It’s a delicate, intricate process—and I can’t risk a single misstep. My father has sharks for lawyers, and they can sniff out red flags and loopholes like chum.
“Please, Sher. Trust me. I can’t get into this right now, but I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can.”
“Is it a deeply personal and complicated matter?” She lifts a hand to her hip, using the line her father used on her when she tried to confront him about the supposed affair.
If I say yes, I’m fucked because she’ll think I’m cheating.
If I say no, I’m lying.
“It’s a private family matter,” I say.
“Are you in trouble?”
If my father finds out what I’m doing, yes. I’ll be a dead man.
“No,” I say. “Not if I keep my mouth shut.”
“You can tell me anything, August. Why can’t you tell me this?”
“Believe me, I want to. And I will. Just not now.”
Glancing at the black pavement at our feet, her lower lip trembles. But she doesn’t cry. She sucks in an icy December breath and lets her hands fall to her sides.
“I can’t believe I fell for this,” she says. “You’re no different than any other guy who thinks he knows what he wants until it gets serious, and then he freaks out and needs space.”
“I can see how it might look that way.”
“Did you, or did you not just tell me I couldn’t come inside and that we need to cool off, i.e., spend less time together.” She cocks her head to the side. “Wait, are you high right now? Are you on something?”
She sniffs, eyes wide and mouth half agape, as if she’s waiting for me to tell her this is all some sick and twisted joke.
She doesn’t want to believe this, but to be fair, neither do it.
I never thought we’d come this far, just to have to turn back around—but it’s only temporary.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Her tone changes, flat and broken at the same time. “God, I’m stupid. I really am. To believe you meant all those things? To fall for your stupid act?”
She pretends to smack herself on the side of the head, and then she turns away as thick tears fall in rivulets down her cheeks.
I have to steel myself. This is for her safety. For our future.
It’s the way it has to be—but only for now.
“I know how this sounds.” I move toward her, reaching for her arm but she yanks it away with one violent, angry pull. “I’m a man of my word, Sheridan. I’m not going anywhere. But I need to take care of something first. I love you, and I have every intention of marrying you someday. But that’ll never happen if I don’t take care of this first.”
“You’re a sick bastard, August. I hope you know that.” She returns to her car, slams the door, and reverses out of the gate.
She’s mad now, but all of this is for her—to clear her family name, to keep her safe, and to ensure I can spend the rest of my life never having to worry if she’s in danger.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sheridan
* * *
“How the hell does a guy go from asking to marry you one night to telling you he needs space the very next day?” Adriana paces across her room.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I page through one of her millions of magazines. “Maybe I’ll go back to campus for the rest of break. Some of my friends are still there. No point in hanging around here.”
“There’s got to be something else going on. I just don’t buy the cold feet thing. If it were anyone else, yeah. One hundred percent. But not him. Guy’s obsessed with you. To the nth degree. No way he’d try to lock you down and suddenly change his mind.”
“Do you think there’s someone else? An ex-girlfriend maybe?”
“All the people I talked to that know him say he doesn’t date—unless maybe he met someone at school this fall? But when he came into work that day before Thanksgiving and wrote that note … that doesn’t sound like a guy with a girlfriend back at school, you know?”
I lean back against her headboard. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“What are you going to do?”
I slink a shoulder up to my ear. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if we’re broken up? It was all so strange. I’d never seen him like that before … kind of frantic and messy, with this far-off look on his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept or showered since the last time I saw him.”
“Maybe he’s having a nervous breakdown.”
“Over what?”
She shrugs. “He said it was a private family matter. Monreauxs do messed-up shit all the time. Maybe he feels like he has to clean up someone’s mess before he brings you into it?”