Chapter 48
Sabine
During the driveback to Stone Manor, my emotions are all over the place.
I feel anxiety that I’ll get “home” and my small bag of belongings will be on the stoop, next to a note that reads go away and never come back. I feel disappointment because I have, once again, royally screwed things up. And lastly, I feel anger because he has made me feel these emotions.
It’s a jarring realization of how crazy I am for this man, and how much emotional power he has over me. With him, I am both my most confident, bold self, and also my weakest, most insecure self. It’s a confusing—and maddening—combination.
By the time I storm into his office, I’ve settled on one emotion—anger—and so has he.
Astor surges to his feet the moment I enter the room, rage in his eyes. His suit jacket is off, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He advances hotly, rounding the desk.
Do not back down, Sabine.
“How dare you speak to me like that?” I snap, my voice quivering.
Oblivious to my words, he’s scanning my body from head to toe like he’s checking for something. It’s then that I realize it isn’t all anger; it’s also fear. Astor is checking to make sure that I am okay and not hurt.
His words from our first dinner trickle through my head. I’ve lost every person I’ve ever loved.
“That will never, ever happen again, do you understand me?” His fists clench as his eyes meet mine. “You will be home when I tell you to be. Is that clear, Sabine?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Astor. We need to talk. Things need to be addressed.”
He scoffs.
“No. Don’t do that. This is happening, whether you like it or not. It’s time. We’re dancing around so many things. And for what?” I toss his phone and black card on the desk. “I’m going to put my things in my room, and in ten minutes, I want you to meet me in the library. Bring a bottle of wine. I need a damn drink.”
Before he can protest, I turn on my heel and walk out of the room with my head held high.
It’s time.
An hour later, I’m staring out the window, now black with night, with a sick feeling in my stomach.
Astor and I have hit a pivotal moment in whatever is happening between us. I’m sick because I feel like it’s slipped out of my control, and that whatever this undeniable connection is between us will end before it’s even really begun.
The hair on the back of my neck rises as Astor closes the library doors and quietly crosses the room.
I don’t move, keeping my back to him. My heart begins to pound.
I feel his body stop behind me, all brooding, hostile, irresistible masculinity.
“Sabine,” he says softly, gently sweeping my hair off my shoulder.
I close my eyes, exhale, and turn.
His eyes are bloodshot, heavy. He offers me one of the wineglasses in his hands. “Is red okay? I can get white if you?—”
“No. It’s fine.” I take the glass, aware of—and surprised by—the nervousness emanating from him.
“Do you want to sit?” I gesture to the loveseat just behind us.
But I don’t join him. I can’t sit. Too many emotions.
I take a long, deep sip of my wine, and begin.
“What has happened here is crazy; I know it, and you know it. I am very aware that I haven’t asked to leave since that first day. I’m very aware that some sick part of me is okay with what happened ... because it’s brought me to you.”
Though his face is a mask of stoicism, the emotion in his eyes gives him away. The thick walls surrounding Astor Stone are beginning to crack.
“I think it’s safe to say that neither of us expected to have the crazy connection that we do—and I know you feel it, so don’t even act like you don’t. And now, after the most incredible sex of my life, as things seem to be suddenly spiraling out of control, I have questions—a lot—and I expect you to answer them. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Thank you. First, a comment more than anything ... a demand, really. I will not tolerate you speaking to me again the way you spoke to me on the phone today.”
His jaw twitches.
“Astor.”
“Fine. I won’t speak to you like that again. But I need you to listen to me. I only want what’s best for you.”
“I understand, but you need to learn how to restructure your requests so that they’re softer and less demanding. And you also need to understand that sometimes I might not agree with you, or with what you think I need.”
He exhales. “Sabine, all I can think about is the possibility that something might happen to y—” He shakes his head, still unable to verbalize his feelings for me. “I can’t?—”
“Then you’re wholly missing the beautiful thing that’s happening between us right now—in this moment. Not everything is bad, Astor.”
“Life has taught me otherwise.”
“Your life isn’t done. And neither is mine, for that matter. So, Astor, let’s talk like grown-ups, okay?”
He slowly nods.
“Now ... for starters, I want to know about the little girl’s room adjacent to your bedroom. I broke in and saw everything.”
Closing his eyes, he takes a long, measured inhale. A solid minute passes before he finally speaks.
“It belonged to my daughter, Chloe. She died five years ago.”
“I’ve gathered that much—and I’m so sorry ... What happened to the room? Who marred her pictures, the walls, the bed, broke the windows, decapitated her dolls?”
“I did.”
I blink. “You destroyed her room?”
“Yes. Over the course of a few years, yes.”
“Why?”
He releases an exasperated, frustrated growl, then discards the wineglass, sloshing half of it onto the table. I’m afraid he’s about to bolt.
“Talk to me, Astor. Why did you do it?”
“Because I can’t handle it!” He explodes, the yell echoing off the walls.
The pain behind his eyes slices into my soul.
He drops his head into his hands. “I don’t know why I did it,” he says, his voice weak. “I have bad nights. I don’t sleep. I can’t. I ... think of her. Of what happened. Constantly. It haunts me. I have to release it somehow.”
I sit on the edge of the loveseat, next to him. “Tell me what happened to her.”
He picks up his wine and chugs the entire glass in one go. I take the empty glass from his hand and slide it onto the table.
