Chapter 10
NOLAN
What the hell? Nolan wrote a heartfelt apology, and Alexa responded with…
a question about a monastic winery? He’d hoped she might be sorry for lying, regretful that she’d disappeared for almost a decade, but no.
He got this. And of course he already knew about the winery on Saint-Honorat—winemaking was his job, after all—and he’d always wanted to visit the place, but that would involve having both the money and the time to do so.
Neither seemed likely to happen any time soon.
Especially if Alexa was going to send random facts rather than an update on his broken laptop.
Although…hadn’t he said he missed the random facts?
Was that what this was? An attempt to turn back the clock to the good old days?
Because without an apology, Nolan wasn’t sure he could ignore what came between, not after he’d spent years riddled with guilt and regrets.
Guilt about leaving, but also guilt for the way he’d been starting to feel about Alexa when he thought she was older.
He should have seen the lie.
Should have fucking seen it.
Although even now, she still looked like a high-schooler.
Did she expect a response?
Nolan was standing in the winery building, staring down at the phone, when it rang. Brax was calling.
“I’ve sent Crystal’s case of Syrah,” Nolan told him, “but I might have gotten behind with the tracking numbers. They’re on an email somewhere.”
“I thought Alexa came to fix everything?”
“She didn’t, not yet.”
“She didn’t show up?”
“No, she didn’t fix everything. She lent me another laptop to use in the meantime, but admin isn’t my strong suit.”
Not since Lisanne left. She’d kept Nolan in line and helped out with the accounting.
And the marketing. And the scheduling. Then she’d left, and there wasn’t enough money in the budget to replace her, not after she sabotaged the business in a fit of anger after their last fight.
Thanks to several awards and word of mouth, sales were going great guns again, but everything else had slipped even before the ransomware incident.
“Don’t worry about Crystal’s gift—it arrived. I was just calling to say thank you and order another case for Lorella. She’s based at the DC club.”
By “club,” Brax meant one of the private members’ clubs he’d started with his share of Alexa’s ill-gotten gains.
And by “private members’ clubs,” he meant sex clubs.
Oh, sure, they had restaurants and spa facilities and business centres, but no one was going to Nyx for the fancy food.
The chain catered to celebrities, politicians, even royalty, anyone with something to lose who valued discretion and was willing to pay for it.
Which included shelling out five hundred bucks a bottle for Dionysus’s wine.
“We definitely have Zinfandel, but I’ll need to check on the Syrah.”
“Your stock system isn’t working either?”
“I put everything into a spreadsheet, but I’m behind with matching up the orders.”
“What’s taking Alexa so long? She’s a certifiable genius.”
“Don’t you mean ‘certified’?”
“I said what I said, and she was there over a month ago.”
“Who knows?”
“She hasn’t been giving you updates?”
“She’s messaged me once since she left, and that was to tell me about the monks who make wine on Saint-Honorat.”
“That’s weird.”
“Right. And I think she’s been tampering with my interior designer’s website.”
“That sounds more like Alexa. Is your designer a woman?”
“Yes?”
“Figures.”
“Why does it figure?”
“Because of the crush Alexa’s always had on you. It stands to reason that she’d be jealous of a woman who’s spending time at your place, especially—”
“Wait a second, back up. What crush?”
“You didn’t know?”
No, at least not until right at the end.
And even then, Nolan figured it was the stress of the situation that made her say all that stuff.
She knew she’d lied about her age, and she knew CPS was preparing to cart her off to foster care, and she thought begging him to leave town with her would somehow fix things.
As if they needed a statewide manhunt on top of all the other shit going on.
Then she’d left, just vanished into the ether, and there was no manhunt, no Amber Alert, nothing. Nolan never had worked out how she’d managed to erase her presence so completely.
“I treated her like a little sister.”
“I’m not suggesting there was anything inappropriate going on. Didn’t you ever have a teenage crush?”
“Yes, but on Dana Hanson.” Who was firstly a movie star, and secondly ten years older than Nolan. “That’s totally different.”
