Chapter Twenty-Five
Abigail
We didn't get home from the hospital until early afternoon. We were ushered into a curtained room as soon as we arrived—I sensed Jacob's influence there—and the police were both kind and patient.
Between a battery of tests to make sure we hadn't cracked our skulls or otherwise injured ourselves, and the procession of officers and detectives who wanted to talk to us, it was hours before we could leave.
Jacob stayed home long enough to share lunch before he disappeared with Cooper, reminding me not to leave the penthouse.
I understood that he wanted to get in on the action, and I knew him well enough to know all his instincts told him to lock me up tight where I was safe.
Honestly, I didn't want to be in on the action anyway, but being on my own gave me too much time to think.
After Jacob left, I took a shower. Unlike Jacob, I hadn't needed stitches. It was probably stupid to try to wash my hair.
The water and soap stung badly, bringing tears to my eyes, but I couldn't stand the dried blood caking my scalp any longer. I stood under the steamy spray, my mind blank, and let the hot water wash away the last twelve hours.
I was grateful Jacob had taken me to see my mother. She'd been so frail, as if she'd diminished in the weeks we'd been apart. She wasn't going to live much longer.
Maybe I should have felt some relief at that, both for her and for myself. I didn't. I couldn't. It was selfish, but I wanted her to stay with me longer, even if she didn't know me anymore. Even if she never opened her eyes again.
I pushed the thought away and got out of the shower, carefully squeezing water from my damp hair and wrapping myself in my fluffy cotton robe. My mother's fate was out of my hands, and what I wanted didn't matter. I had to think about my own fate.
Jacob had thrown our whole deal on its side, moving me into his bedroom, introducing me to his family, and taking care of me when I was sick. We hadn't agreed to any of that.
He'd told me he didn't want emotional complications, and maybe he was disciplined enough to do all those things with me and still feel nothing. I wasn't, not even close. If I took a minute to stop fooling myself, I'd admit I had feelings for Jacob.
A lot of feelings.
Too many feelings, not just love. I liked him. I enjoyed spending time with him, eating dinner with him, and seeing him when he came home from work every day.
Liking was bad enough. I wasn't supposed to like him. I was supposed to do my job—cook for him and be available for uncomplicated sex. That was it. Whether I liked him was irrelevant.
So how much worse was it that I was in love with him?
I hadn't wanted to fall in love. I'd known it was stupid, that it would only lead to heartbreak, and yet here I was, head over heels in love with Jacob Winters.
Normally, I don't like it when women play games—or men, for that matter. Game playing just made things more complicated. But in this case, our whole relationship had been a game, a business deal, really, but a business deal and a game weren't that different.
Emotional honesty had never been part of our agreement. In fact, the whole point of the agreement was to avoid emotions entirely, at least on Jacob's part.
I didn't know what he was playing at by moving me into his bedroom and introducing me to his family, but I did know it had to stop. I couldn't walk out on him. Not while I had my mother to worry about. But I could insist that he play by the rules he'd set up.
My stomach rolling with nausea at what I was about to do, I went to Jacob's closet and began to empty my side.
Clenching my teeth and ignoring the tears in my eyes, I walked back and forth, my arms filled with my clothes, until I'd erased all signs of my presence in the master suite.
Once that was done, and Jacob still wasn't home, I paced the penthouse, wondering what to do next. I knew there'd be a confrontation when he discovered I'd moved out of his room, and waiting for it was driving me crazy.
I ended up in his office, sitting behind his desk. It seemed it was my day for defying Jacob's wishes.
I wanted to see the picture again, and I couldn't very well ask him to show it to me. It hurt him too much to see it, and I wouldn't put him through that to appease my curiosity.
I tried his desk drawer and found it unlocked. He'd been distracted the last time he'd had the picture out and must've forgotten to secure it in his rush to leave his office and check on me.
I was pulling the envelope from the drawer when I saw it. An earring, a round, glowing pearl suspended from a diamond-encrusted ball.
My earring. I'd lost it at a charity ball over a year before. I'd looked everywhere for it, and its loss had led to a huge fight with John.
Why did Jacob have my earring?
If he'd found it, why hadn't he returned it? I set it on the desk and studied it. It was definitely my earring. It'd been custom-designed. There wasn't another like it.
I wanted to think it meant something, but I wasn't going there. I wasn't going to start spinning dreams based on an earring I'd found in his drawer.
I had too much at stake to risk any more of my heart than I already had. I couldn't help falling in love with Jacob, though I'd tried to stop myself. But that didn't mean I had to start having expectations. Hope.
I wasn't going to be that stupid. I placed the earring back in the drawer, nestling it between the pens where I'd found it. I was going to forget I'd ever seen it.
Resolved, I pulled the picture from the envelope and angled Jacob's desk lamp to throw light on the image, trying not to wince at the brutal scene it displayed. I'd originally thought it was a crime scene photograph, and it could've been. It's not like I'd seen a lot of those. Or any, ever.
But I would've expected a crime scene photograph to have some kind of date/time stamp. This picture had nothing like that. But it was definitely a photograph of the murder scene. So who had taken it? The press? Or the killer?
Gossip had called Jacob's aunt and uncle's death a murder/suicide. The police had ruled it a double murder, but unable to find any clues after a year, the case had been put on the back burner.
As far as I knew, they'd never had any idea what had really happened. If it had been a murder/suicide, then this picture would have to have been taken by a private party at the murder scene, probably a member of the press.
If it had been the media who took the photograph, it would've been splashed all over the news, and though I'd been young, I was sure I'd never seen it before. Not then, and not when everything was stirred back up the year Jacob's parents had died.
