate it. Whenever it starts blabbering, I’m reminded of what a fool I’d been. A delusional one.
All the smiles, the attention, the promises—lies.
When it mattered most, she didn’t choose me.
“Look how well that panned out for you,” I mutter.
“You say something?” a teenage boy asks. His green eyes are red-rimmed, his brown hair slick with grease. “Need help?”
“No.” My voice is low to avoid detection.
“You sure? I can get a nurse. There’s one over at my dad’s room right now. It’ll just take a minute, and…” he keeps rambling, talking loudly.
A woman across the hall glances up from her magazine, squinting in our direction.
The next pair of eyes could be Elowyn’s.
If she spots me now, she’ll start connecting the dots. The invitation, the timing, my sudden reappearance. It’ll be too much to be a coincidence.
Unacceptable.
When we finally meet, it’ll be on my terms. I can’t lose my leverage. The mystery. The fear of the unknown that I’ll instill in her heart.
That’s the plan, anyway. Problem is, this kid—this well-meaning idiot—is about to ruin everything.
“I’m fine,” I cut in, then walk off before anyone else can look too closely.
My feet aim for the exit, and I almost make it there.
Almost.
Something inside me turns the wheel. An infuriatingly insistent force, the kind that’s lived in my bones since I was seventeen, nudges me down a different hallway.
By the time I realize where I’m heading, I’m already halfway to the staff locker rooms.
Her locker number, her code, my PI dug them up a couple of weeks ago. I memorized both, even as I told myself I wouldn’t need them. That the next time I saw her would be in my home.
Good thing I did, because here I fucking am, staring at the door to the locker room.
The handle is loose from overuse. At least it doesn’t squeak when I swipe the keycard my PI duplicated for me.
A quick sweep of the space confirms it’s empty. I take that as my cue to step inside and start looking for her locker.
Then what? No clue. I guess it’s one of those things I’ll know when I see it.
When I find her locker, my body thrums. Need pulses through me.
Pathetic. In a matter of seconds, I’ve become desperate for a piece of the woman who doesn’t give a damn about me.
I push the pointless thoughts aside, running my thumb along the dial, turning it through the combination and…click.
The lock gives in with one quick, effortless shift.
I wrench the locker open and—
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper when her scent hits me.
The sweet vanilla fragrance is a gut punch. It’s a slap to the face.
It’s one memory toppling over another.
“No.” My shoulders tense, my eyes squeezing shut. “Never again.”
A few deep inhales, and I’m back to myself, more composed once I open my eyes.
Lucidity and ice-cold resolve slither through my veins. Air filters into my lungs. I’m able to focus.
Able to see just how impersonal her locker is.
My brow furrows as I scan it.
She’s been working here for months, yet no photos or anything of hers are pinned to the inside of the locker or its door. Nothing to remind her of who she’s grinding for.
My chest twists. Heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach.
Shaking my head, I get to it and start digging around.
A tan coat hangs inside on a hanger, above a neatly folded change of clothes near the front. From where I’m standing, I see a plain pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt in that pile. Two extra uniforms lie on top of it.
I don’t bother going through her clothes. Her bag is far more interesting. It’s slouched in the corner, and I snatch it, rummaging through the contents.
Inside, Elowyn carries the bare minimum. A handful of bills and a credit card in her wallet, one water bottle, and keys.
But what has the vein in my throat pulsing isn’t what’s inside.
It’s what isn’t.
Fucking Barclay.
She commutes late at night, busts her ass twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
For him.
The least he could do is make sure his own sister carries pepper spray.
My breathing grows labored. Fist locking around the strap of Elowyn’s bag.
A sharp pain slashes across my temples, alerting me I’m losing my shit over her.
Someone I hate.
Someone who couldn’t care less if I lived or died.
“Fuck that.”
The bag lands with a loud thump as I throw it back into the locker.
I’m about to slam the door and get the hell out of here when something stops me in my tracks.
A feeling. That same incessant nagging from earlier.
Any second now, someone could walk in, I’m aware.
