Chapter 10
Kade
“That’s not the way you should talk to your mother,” I said as Leah was just about to walk out of the office.
I had Melissa in the other room waiting for me, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I felt more compelled to stay here and pick a fight with Leah. Why the hell was I bothering? It had nothing to do with me.
“My relationship with her is none of your business,” she shot back.
She was right; it wasn’t. And yet I still couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t leave this be. “If I have to sit and listen to you get fresh with a nice woman, it is.”
She spun, her gaze as sharp as the spear she probably wanted to stab me with right now. “Unless I’m trying to smuggle drugs onto your ranch, my relationships with anyone are none of your concern.”
Let her go. Let her leave.
I lost that mental battle and said, “Maybe you need to work on who you’ve grown up to be. Maybe that’s how you ended up here. You need to take some responsibility.”
“You have no idea the kind of responsibility I’ve taken or what I’ve done for the people I love, so stay out of it.”
And there it was, another glitch, a hint at something she was holding back.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What great deeds have you done that justify what you did?”
She stood there, silent, not showing an iota of guilt. How was this the girl I’d known? Could she really have changed that much in the last ten years? Nothing added up anymore, and I couldn’t let it go, ignore it, pretend it was lining up the way I used to.
“You’re right. I’m a horrible person.” She shrugged. “I’m going to go head back to my shed so I can think on all the wrongs I’ve done.” She turned toward the door.
“Leah.”
She kept walking.
“Leah!”
“What?” she snapped. She stopped but didn’t turn around to look at me.
“Is there something I need to know?” If there was, I needed her to tell me on a visceral level I couldn’t quite understand myself.
“No. I’m exactly the monster you think I am.” She walked out, leaving the door hanging wide open.
I stood there, staring after her, replaying every word in my head. There were too many wrong beats, whispers of something deeper going on. Hints that maybe the Leah I’d known was still there, even if I was chasing her away every single day she was here.
Melissa was waiting on the couch with a drink and a pout. I’d wanted her to leave the moment she arrived, and now having to be around her at all was making me think about giving up my house and sleeping in the barn. And why? Because she didn’t smell like strawberries and pineapple the way Leah did. Her hair wasn’t silky and soft like Leah’s. Her lips weren’t as full and rosy as Leah’s.
Even her voice as she said, “What took you so long?” sounded like a high-pitched squeal, as opposed to the soft sultriness of Leah’s voice.
I put a hand up when she motioned me toward the couch. “I’m really sorry, but I got an emergency work call. It’s something I have to go handle and it’s probably going to take me all night.”
“Oh no.” She got to her feet, heading toward me. “Is it something I can help with?”
I dodged out of her way. “No, it’s something I really need to focus on alone,” I said as she gaped at me. “You can sleep in my room and I’ll just grab my laptop and work in the guest bedroom.”
I grabbed my phone and laptop, heading away from her before she could try to follow.
I settled onto the bed, on alert for footsteps heading my way. While waiting, I searched the internet for the complete story of what had happened with Leah and this painting.
There was something off about the way she had tried to cut off her friend Cassie on the phone. She’d stopped looking my way and been fidgeting in her chair. They’d had an investigation. She’d been convicted. What did she not want me to hear? Was she involved in something larger that no one knew about? Had she done it for that boyfriend of hers who hadn’t bothered to answer the phone?
I scanned through all the articles I could find online.
Contractor discovers stolen painting while doing work in Upper East Side apartment
Mr. Alverdi was hired to hang a painting. He took a picture of the painting to send to his client while she was away, and later on that day, his wife saw and recognized the painting in the photo. Mr. Alverdi then reached out to his brother-in-law, who is an investigator with the NYPD.
Had I even thought about this for more than a second when I first read it? Whatever else someone might say about Leah, she wasn’t stupid, and only an idiot would do something like this. I’d followed her career, not that I’d ever admit it to anyone. She’d been associated with the highest-tier companies. She hadn’t risen to that level by making mistakes like this. Anyone with a brain wouldn’t have a stolen painting in their apartment while they were away with contractors coming and going. Nothing added up.
I tossed my phone on the bed next to me, getting in the shower instead of fixating on what was going on in her head. Maybe she’d been in a weird headspace. People got careless. She’d gotten cocky, probably.
I needed to stop thinking about her.
I should tell Melissa I’d cleared up my issue, drag her into the shower with me, and fuck Leah out of my mind. Except the thought of Melissa didn’t even make my dick so much as twitch. She wasn’t the one I wanted to press up against the wall and sink balls deep into. The one I wanted to fill my hands with.
I stepped out of the shower, the near-freezing water having done nothing at all for my emotional or physical state. I dropped down onto the bed and stared at the wall for all of two minutes before scrolling through my contacts to the one person I trusted to gather delicate information and be discreet. I had him listed as John, although that was an alias.
“Hey,” he answered.
“I need you to look into something for me.”
“Do you need to meet?”
If I’d called anyone else, they might’ve asked for specifics already. Not this guy. His phone had been bugged too many times for him to be throwing around details. Most of the people he worked with had a high likelihood of having their phone calls recorded as well.
“I don’t want to wait that long, and this should be easy enough to handle.” I wasn’t willing to wait for a meeting. I wanted answers now. “You know that situation I just got involved with?”
“Your royalty issue?”
I guess I’d called Leah “princess” enough times to him that it had registered.
“Yes. I think there’s something more going on, and I want to know what.” Had to know what if I wanted to evict her from my head.
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” he said. “I’ll give you a discount to dig into this one, because it’s actually piqued my interest.”
Those words unnerved me to my core. He didn’t even know Leah but thought something was wrong with this situation, too. And if I trusted anyone’s instincts, it was his.
“Keep your discount. Just get it done soon.”
“The people I need to reach out to aren’t going to come cheap, so you won’t think you got a discount anyway. As far as the rush job, not a problem.”
“Spend whatever you need.”
Typically this would be where we’d hang up. Me and “John” didn’t chat. We weren’t friends, but business acquaintances. I’d be stunned if he had any friends at all.
So when John didn’t hang up but asked, “So how’s it going over there?” I nearly fell off the bed.
“You want to know how it’s going?” I asked. “Is there something I should be aware of?”
“No, nothing like that. Just curious.”
John, who both sounded and looked like he rolled people into the gutters on a weekly occurrence, was interested in my domestic situation? Why did that not feel comforting?
“It’s fine,” I said. I couldn’t exactly tell him to butt out when I was asking him to dig around and I needed him. Little bit of a conflict there.
“So it’s going smoothly?” he asked, again sounding as if he knew something.
“Where is this sudden interest in my situation coming from?”
“I just find it interesting, is all.”
The only thing that had changed was Leah’s being here. “You’re referring to her presence?”
“Yeah, that.”
I shouldn’t ask. I should just hang up the phone now and not encourage this.
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. She seems interesting, spunky, kind of, and this whole ‘you don’t like her but you’re helping her’ situation has really caught my interest.” He sounded truly invested.
“Okay, well, there’s nothing interesting here to pay attention to.” Hopefully that would nix any further interest.
“No reason to get all up in arms about this. Just making conversation.”
John didn’t make conversation.
“Is your curiosity appeased?”
“Not really, but I guess it’ll have to be enough. Be in touch soon.”
Leah was starting to throw every aspect of my life into chaos.