“Same concept, though. But that’s the past—Alexa’s older now. Whether she’s wiser is debatable, but she’s definitely an adult.”
“She doesn’t look like one.”
“Ah, that fresh-faced innocence. If she worked in one of my clubs, she’d make a fortune.”
“The fuck she’d work in one of your clubs,” Nolan snapped. “Over my dead body.”
“There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The rabid defence of Alexa. Some things never change.”
“I am not rabid.”
“Buddy, you are when it comes to her. Every time she did something questionable, you took her side, in between making her breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and running her errands.”
“I didn’t always take her side. Remember the time she sent Bryan Walker a fake active shooter alert? She went too far with that one, and I told her so.”
Bryan, their former next-door neighbour, had been an ornery jerk with a hearing problem, and no matter how many times they asked him, he refused to turn down the thumping bass that emanated from his house at all hours of the day and night.
Eventually, Alexa had taken matters into her own hands, and while Bryan hared off to his teenage daughter’s high school, Jerry had meandered into his home through the open garage and filled his speakers with superglue.
Both Alexa and Jerry had been totally unrepentant, even after the panic triggered Bryan’s asthma and he ended up in the hospital.
“Yes, that was absolutely wrong,” Brax said. “But also a hell of a lot quieter afterward.”
“Right. I threw away my earplugs.”
Because Bryan had medical bills to pay, so he hadn’t been able to afford new speakers for another year. He’d finally bought another set a month before Ruby’s death, and Nolan would always wonder if they might have heard her screams if it hadn’t been for that fucking music.
“Did you know the Walkers’ home burned down?” Brax asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Three months after the trial. Justin told me about it. Apparently, the fire started due to an electrical fault in a speaker.”
“Damn.”
“And the Walkers’ insurance policy had lapsed. Now Bryan lives in a trailer park near Charlottesville, alone, seeing as his wife divorced him.”
“Good for her.”
“Agreed. But none of that changes the fact that you always stuck up for Alexa.”
Nolan gritted his teeth. “She was misunderstood.”
“A psychiatrist could make an entire career out of studying Alexa Stone, or Alexandria Rockwell, or whatever her name is.”
Nolan stiffened. “Alexandria Rockwell?”
“I overheard a couple of the cops talking.”
“And you never thought to mention that at the time?”
There was a long pause. “She’s a walking menace, but like you, I still felt an obligation to protect her. And she clearly had her reasons for wanting to escape her past.”
Alexandria Rockwell. Nolan repeated the name in his head, trying it out. It sounded too…too distinguished for Alexa, although even when Dawson had ushered her in from the street, she’d still held herself with a quiet dignity. Alexandria Rockwell. Why had she created a whole new identity?
With Alexa in the wind again, Nolan resigned himself to never finding out.
But he did remember the quiet sobbing that came from her room at night.
The pain that flashed in her eyes at the mention of family.
Her fear of leaving the house.
And he decided he wouldn’t add to the burden, not even with the shadow of the past hanging over them. He couldn’t forget the lies, but ultimately, he had to decide whether he’d rather have a future with Alexa in it, however remotely, or without her.
“I’ll get back to you about the Syrah, okay?”
“The Zinfandel is fine.”
“Then I’ll send a case.”
“Nolan? Tread carefully around Alexa.”
“Because she’s still fragile?”
“Because if you step on her, I’m not sure whether she’ll break or lash out like a rattlesnake. Right now, she still shows the same loyalty she did in Blackstone House, and trust me when I say you don’t want that to change.”
An icy chill trickled down Nolan’s spine. People thought Alexa was cold, but there was fire behind those cool blue eyes, and he didn’t want to get burned.
Not again.
But Alexa still drew him like a moth to a flame, and when he hung up the phone, he typed out a message in her app.
Nolan
Monks preserved winemaking during the Dark Ages. In Europe, they kept viticulture alive through centuries of war and chaos, and without their work, Dionysus probably wouldn’t exist. I’ve seen videos of Saint-Honorat but never visited. Did you know there are also winemaking nuns?
Heaven help him, but he couldn’t sever that tie to Alexa, no matter how unhealthy it might be.