Still, as I curse under my breath, I listen to my instincts and go through the pile of clothes.
What I find there is a pair of pink cotton panties, folded into a neat little square.
Just the sight of it, and the pressure in my jeans becomes unbearable. Because protecting her modesty like that, I can only assume she hasn’t let anyone else see them. Some part of her has been untouched, I can sense it.
Maybe all of her.
Maybe she never let anyone touch her because she was waiting for me.
Ridiculous. She stopped caring a long time ago.
It shouldn’t matter either way.
Except…
My heart pumps even more blood to my groin. Precum dampens the tip of my cock.
I pocket the panties that I’ll put to good use tonight, slip out of the hospital, then slide into my black SUV and peel out of the parking lot.
Blending through the light traffic, I head toward the highway. Toward the home I moved into right after Barclay’s trial. Thirty minutes up the road, there’s an old estate that offers a view of the Hudson River. Of the people who killed the boy I once was.
While I drive, thoughts filter in. The worst kind. Like how I don’t really give a fuck about her panties. How I worry about how lonely she is. How lifeless.
The need to shield her and forget that anything bad ever happened between us isn’t just strong anymore. It’s destructive. It’ll ruin my plans.
I drag a hand through my hair, rough enough to hurt.
Confusion and anger swirl in my chest and…seriously, what the fuck?
Damn her. Damn the universe for making my heart beat twice as fast for her.
I’m fucking spiraling, and I can’t afford that. Not before I get what I’m owed.
Time to speed things up. Give Elowyn the shove she doesn’t want, but needs.
I thumb my county’s contact number and dial.
He answers on the second ring.
“Hold on.” In the background, old floorboards creak as he must step out of his bedroom to take the call. “Hello?”
“Raymond,” I say, voice calm.
“The Restorer.” He recognizes me instantly, even though my number comes up as unknown.
“Need a favor.”
“Anything,” he blurts out. “Say the word, and I’ll make it happen.”
“This family, the Montgomerys.” Wasting no time, I rattle out their address as I merge onto the highway. “My source tells me they’re late on their semiannual taxes.”
“You want me to help them out? Freeze the payments, cut the interest? Whatever it is, I got you.”
His eagerness doesn’t surprise me. After all, I restored a miniature portrait Raymond’s grandmother had painted. When a pipe burst and flooded his mother’s house, every painting was soaked beyond repair except that one.
He said the payment I’d asked for didn’t feel like enough.
Today, he’ll learn what else he can give me.
“No.” Elowyn’s panties burn a hole through my jeans. A reminder of what I lost. What I never had to begin with. “Expedite the eviction.”
“Consider it done.” The speed of his reply is infuriating.
Even though I’m the one benefiting from his corruption, bile creeps up my throat.
Hard not to, when I remember that Barclay’s wealth and status once meant that, at the drop of a hat, he could’ve had me locked up for good.
I bite down on the urge to call Raymond every name in the book. Telling him he’s a dirty piece of shit would get me nowhere.
“I’ll flag it for the next docket and handle it through my channels,” he blabbers, completely unaware of my mounting anger. “You want me to keep you updated?”
“What I want is for it to be ready by tomorrow night.” Her legs spread, and her mouth framed around the word please. I want that even more. “And a text when the notice is pinned on their gate. From you, personally. Don’t involve anyone else unless absolutely necessary.”
“Will do.” He clears his throat. “I—um, on another subject. My mother, she can’t stop talking about your work. Asked me to thank you in person. Since we’re friends now, could you drop by for dinner?”
Friends. Ha.
I haven’t had any for years. No one will be in a position to exploit me ever again.
“I’ll have to pass, but…” Deep breath. Got to play this game like the rest of these assholes do. “Next time she needs any artwork restored, it’s on me.”
“Oh, that’s—thank you.”
Before the call can slip into personal territory, I hang up.
Calm settles over me as I press my foot to the gas and push my SUV for all it’s worth.
There’s no turning back. Like it or not, Elowyn will accept my offer.