Chapter 21
The sky outside is a vibrant orange, and I'm setting the table.
She has been at it for an hour, preparing fresh bread in a bowl, a single candle lit, a linen napkin folded in a way I don't have a word for. She is in a dress — soft, dark, and green that catches the light when she moves.
I cross the kitchen and put my hand on her waist from behind. I kiss the side of her neck.
She leans back into me.
"What are you doing?"
"Distracting you."
"I have three more things to do."
"They can wait."
"You are impossible."
I turn her around and kiss her properly. Her hand comes up to my jaw. The kitchen disappears for a long second.
"We can finish this tonight after dinner."
"Or we can do this now and later too."
The kiss deepens. Somebody has to pull back. She does, eventually. She taps me once on the hip.
"Finish up." She swats me.
I go.
The shower is supposed to be five minutes.
She comes in three. The shower turns into something neither of us planned, and we barely make it out in time to dress.
I’m at the bedroom mirror, finishing the second cuff of a shirt I picked because she likes the way it sits at the wrist when the doorbell rings.
She laughs from the foyer.
"I've got it."
I hear her bare feet on the hardwood.
I straighten the collar and walk out of the bedroom.
She has just opened the door.
Her back is to me.
The man on the other side is in his 30s. He is in a charcoal suit with a thin tie. He is holding a bouquet of white flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, smiling.
Adrian Maddox.
The world stops for one second, then starts again somewhere else.
I have spent months thinking about this man. I have spent months arranging Marisol's surveillance around him, telling myself he was a problem I would handle when he gave me reason.
He is in my foyer.
He has flowers.
He has wine.
He is smiling at the woman who lives in my house, and he is wearing the small, careful expression of a man who has known for three weeks that this exact second was going to happen, and who has been driving toward it the whole time.
Suzanne is saying something — welcoming him and stepping back. Adrian is crossing the threshold. He is handing her the flowers. He is thanking her for the invitation. His eyes have found me.
His smile does not change.
His eyebrows go up in a small, performed surprise.
"Cade, well, what a coincidence." He lifts the wine half an inch in greeting. "I had no idea — Suzanne and I have, of course, met for some weeks. We have not — I had not realized her boyfriend was — "
He mimes a small apologetic bow that is also, somehow, a dare.
I don’t hear the rest of it.
"Get out of my house."
Suzanne turns. She looks at me, then at Adrian.
Her attention swings back to me. "Cade."
"Get out."
"Cade, calm — "
"Don't tell me to calm down."
I don’t raise my voice.
I don’t have to.
The room has gone quiet, and Adrian has not moved. Suzanne has the bouquet in one hand.
I look at Adrian.
"Get. Out."
Adrian doesn’t move fast. He keeps the smile and turns to Suzanne, who has not put the flowers down. He gives her the small apologetic look of someone who is being unjustly removed from an invite he had every right to attend.
"I’m terribly sorry to have caused any awkwardness. I will, of course, leave you both to your evening. I had no idea."
He hands her the wine, and she takes it.
"I'll walk you out."
"Suzanne — "
"I'll walk him out, Cade."
She takes Adrian's elbow gently and walks him into the hallway.
The door closes behind them.
I’m alone in the foyer.
I can hear their voices through the door, muffled and low. I can hear that he is being gracious. I can hear her voice — apologetic and confused.
She is smoothing it over for the rep she thinks she has just humiliated.
I have to hold myself still.
I have a list of things I want to do, and none of them will help.
I put my hand on the wall and my forehead against it. I count to ten under my breath, and I don't move.
I count to twenty…to thirty.
I think about my hand at the back of Adrian's neck. I think about the punch in the service hallway with Brandt and how clean it was and how good it felt to know it had landed before my mind had caught up to my arm.
I don’t move. The woman I love is on the other side of the door, making the wrong man feel better about a situation she doesn’t understand, and anything I do in this foyer in the next sixty seconds will make her job harder.
The door opens.
She comes back in.
She is furious. She is still holding the bottle and the flowers. She sets them both down on the foyer table without looking at them.
She closes the door behind her.
"Cade."
"You are not working with that man."
"What?"
"You are not working with him. End of story."