“Her name was Chloe. She was the light of my life, after my mother. She went to school one day and never came home. She was found facedown in the sewer, two miles away.”
I cover my hand over my mouth.
“The police believe she fell through an open manhole in the alley next to her school. The workers were gone for the day and the area wasn’t even roped off.”
“They believe?”
“It was never confirmed. The two cameras outside the exit weren’t working. There is no photographic evidence of the fall.”
“What did the medical report say?”
“That her injuries were congruent with a fall.”
“But you don’t believe that’s what happened, do you?”
“No, I don’t, but the lack of visual confirmation isn’t why.”
“Why, then?”
“The medical examiner’s report stated that there was a lock of her hair missing. Right up front, a thick section, like someone had intentionally cut it off.”
I gasp, my hand flying to the side of my head.
“What?” He looks at me, startled.
“I—I took a nap yesterday and when I woke up, I swear a piece of my hair had been snipped.”
“What?” He surges to his feet.
“Right here.” I find the small section of short hair. “See?”
He bends down and studies it. “Impossible.” His face pales. “I—I sit in your room all night. It’s impossible.”
“It happened during the day; I took a nap. I could be crazy ... my hair has thinned and maybe I brushed too hard, but it really looks like a blunt cut.” I don’t tell him that it also could be related to the sleeping pill I stole from his vanity.
“Come here.” Clearly upset, Astor grabs my hand, pulls me into his office, and closes the door behind us. I follow him to his desk where he has multiple monitors set up.
Frantically, he begins clicking open screens and keying in passwords. “What day was it?”
“Yesterday.”
As he pulls up what appears to be a grid of security camera footage, my head spins.
Is it a coincidence that a chunk of his daughter’s hair was cut on the day she died, and now, my hair has been cut? Is the same person who killed Chloe out to get me now?
“Tell me what we’re looking at.” I lean over his shoulder.
“I have twelve cameras throughout the property. If anyone sneaked in, it will be on camera.”
We sit in silence as multiple feeds run on fast-forward.
He pauses on this morning and leans back in his chair.
“The only people on this property have been Cillian, Prishna, and Leo, aside from you and me.” He shakes his head, and then, obviously thinking the same thing I am, says, “Neither of them killed my daughter and cut her hair, so it can’t be the same person. I had all of my associates tracked thoroughly on the day of Chloe’s death. Leo was in California, Cillian was on a mission in South America, and Prishna was with me the entire day, assisting with a virtual conference I was attending. None of them did it, and they’re the only ones who’ve been here.”
“Aside from the ghosts.”
He looks at me.
“I’m half joking.”
He blows out a breath and scrubs his hands over his face. “I’m going to send Prishna to the beach residence to begin packing Valerie’s things, and I’m going to tell Leo we don’t need him anymore. That way, it will just be me, you, and Cillian in the house.”
“Hang on—let’s loop back to Chloe. Why didn’t the cops think her hair being cut was significant?”
“Chloe had cut her own hair before. Several times, actually. They said she could have done it that day at school—which she’d done, twice.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I believe she was taken from school and then killed and dumped, and whoever did it wanted me to know it was no accident, so they cut her hair.”
“Why? If someone wanted you to know she was intentionally killed, why not do something less subtle than cutting a piece of hair?”
“To make me wonder, exactly like I am. To make me go crazy, exactly like I have.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Sabine, because of what I do for a living, the list of people who would want to torture me is quite literally endless. I’ve run missions involving the most dangerous drug cartels in South America, terror cells in the Middle East, and against former Soviet guys who are some of the most ruthless men I’ve ever come across. And the families, children, associates of all those men—they’d all want a piece of me. Believe me, I spent years running my own investigation behind the scenes, sending my own men to investigate leads. Nothing stuck.”
“So, you’ve just accepted it?”
“If by accepting you mean becoming a self-loathing insomniac who destroys my daughter’s bedroom instead of my wrists, yes.”
“And by keeping anyone close to you under lock and key. Just like you’re doing to me, just like you did to your wife.”
“Precisely.” He looks up at me. “Yes, I get it. It’s a trauma response, but I don’t care. It’s the only way I know to keep you safe.”
“It’s unhealthy.”
“Almost as unhealthy as you pretending like you’re the one in control here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He stares at me for a moment, weighing whether to continue. “Sabine, if you really want to talk, okay, but you might not like what I have to say.”
“Try me.”
“Your feelings for me are misguided.”
“That’s a bold statement. How so?”
“Your obsession isn’t with me, it’s with fixing me. You saw immediately how messed up I am, and instead of distancing yourself from me—as you should—you’ve become obsessed with fixing me.”
I open my mouth to snap back but hesitate.
He continues. “Do you know why? Because you still carry the guilt of not helping your mother, of your inaction the night of the break-in—when you were eight years old, Sabine.”
I go stock-still.
I think of all my broken ex-boyfriends, and how, in every single relationship, I stayed entirely too long. I labeled myself as someone whose weakness is trying to fix everyone, but it’s only half right. Astor is right. I stay because I feel guilty abandoning someone who needs help—because of what happened with my mother.
Astor takes my hand and pulls me to him. “You see, Sabine, you and I aren’t as different as you think. Our lives are molded by pasts we refuse to let go of, and our motivations and decisions are clouded by guilt.”
I stare down at him, tears welling in my eyes. “So, what are we going to do?” I whisper.
Astor pulls me onto his lap and gently cups my chin. “Kiss me.”