Chapter 25 JACE
JACE
I cut the engine in the garage and Wren doesn’t move.
She’s looking at the row of vehicles lined up along the wall.
The Range Rover. The sedan. A blacked-out Hummer EV pickup taking up a stall and a half. Two more SUVs and something low and silver under a cover.
The booth attendant waved me through by name without checking a list.
“Jace.”
“Mm.”
“Are these all yours?”
I follow her eyes. Take in what she’s seeing.
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I get out. Walk around the front of the car. Open her door. She undoes her seatbelt and gets out slow. Duffel over her shoulder. One hand on the strap. She is still looking at the vehicles.
“Do you actually drive all of these?”
“When I need to.”
I take the duffel off her shoulder. Sling it onto mine. Close her door.
The booth attendant looks up from his monitor as we pass.
“Mr. Carrington, engineering finished the repair on thirty-eight. They’re sending the report up tonight.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
Wren glances at me.
Davis is waiting by the elevator where I told him to be.
“Mr. Carrington.”
“Davis.”
“Ms. Ashford.”
Wren goes still beside me.
I watch her clock him. The earpiece. The suit. He is standing in front of a private elevator like he was waiting for us. Because he was.
“Hi.”
Her voice comes out smaller than usual.
“Ma’am. I’ll be on through the night. Anything you need, you let Mr. Carrington know.”
She glances up at me. Small, polite smile. Back to Davis.
“Okay. Thank you.”
He scans his card at the panel and steps back. The doors slide open.
Wren doesn’t move.
She is staring at Davis. At the panel. At the elevator doors. Her free hand grips her elbow.
“Wren.”
“Yeah.”
“In.”
She walks in. I follow with her duffel on my shoulder. Davis steps back as the doors close and the car starts climbing.
She watches the numbers over the door tick upward. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
Then, halfway up, she speaks.
“Jace.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a man downstairs whose job is to stand around waiting for you.”
“His job is to keep an eye on you. The waiting comes with it.”
She glances over at me.
“Do you own this building?”
“I do.”
Her eyes widen slightly.
“Like... all of it?”
“Yeah.”
She stares at me for a second.
“How rich are you?”
One eyebrow lifts.
“Rich.”
“Rich.”
I nod.
She shakes her head and goes back to watching the numbers climb.
Forty-two.
The doors slide open onto my foyer.
I wait for her to step out first.
She stops in the middle of the wood floor with her arms folded around herself and looks around. The wall of glass. The river. The bridges. The long quiet of a place that has been lived in by exactly one person for four years.
I set her duffel down on the bench by the door.
“Wren.”
She turns to look at me.
Her eyes are wet but not spilling.
I cross the floor and pull her in.
Her arms come up between us, fists against my chest, then her forehead drops and she lets out a breath she has been holding since Brooklyn. Both her hands open and grip the front of my shirt.
For a second I think she’s holding it together.
Then I feel her shake.
The sound she makes is small. Barely there. More breath than anything else. Her face presses harder into my chest and her fingers twist in my shirt.
“Wren.”
She shakes her head.
I don’t tell her it’s okay. I don’t tell her not to cry. I just pull her closer and let her.
One of my hands settles at the small of her back. The other on the back of her head.
She just stands there and cries quietly against my chest while I hold her.
After a while her breathing evens out again.
“Last time I was in your kitchen I unbuttoned your shirt.”
I close my eyes.
“I remember.”
“You stood there and didn’t move.”
“I remember that too.”
She’s quiet for a second.
“Is there food?”
A laugh catches in my throat.
“Yeah, Ashford. There’s food.”
“Okay. ‘Cause I’m starving.”
* * *
She sits on a stool at my island and eats a bowl of pasta from the fridge and drinks a glass of water and talks to me, finally, about nothing. The wedding consult she missed. The bride’s mother. The funeral spray she didn’t get to and the standing order at the restaurant on Smith.
I sit across from her on my own stool with my own bowl and listen.
Then she goes quiet. Pushes a piece of pasta around with her fork.
“Jace.”
“Yeah.”
“What happens to the photo?”
I set my fork down and lean back slightly in the stool.
“It goes to the precinct in Brooklyn. My contact there has it logged as evidence already. Ryker walked it over personally.”
She nods, but she isn’t really looking at me. Her eyes stay on the bowl in front of her, her fork pushing a piece of pasta around without actually picking it up.
“And then what?”
“The break-in’s being investigated.”
That gets her attention.
“Why isn’t he being arrested?”
“Because right now we’ve got footage of him entering the building and leaving ninety seconds later. We know what happened, Wren. Proving it is different.”
She stares at me.
“He left a photograph on my pillow.”
“I know.”
“He was in my apartment.”
My jaw tightens.
“I know.”
The words hang between us for a second.
“Has he ever been arrested?”
