2. Alex #3
His tablet lands on the arm of the chair. His patience has run out. “I want to know what happened to Dad.” His voice stays level, but the words don’t. “I want to know why she disappeared. Did she know anything about the fire? If she could have warned us ahead.”
His fingers flex once against his knee.
“I want to know if Dad would be alive if she had stayed.”
I look at Danny’s covered wrists. The sleeves hide most of it, but not all of it . Nothing ever hides all of it.
“So push,” I say.
“I am.”
“You’re handling me.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asks. “Come in here screaming? Drag her out of your guest room and put her in an interrogation chair? I’m trying not to turn this into another fight about Belle.”
“There is no fight about Belle.”
“There has always been a fight about Belle.”
I stand.
Danny doesn’t move.
“That was a long time ago.”
“You looked at her like she was the rest of your world. Your feelings don’t go away just because she turned out to be a snake.”
My jaw tightens. The words hit somewhere I don’t let him see.
“Don’t call her a snake.”
The words are out before I can stop them.
Danny’s brows lift, but he doesn’t press. “Fine.”
He looks down at the tablet, running his thumb along its edge.
“I had doubts when we started digging into her. The money didn’t make sense. Neither was the way she was living. Richest girl in Montana, slaving for pennies.”
“I know.”
“But I keep going back to that day.” His voice roughens. “You called me at exactly the right time. Told me to come back for the keys.”
I remember.
“If you hadn’t called out for me,” Danny continues, “I would’ve been in a box beside Dad.”
The memory of that day still haunts me.
Danny looks at me. “So Belle knew something. Maybe not everything, but enough to know we were in danger.” His fingers tighten around the tablet. “She just didn’t warn us soon enough.”
He swallows once.
“That’s what I hold her accountable for.”
I move to the windows and brace one hand against the glass. Traffic crawls far below, horns swallowed by the height.
For a moment, I watch my own reflection instead of turning around.
Then my eyes shift to Danny.
“But I understand why you’re hesitating.” Danny’s gaze holds mine. “I’m not the one who was in love with her.”
“That man doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Then ask her.”
I stare down at the street.
For a second, I see Belle at twenty.
Paint on her cheek. My sweatshirt hanging past her thighs. Smiling at me from the barn doorway while rain hammered the roof.
She had looked at me like I was home.
Then she ran.
“She’ll answer when I decide she answers.”
Danny is quiet behind me.
I wait for him to call me a coward.
He doesn’t.
I hate that more.
“Grandfather called me, he wanted to talk to you,” he says.
“Edward has my number.”
“He says you aren’t answering.”
“I’m busy.”
“He wants a timeline.”
“For what?”
“The heir.”
I return to the desk and drag the report back to the center of the screen.
“He has no right to rush me.”
“He says the board is getting restless.”
“The board gets paid well enough to keep its nerves to itself.”
“And the heir?”
“Not a conversation I’m having now.”
“Fine.” Danny gets to his feet and picks up the tablet.
He reaches the door.
“Danny.”
He stops, but doesn’t turn.
“I haven’t forgotten Dad.”
His shoulders go still.
“Ask her.”
The door closes.
I put my hands on the desk and stare at the report again. I have spent years telling myself finding Belle means finally finding out the truth. Maybe that is why I keep finding reasons to stay in the office.
Meetings run late. Calls stretch past dinner. I work from the office when I could do the same from home. Anything that keeps me out of the apartment and away from the woman sleeping six steps from my room.
I tell myself I am avoiding Belle.
The truth is, I am avoiding the question.
I spent ten years hunting her because I believed she had the answer. Now she is here, and I cannot bring myself to ask. Maybe because once she tells me, there will be nothing left to chase.
By the time I finish working through the stack of reports, every office beyond mine has gone dark.
I sign twenty approvals, reject the revised financing package and answer the messages I ignored earlier. My signature cuts across the final page.
Edward won’t wait much longer. His threats are never empty, and he doesn’t care about anyone except his agenda. I need to make a decision soon. I open the bottom drawer of my desk.
The diamond ring sits at the front. I lift the lid.
Flawless. Expensive enough to satisfy the board, the trust, and an old man obsessed with the Hartley name.
I chose it without picturing it on anyone’s hand.
Behind it rests a smaller box, its corners worn. A pale aspen wing lies beside it.
I open the lid.
Citrine glows beneath the lamp.
I imagined the stone changing color on Belle’s fingers when I bought it all those years ago.
My fingers tighten around the drawer. My thumb finds the scar above my eyebrow. I don’t notice I’m touching it until the skin begins to sting.
Ten years, and I still have her ring.
I drop the diamond beside it and slam the drawer shut.
The sound cracks through the empty office.
Then I return to the report and force myself to read.