If it wasn't the press, it had to have been the killer. Why would the killer send this photograph to Jacob? Was he in danger? And why Jacob? Why not one of James and Anna Winters' children—Tate, Vance, Annalise, or Gabe?
Too many questions, and I wasn't going to ask any of them.
I wanted to know the answers, but I wasn't equipped to play amateur detective, and Cooper Sinclair and the police both had the picture.
They'd taken fingerprints, they'd copied it, they'd studied it.
They knew way more about the case than I did.
All I had was curiosity. Still, I examined every gruesome detail, looking for some hint as to why it had ended up in Jacob's apartment.
It took me a while to spot what was off in the photograph.
The tie on James Winters had been altered.
It had been done so subtly, I'd almost missed it, but someone had colored it blue.
At the sound of the front door opening, I jumped in my seat, rolling it backward and almost tipping it over.
"Going to change, be right there," Jacob called out.
Panic crackling through me, I shoved the photograph back in the envelope, slid it into the drawer, and closed it. The evidence safely hidden, I sat there frozen, waiting, knowing he was going to see the empty half of his closet when he went to change. He was going to be angry. Very angry.
It was one thing to exercise my defiance of his orders and move back into the guest room when he wasn't home. It was another to face the consequences of what I'd done.
I wasn't afraid he would hurt me. At least, not the way John would have. But this wasn't a playful error on my part, and I didn't think he would respond to this by spanking and making me come.
A few seconds later, Jacob appeared in the doorway of his office, still wearing his suit. Fixed on me, his silver eyes were hot and dangerous. In an even tone, heavy with expectation, he said, "Where are your clothes, Abigail?"
I drew in a breath and straightened my spine. I'd done the right thing when I'd moved out of his room, and I knew it, even if he didn't. "I moved back into the guest room," I said, fighting to keep my tone as steady as his.
"Why?" Jacob stepped into the room and leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest as if this were just a casual conversation. I wasn't fooled. I saw the bulge in his jaw muscle as he clenched his teeth.
"I don't belong in your bedroom, Jacob. You know it as well as I do. We have an arrangement."
"We do," he said, a hint of temper finally making its way into his voice. "And that arrangement is that you do what I say, and I told you to move into my bedroom."
"No, the arrangement was that I would be your pet, not your lover."
"What does it matter? Why do you have to make this so complicated?"
"I'm not the one making it complicated," I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my cotton robe and wishing I'd taken the time to get dressed after my shower. With Jacob in a suit, and me in only a bathrobe, I felt defenseless and off-balance.
Jacob took a step into the room, his face softening as he said, "Is it so bad? Being here with me?"
"No, of course not," I said, shaking my head.
"Then why? Why do you have to stay in the guest room?"
"Because," I shot out, coming to my feet in exasperation.
Why did he not understand?
Again, I tried to explain. "I can't do this. We have an arrangement. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm your employee. I'm not here to play house. You're the one who set the limits. You don't do relationships, remember?"
"Is that what you want? You want a relationship? Why do we have to define everything? Why can't we just let it be?"
I shook my head, frustrated with him. Tears welled in my eyes, and I stared at the ceiling, blinking them back.
I was not going to cry.
Jacob always seemed to know what I was thinking. He probably knew I was in love with him. I wasn't going to cry and make myself even more pathetic.
"Do I really have to explain this to you?
" I asked, wondering why he was making me spell it out.
"I came to you because I needed help taking care of my mother.
I still need your help. And as long as I do, as long as you're paying for her care, you're my boss.
I can't pretend to have a real relationship with you. Don't you get it?"
Jacob threw his hands up in the air and let out a gust of breath.
"This is why I don't want a girlfriend. I will never understand why women feel the need to overcomplicate every fucking thing. Your mother is taken care of, and we're enjoying each other's company. Why can't we just leave it at that?"
"I don't understand why you need to oversimplify everything," I shot back.
"Sure, this is easy for you. You have all the power.
You're the one keeping me safe, you're the one keeping my mother at Shaded Glenn.
I'm completely dependent on your goodwill, and you can't see how that makes things complicated for me? "
Jacob re-crossed his arms over his chest and looked to the side, gritting his teeth, but saying nothing.
Unable to resist pushing harder, I said, "Why do you have my earring in your desk?"
Jacob shrugged, still not meeting my eyes. "I found it, a long time ago."
"A year ago," I clarified. "Did you know it was mine?"
Jacob nodded. "I did."
"Why didn't you give it back?" I pushed.
Jacob didn't answer at first. Finally, he said, "I don't know what you want from me."
"Neither do I," I said.
It was a lie.
I knew exactly what I wanted from Jacob. But he wasn't going to give it to me. I'd given him so many openings to tell me he had feelings for me, and he hadn't taken a single one.
I was vulnerable and dependent enough. I wasn't going to tell him how I felt. Anyway, he probably already knew. I was stuck for the moment, and the least I could do was protect myself.
Jacob met my eyes before he gave me a slow appraisal, taking in my loosely belted robe, his gaze lingering on the curve of my breast and my exposed legs before resting on my toes, then flicking away.
I saw heat there, and for a moment, I thought he was going to try to end our argument with sex.
Something inside me, some tiny bit of hope I hadn't realized I'd nurtured, shriveled at the thought.
If he did, if he wanted to fuck me, I wouldn't be able to say no. Saying 'no' wasn't part of our deal.
It had never been a problem before. I'd never wanted to say 'no' to Jacob.
Just then, raw and bruised from his rejection, I couldn't stand the idea of him touching me.
The thought that I'd have to let him do what he wanted, would have to fake it and pretend nothing had changed, turned my stomach and bruised my heart.
Maybe he saw something in my face, because his eyes cooled and he took a step back.
"I'm going back to work," he said. "I'll be late. Don't wait on me."
I flinched as the door slammed behind him.