Chapter 30
Xander
I should have gone with her.
Penelope got back to our suite in Singapore sort of dazed. She sat quietly for a few minutes before she told me everything.
“I’m sorry.” She turned the stemless wineglass in her hand before placing it down on the table in front of us. Wrapped in
a plush robe, her hair still wet, she leaned her head onto my shoulder and looked out at the city skyline. “I don’t know what
he knows, but he was smug.”
On the balcony of our suite, we watched the late-summer sunset as it painted the sky. It was our last night here and I had
planned to take her out, but she came back so stressed I figured she might prefer to unwind privately. So, we ordered room
service.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I insisted.
After she told me what happened, I suggested she take a bath to relax, and I resisted the urge to join her, knowing that was
probably the last thing she needed. After that, we settled out on the balcony.
“I thought about calling Sloan,” she admitted, sitting back up and turning to me. The horizon blazed with tangerine and coral
hues, casting a golden glow along the curve of her cheek. “But outside of some ambiguous threat against us, I didn’t have
details. He’s probably bluffing.”
Us. That had to be the first time she referred to everyone who cared for her in Manhattan as us .
My heart leapt.
“Probably best not to call Sloan,” I teased softly. “Why release the Kraken if you don’t have to?”
For the first time since she got back, her sadness snapped open with a deep and joyful laugh. A long one. Her body shook,
and she leaned into me.
My entire world stopped when she did that.
When she laughed.
It reminded me of that night in her kitchen after the Hightower party. When a loud, unfettered laugh burst out of Penelope.
It bounced around her sparsely decorated kitchen and resonated in my mind at all hours. The memory played back like a movie.
Leaning against Penelope’s kitchen counter, I had just finished telling her the story of how Sloan set me on fire, literally.
On fire. To this day she claimed it was an accident.
“That did not happen.” Penelope leaned forward in her seat, resting her elbows on the countertop as a few final giggles made
their way out of her.
“Sloan claims it was an accident.” I chuckled.
“Sloan Amari is many things. Accidental pyromaniac was not one I was expecting.”
“Allegedly accidental.”
She giggled again. My heart surged at the sound of it.
Penelope’s laughter quieted and she took another large sip of whiskey. She was drinking faster than I’d ever seen her before.
When I stopped her at the entrance of the party, Penelope looked like she was thinking a thousand things a second. Instead
of going inside to the event, I suggested a drink. She pointed out that it was New Year’s Eve and every bar in town was probably
overflowing. So we ended up at her place.
“Jeez, slow down.” I moved the empty glass a few inches further from her on the counter. “Something wrong?”
“Family thing,” she said with a deep sigh, her shoulder slumped, and the strap of her yellow gown slipped down it. “What’s that Tolstoy quote? All happy families are similar, but unhappy ones are unique.”
Her face was a little rosy and her temperament a little less than buttoned-up. She was relaxed, vulnerable even.
“Yeah, something like that.” I reached out and slipped the strap back up her shoulder.
Our eyes caught for a moment before she looked back at her drink.
“From what Sloan’s told me, it sounds like you had wonderful parents.”
I did. They were there for everything. Every practice. Every game. Every achievement, even the ones Marcus and I didn’t think
were worth celebrating. They celebrated them.
I nodded.
“What do you do when your family may not be worth having?” She reached down the counter, grabbed her glass, and finished the
last bit.
“Make a new one.”
She turned to me; a melancholy smile tugged at her cheek. The delicate lines along the column of her throat shifted with a
hard swallow.
With a deep breath, she sat up and refilled her glass and mine even though I hadn’t finished my first drink yet.
“What about you?” she asked, shaking her head slightly. “What has you upset?”
“Nothing,” I assured her.
I saw Reina earlier that night. The only woman I’ve ever loved... thought I loved. The ghost of our relationship haunted
me for years. And while seeing her tonight wasn’t fun, for the first time, I felt nothing for Reina.
The loud burst of laughter that popped out of Penelope earlier was helping me realize why.
I stared, unable to look away. “Nothing important, anyway.”
Penelope’s head nuzzling into my neck pulled me from the memory of that night.
“I thought she might be able to help. You know Sloan, Miss Fix-it,” she said after a long pause.
Penelope yawned and began to quietly explain her plans for the upcoming week, like saying her day-to-day schedule helped calm
her down.
She drifted to sleep on my shoulder and the reality of Silas’s threat settled in.
Concern lodged firmly in my chest. For years, Sloan and Tristan sort of acted like a cleanup crew for me when I spun out.
There was plenty to see if someone could dig it up. And if they could find all of my sordid past, they could find CeCe’s past,
which was just as colorful. Or, maybe, figure out how it was that we were so effective at hiding our scandals: the close proximity
to the American political dynasty that was the Alders family.
Or Silas could find nothing, since Sloan and Tristan were meticulous when they cleaned things up, and maybe this was nothing.
Either way, we were leaving Singapore a lot more tangled than we arrived.
***
Penelope
The next morning, after a week in Singapore, we boarded the jet to return to Manhattan.
I stopped on the last few steps up while boarding and turned to take a last look at Singapore. I hadn’t really decided when
I’d be back. Now that I’d met all the terms for my inheritance, all I needed to do was run out the clock and deal with whatever
hell Silas had in store.
In a little less than a year, I’d have everything I wanted when I started this. Problem solved. Yet, anxiety scratched at my heart.
Before we left the hotel, I called Arabella. She assured me she was fine. The call was short, but it was nice to hear her
confirm it.
“Are you okay?” Xander pressed a kiss on my head when I stopped.
I nodded and continued my way into the jet. He’d been absolutely wonderful since I got back from seeing Arabella yesterday.
But something was weighing on him. His eyes flickered occasionally, adrift in thought.
Once we were settled on the plane and it completed its ascent, the flight attendant made her way to us. “Can I get you anything,
Mrs. Sutton?”
He was still looking down at his phone, awaiting something, but a smile curved across Xander’s mouth.
I turned my ring around my finger.
“No, thank you,” I told her.
She politely excused herself to the galley and shut the door behind her, leaving us to our seclusion.
“Are you alright?” I watched as his eyes moved around the phone he was staring at.
“Herrera.” Xander looked up, running a hand through his hair. “I want to get the deal with him and Dawn Capital done before
anything...”
“Before Silas uses whatever he knows.” Guilt constricted my chest. “I’m sorry.”
He took my hand and stroked the back with his thumb. “Look, there are things about the past—”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I interrupted, gently stroking his knee.
“I know,” he whispered, leaning forward and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I want to.”