Her face changes. "I thought we were going to talk about this."
"There is nothing to talk about. It's not happening."
She stares at me.
She goes through several reactions in real time and discards most of them. She lands on the calm one, which is worse than the angry one would have been. The angry one I could fight with. The calm one is the one she uses when she has decided the conversation is going somewhere I'm not yet aware of.
"I have spent a lot of time meeting with that man, Cade.
I have vetted him. I have looked at his roster.
I have read the contract. I have sent it to a lawyer I chose.
I have done the work. I have been telling you the entire time that this was my career and my decision.
And now you are standing in your own foyer telling me no. "
"Suzanne — "
"Help me understand, Cade."
I take a breath.
"He's Adrian Maddox. He's the son of Henrik Maddox."
She looks at me.
"From the Maddox acquisition. His father owns a company I bought when I was twenty-three.
He has been the threat behind why I was cuffed in the hotel, the woman at the bar, the theft from the safe, the flowers, the painting, the man I have been telling Marisol to keep an eye on since the morning you rescued me from the bed. "
She doesn’t move.
"He has been orchestrating it for years, Suzanne. He approached you because you are mine and because the easiest way to get to me at this point is through you."
I watch her face process. She is quiet for a long moment.
"Does he know?"
"What?"
"Does he know what actually happened with his father? Does he know why you bought the company?"
"I'm not sure."
"Cade."
"I don't think so. I don't — "
"You have to tell him."
"No."
"Cade, yes."
"He's not going to know anything because you're not working with him. He is a problem I’m going to handle. He doesn’t need to be told a goddamn thing."
She looks at me.
She isn’t angry anymore. She has moved past anger. She is somewhere I have not seen her be.
"It's me and you against them, Cade."
"What?"
"Me and you against them. Not me and you against each other."
"Suzanne — "
"I have been meeting this man halfway for weeks. I made compromises for you. I'm trying. You have to meet me halfway."
"Suzanne, the man tried to ruin me and drugged me at a bar. I’m not going to — "
"That is the problem. You didn’t want to talk just now. You were fine overriding me. You did it the moment he walked in the door. You did not want to explain."
I open my mouth.
"You never told me his name, Cade. You told me about his father. You told me about the acquisition. You told me he existed. You never told me his name."
I have nothing. I’m standing in my own foyer and the woman I love is telling me a true thing, and I have no defense.
"Suzanne, I'm sorry."
"I can't keep waiting for you to trust me, Cade. I'm exhausted."
She turns and walks to the bedroom.
I follow her.
She is pulling the duffel from the closet. She is putting things in it — the pajamas she wore last night, a sweater of hers that has been on the chair by the window since Tuesday, the sketchbook from the nightstand.
I stand in the doorway.
I watch her pack.
She does not take the locket.
I'm trying to find the words to say.
"Suzanne."
"Don't."
"You don't have to do this."
"I do."
"I'll tell him."
She doesn’t turn around.
"I'll tell him, Suzanne. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll go to him. I'll tell him the whole thing. I'll do whatever you want."
"You're saying that now because I'm leaving."
"That is not — "
"You're saying it because the door is in your hand, not because you decided it was right. You decided it was right when I started to pack."
"Suzanne."
She zips the duffel and walks past me.
I follow her.
She is at the front door, putting on her coat and reaching for the handle.
"Suzanne."
She stops.
She does not turn around.
I take a breath.
"I love you."
The words are out before I knew I was going to say them.
I have not said them. I have not said them once in any room and place. I have said every other word a man can say. I have said "I want you" and "I need you" and everything else, but I have not said the one that mattered.
I have said it now in the foyer, into her back, with her hand on the door.
She is silent for one long second.
"That's still not enough, Cade."
She opens the door and walks out.
The door closes behind her.
I stand in the foyer and don't move.
I watch the door, waiting for it to open, waiting for her to walk back in.
The wine bottle is on the table where she set it down. The bouquet of white flowers is beside it. The wrapping is still on the bouquet. The card is still tucked into the wrapping.
I stand there for ten minutes.
I sit down on the floor with my back against the wall. I look at the door, and I don't move.
The door does not open.