“Twice. Misdemeanor both times. Domestic and trespassing involving a different woman six years ago.”
She goes still.
“Jesus. How did I not know that? I was with him for four years.”
“Pleaded down. Sealed records. Wouldn’t have shown up on a background check.”
She lets out a breath and rubs both hands over her face before dropping them back into her lap.
“You knew. The whole time.”
“I had his file the night Dawson called, Wren.”
“Why didn’t he serve time?”
“He had a good lawyer.”
“Of course.”
She picks up her fork. Doesn’t use it.
“So he breaks into my apartment and leaves a photograph on my pillow and he still walks away?”
“Right now, yes.”
The answer tastes bad.
Her mouth tightens.
“The break-in’s being investigated. The restraining order is faster. My lawyer’s drafting it tonight. Judge signs in the morning. Served by noon. While the investigation runs, it gives us another layer of protection.”
She sets her fork back down.
“What if he doesn’t care about the order?”
I look at her.
“Then I handle it.”
She holds my eyes.
“Handle it how?”
I don’t look away.
“He’s not getting near you again.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
“The order is the legal version. The rest of it is mine.”
For the first time since we sat down, some of the tension leaves her shoulders.
“Okay.”
“You’re safe here, Wren.”
She swallows.
“I know.”
This time when she picks up her fork, she actually takes a bite.
* * *
She calls Sasha and tells her the whole thing. Tyler in her apartment. The lock he picked. The photo on the pillow. Where she is now. I hear Sasha’s voice go sharp through the phone. Wren says I’m okay, I promise twice and I’ll come by the shop tomorrow , and ends the call.
She sets the phone down. Doesn’t look up.
I get off my stool and come around the island. Stop behind her. My hands settle on her shoulders. I lean down close to her ear.
“Let me run you a bath.”
She lifts her head. Tips it back against my chest for a second.
“A bath.”
“Yeah.”
I press a kiss to the top of her head.
She breathes out.
“Okay.”
I straighten. Walk to the bench by the door. Pick up her duffel.
“Come.”
She follows me down the hall.
I carry the bag into my bedroom and set it on the chair by my dresser. She stops in the doorway.
I turn.
“Bathroom’s through there. Use anything you want.”
“Okay.”
She walks past me to the chair. Crouches down and unzips the duffel. Pulls out a pajama set, a hairbrush, a small bag I assume is her toiletries. Stands.
I follow her into the bathroom. Run the bath myself. Hot. Find the bottle of bath salts under the sink that the housekeeper keeps stocked for reasons I have never used. Pour a capful in. Set a clean towel on the counter.
She’s leaning on the doorframe, watching me.
I cross to her. Brush her hair back from her face. Lean down and press a soft kiss to her mouth.
“Take your time.”
Her mouth lifts against mine.
“Okay.”
I close the door behind me on my way out.
* * *
I sit in my living room with my laptop open on my knees and work through what Ryker has flagged me on while she is in the bathroom.
Photo went to the precinct in Brooklyn at four.
Building manager’s been notified. New lock going in her apartment door tomorrow regardless of whether she sets foot back in it.
Eventually I hear the bathroom door open.
She comes out in pajama shorts and a thin gray t-shirt. Hair piled up off her neck. Face bare. Phone in her hand.
Something in my chest tightens the way it always does when she walks into a room.
I don’t have a word for it.
Then her eyes find mine and her face is doing something I don’t like.
I set the laptop aside.
“Everything okay?”
She doesn’t answer. Walks across the room and holds the phone out to me.
I take it.
It’s a text. Unknown number. Five words.
You can’t hide from me.
Time stamped two minutes ago.
I’m up. Something in me locks down.
She is watching my face. I don’t try to hide it. The version of me that put Vaughn into that wall is back. He’s the one keeping her tonight.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Ryker.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Boss.”
“I want eyes on every approach. Two men on this building tonight—lobby and perimeter. Davis in her lobby downstairs till morning. Park on the corner of Court and Bergen. Second man at her shop overnight. Pull Tyler’s phone records—every device he’s used in the last six weeks.”
“On it.”
I hang up.
I look down at her phone.
“Number’s getting changed tomorrow. Should’ve done it weeks ago.”
She nods. Doesn’t argue.
I set the phone face down on the side table.
Her shoulders are still squared but her hand was shaking when she handed me the phone. She is afraid in my apartment, after the day she has had, and that is on me.
It stops tonight.
I cross the floor to her and take her face in both hands.
“He doesn’t get to be in this room tonight.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I pull her in and close my arms around her. She fits under my chin and breathes out against my chest, slow, and I hold her there.
Then her fingers hook into the waistband of my jeans and pull.
“Jace.”
I look down at her.
“I am not going to bed scared of him tonight. I want the version of you I just saw.”