“No. Talia. My job. Figuring out what to do about Stevie. Some things I managed to take care of, some things I haven’t.”
“Then you shouldn’t have said it to me if you weren’t ready.” I’m quick to jump to bitterness. I’d been so close for it only to get ripped away.
“You’re saying you won’t wait.” She crawls off my lap and sits in the seat, pulling her cardigan closer around her.
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
I don’t want to fight, and I link our fingers. “You were almost shot today.”
She smiles, and the streetlights through the window tint catch her face. “Occupational hazard.”
Her eyes are bright, and it dawns on me. “You like the danger.”
“I don’t like it, not like some reporters who get off on the adrenaline high, but I won’t quit because of it.”
The car glides to the curb, and Mack pulls Devyn’s suitcase out of the back. I hustle her inside with the doorman’s help and Mack hands off her case with a quick, “Goodnight.”
The concierge’s eyes widen when he spots me, but only nods as we walk past his desk. I’ve kept housekeeping going, but I don’t know the state of the penthouse. It could be completely empty, and I could have brought Devyn here only to have to check into a hotel when I find there isn’t a bed in the bedroom.
This elevator ride isn’t the same as in Beau’s building, Devyn standing next to me, but notnext to me. I said the wrong thing in the truck. It wasn’t that she wasn’t ready to say she loved me, it’s that though I was grateful she could, I wasn’t ready to hear it. I expected her to take it back, wanted her to take it back, if only to prove myself right.
I’m only a beast moving from one prison to another because the reflection in the mirror is always the same.
The penthouse feels empty. As it should. I won’t have food here, and I didn’t think to ask to have the kitchen stocked, so intent on reaching Devyn and seeing for myself she was okay nothing else mattered.
She steps inside the foyer and toes off her flats. The artwork is still hanging on the walls, the little table that used to collect our keys still sits by the elevator. The penthouse is dark except for the lights of Cedar Hill streaking against the walls. She walks across the vacuumed carpet and looks around as if trying to read the room, find me in these walls, but there’s nothing left.
“This is where you lived with your wife,” she says.
“It is.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
She looks over her shoulder at me, but it’s true. I don’t know where Renata lives. Beau would know, but I never cared enough to ask.
“Did Beau feed you? Do you need anything? There’s not much here.”
“Beau ordered some food; I’m good. You seriously haven’t been here since the accident?”
“I came back for some clothes. The rest should still be here.”
She pads across the floor. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what she took when she left.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll show you around. Make yourself comfortable.”
She laughs and threads her fingers with mine, and it eases some of the tension. “That might be hard to do considering you won’t be able to.”
I tip my head. She’s not wrong. I’ll hate staying here, but I thought it fair she see the place, thought it best for her to see I’ve moved on from that stage in my life.
Looking through the penthouse is like attending an open house. It could be a stranger’s home, and I’m looking at it objectively, tallying the pros and cons of the purchase. The gas fireplace hasn’t been lit for years; the kitchen hasn’t been used in double that time because Renata didn’t know how to cook. The bathroom is spotless, no dirty towels on the floor, no condensation on the mirror, no wet toothbrushes on the vanity.