3. Chapter Three #2
He doesn’t say anything, merely opens a file folder on the coffee table and takes a pen out of the bag I didn’t see him carrying.
Doesn’t everyone use a tablet or a laptop now?
Who still uses a pen and paper? The pen seems almost comically tiny in his hand.
He clicks it open and then glances at me.
“I have some basic procedural questions.”
Instead of sitting, I cross my arms and glare at him. I hate how my heart throbs, as though the sight of him is physically strenuous. Like I’m in the middle of a marathon, and I have no idea where the finish line is. I am not a marathon runner.
“You’re thirty-two?” He draws his index finger across the page, and I remember the way that same finger would travel down my body, closer and closer to where I wanted it, where I needed it.
“And you’re forty,” I say. “We know each other.”
“Your son,” he says, ignoring me. “Is five? And his father is…” He glances up at me, and there’s a challenge in his eyes.
Fuck him.
“Fifty-five, but I’m sure that’s in your notes.”
“Yes. Is the boy biologically his?”
“Of course he is,” I grit out.
“Looking at the boy’s birthday—”
“You know what I was like,” I say, cutting him off. If he’d stuck around, we could have had this conversation then, but he didn’t. He doesn’t get to show up and grill me like he has any interest in my life.
“Those Tucker genes are strong,” he says, forearms braced on his knees. “He looks a lot like you. Like Nathaniel. Tall for his age, though.”
“His father is tall,” I say. “What does this have to do with our protection?”
“If I’m going to protect you, I need to understand who I’m protecting.”
“The wife and son of Raul Santos,” I say, as though that’s some kind of accomplishment. It’s not, and I know it.
“Hmm,” he says, and he checks off something on his sheet.
“If you don’t believe me, there’s a DNA test.” At the time, the results shattered me.
This hard exterior he’s giving me is causing my palms to sweat.
Whenever we’d argue, he’d close off like this, but I always knew he’d give in.
That at some point, he’d look at me and decide whatever we were fighting about wasn’t worth losing me or not having me.
Maybe one hour or a few hours or two days, but not six fucking years.
I scan his fingers for a wedding ring, and the knot inside me loosens slightly when I see that his hands are bare.
“I don’t think you should be in charge of my safety,” I say.
“Why’s that?” he asks. “You don’t think I’d protect you with my life?”
My stomach plummets to my feet, and I avert my gaze, hoping he hasn’t seen how hard that question hit.
There was a time when he would have done anything to protect me.
Broken any rules or laws. Carried me through hell.
Suffered any consequence if it meant I was okay.
It wasn’t something we talked about, nothing we said, but I knew.
Right now, he doesn’t resemble the guy I left in his apartment six years ago. He looks like Stephen, but he doesn’t feel like him. The impenetrable shell, the one I cracked open years ago, has been sealed up.
“I have no idea if you’d protect me to that extreme,” I say.
“Your husband is paying Owen very well,” Stephen says, “which means I’m being paid very well. Just like everything else on this island, if you spend enough, someone with less will be willing to sacrifice their life for more.”
A sheen comes across my vision, and I turn away, surprised by the urge to cry. I stride toward the kitchen to hide the rush of feeling. So what if it seems like he’s spent the last six years putting his life on the line like it’s nothing to anyone? I shouldn’t care. I can’t care. He left me.
At the kitchen counter with my back to him, I press the heel of my hand into my chest, and I will whatever this feeling is to go away.
Stephen Foster is my past, so distant I barely recall a single detail. I have my company, my son, and my shitty husband. And I’m fine. I’m so fine.
“I’ll need a copy of your schedule,” Stephen says, and his deep voice, detached from his physicality, is no less impactful. I hate the way the sound vibrates through my body, and I want to soak in the sensation, relish that he’s in my world again.
In some ways, it’s worse not to be looking at him when he talks because if I close my eyes, what it was like to have that voice in my ear, urging me to come again for him is right there on the edges of my consciousness.
Oh, god.
My chest heaves at the memory.
“Mrs. Santos?”
But he never called me that. And the reminder of who I’ve become is a bucket of ice-cold water poured over my head. I shiver and turn to face him, crossing my arms. At least there’s more distance between us now that I’m in the kitchen and he’s still in the main living room area, which is better.
Then my mind latches onto something that’ll make this conversation even easier. On the counter, the scotch still hasn’t been put away, and I take down a glass, splash a mouthful into the bottom, and throw it back.
“Still day drinking, I see,” Stephen says, making another note on his paper.
“Fuck you,” I mutter. “Fuck you so hard. You disappear for six years and then you show up here like it’s no big deal?”
“Six years ago, we both made ourselves very clear,” he says, his tone measured. “I didn’t think organizing your protection detail would be a problem.” He peers around the house, an assessment, a challenge. “Looks like you got exactly what you wanted.”
And I’m fucking miserable.
The thought comes so quickly that I don’t have time to hold it back, keep it at bay. Instead, I pour myself another shot and lift it toward my lips, hovering.
“And you?” I ask before tipping back the drink again.
“I got what I needed, which is better, I suppose.” His gaze is shuttered and impossible to read.
I got what I wanted, but it turns out it was nothing like what I needed. Must be nice to have gotten life right. Seems I’m always fucking it up, even when I try to play by the rules.
“Since you don’t have your schedule handy to go through,” Stephen says, rising from his seat, “and appear unwilling to be helpful, I’ll leave.
” He comes to the kitchen island and slides a card onto it.
“My number for you to text me your routine and your son’s.
I’ll have two agents stationed here, at the house, at all times starting today.
Another two will oversee your person and your son when you leave the property.
We’ll need to know where you’ll be throughout each day to make sure we have proper emergency plans in place. ”
“You don’t really think one of Raul’s workers would come after us?”
“People do all kinds of things when you threaten their way of life. Money is a powerful motivator.”
“The only person who’s out of money if they unionize is my husband,” I say with a huff.
Stephen releases a deep sigh, clearly frustrated, and starts to walk toward the front entrance.
“Just say it,” I call after him.
He turns on his heel and seems to be assessing me. “Why do you think they want to unionize, Av—Mrs. Santos?”
“Because they like creating problems.” It’s a disingenuous response, but I’m still mad that he’s just turned up here as though he didn’t disappear on me six years ago.
That he’s acting like we don’t know each other intimately.
That I couldn’t draw every ripple and indent of his skin from memory.
That I can’t circle each physical change in him as though I’m circling them on my own body.
Stephen shakes his head and turns back around, unwilling to engage.
My response let him down, and rather than feeling gratified, I say, “Okay, fine. Unions usually form because something seems unfair or that they aren’t being listened to.”
“Which of those do you think applies to The Nile?”
Both. Of course it’s both. Raul doesn’t have a lot of time or empathy for anyone, which suited me fine when we first got together.
I was wrung out, and I didn’t need a partner who wanted to know me.
Those “me first” qualities probably don’t make him a very good boss, just like they make him a terrible lover and husband and father.
Instead of telling him all this, I stare at Stephen.
Regret hits me, punch after punch, and I grip the edge of the island in an effort to stay away from him.
There’s always been something inside me that wanted Stephen more than was rational or practical.
Any time I strayed from him or he strayed from me, I’d end up lighting my life on fire or throwing a grenade into his to get us back in the same bed.
I’ve never had to, never wanted to fight our connection. From the minute he sidled up to the driver’s door to scold me for speeding, I’ve been certain he was meant to be mine. No matter what happened between us, that certainty never wavered.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” I say.
He purses his full lips and turns toward the front foyer again, each step hitched with the tiniest hesitation.
And I wonder if it’s as painful for him to walk away as it is for me to watch.