The car came to a stop.
Toby stepped around the sedan on his way to my door. At the same time, the front doors to my childhood home opened as Arnold stepped out onto the top step. I turned back to Van.
“Van, I—”
My words disappeared as his lips met mine.
Hard and possessive.
His palms framed my cheeks as he held our kiss in place. For the first time since I’d met this man, I felt nothing.
No desire.
No heat.
No lust.
Nothing.
Not one of those emotions bubbled within me.
It was more than that. It was the absence of nothing.
There was a gaping void, a black hole of emotion that I couldn’t identify. Everything about our kiss was as it’d been, and still it wasn’t. A cold gust entered the car as the door to my side opened.
“Ms. McGrath.”
In my mind, the sound hadn’t been the opening of a door but a chink, a clank, the reverberating sound of breaking glass. As the frigid air swirled around us, splinters of glass landed in all directions.
Our snow globe.
Red sin.
Shattered.
Slipping away.
When Van pulled away, instead of desire, darkness swirled in his green stare, obscuring the golden flecks I’d come to love. His deep voice was resolute. “Julia, you’re mine and we’re going to make it legal today.”
“Van—” His gloved finger came to my lips.
“One day, you’ll thank me for this. You’ll see what a mistake you were about to make and how I saved you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You will.”
“Take me home,” I demanded one more time.
He lifted his chin toward the house. “This has been your home.” He nodded. “Go. Your mother and Victoria are waiting.”
What is happening?
As I lowered my boots to the concrete driveway, my skin prickled with uneasiness coursing through me. I tried to make sense of what had occurred, but it made no sense.
In the time it took to get my purse from our suite and for Van to take a call, the world had fallen from its axis. Nothing was as it was before.
Step by step, I forced myself to make my way across the driveway and up the steps.