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Chapter 2 A BILLIONAIRE'S SUSPICION
Adrian did not move for a long time. He stood with the letter in one hand and the other braced against the desk, and the rain kept ticking at the glass as though nothing in the room had changed. Isabella watched his thumb move slowly along the crease in the paper, back and forth, the way a person touches a bruise to check that it still hurts. "When you're my wife," he said. "Yes." "You think I'll marry you for a sentence." "I think you'll marry me for the next one." He folded the letter along its old lines. His hands were perfectly steady, and that was the frightening part. She had seen men shake with rage. She had never seen one go this still. He slid the paper into the inside pocket of his jacket and pressed his palm flat over it, once, as if making sure it would stay. "That's mine," Isabella said. "It's evidence." "Of what?" "I haven't decided." He pressed a button on his desk without looking at it. "Cancel my afternoon." The assistant began to answer. He released the button mid-word, and the quiet that followed had weight. "Sit down." "I'd rather stand." "You've gone the colour of paper. Sit." She sat. Her knees made the decision before she did, and she hated them for it. He did not take the chair behind the desk. He walked to the window and stood with his back to her, one palm against the glass. In the reflection his face was a pale smear, and she kept her eyes on it the way you watch a dog you haven't decided to trust. "Who else has read this?" "No one." "A lawyer? A friend?" "I don't have friends." It came out flatter than she meant. "I have an aunt who thinks it's still in a drawer." "Where was it?" "In my father's things." "When did he write it?" Isabella's fingers curled into the fabric of her skirt. "Before he left." "Left." He turned the word over like a stone he had found in his shoe. "Most people say died." "Most people have a grave to stand at." The words landed between them, small and hard. Adrian's head turned, just slightly, and for the first time since she had walked in, he looked at her as a person and not a problem. His eyes dropped to her hands. She unclenched them. Too late. "I came home from school on a Thursday," he said. "March. The drive was full of cars I didn't recognise." He said it to the window. "Nobody told me. I walked into the hall and a woman I had never met in my life took my face in her hands and started to cry." Isabella said nothing. Her throat had closed. "I was seventeen. I thought someone had died, and I went through every name in my head, the dog, my grandfather, my father." He exhaled through his nose, a short, dry sound. "I never once thought of her. She was the one person who always came back." "Adrian." "Don't." The word came sharp. He faced her, and the grey eyes had gone bright and flat, like glass held to a flame. "Don't use my name like that. You haven't earned it." She lowered her gaze to her lap. Her face burned, and under the humiliation, something else stirred, small and shameful. She had come here to watch him bleed. She had not expected it to feel like pressing on her own wound. "Why does my mother's name appear in your father's handwriting?" he asked. "I don't know." "You're lying." "I'm telling you I can't tell you." "That's not the same." "No," Isabella said. "It's worse." He crossed the floor in four strides and stopped in front of her chair. He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. The cedar and cold air of him closed around her, and she had to tip her head back to hold his stare. "Look at me," he said quietly. She looked. "You are not here for money. You haven't asked a single question about it. A woman who needs a roof asks how much and when and whether I'll put it in writing." He leaned down until their eyes were level, one hand on each arm of her chair. "You're not here for a name, either. You'd have lied better about that." Her pulse jumped under her jaw. She knew he could see it. "So what do you want, Miss Hart?" "I told you." "You told me a story." "Perhaps that's all I have." "Then I'll take it." He straightened. A muscle flickered along his jaw. "But I want it understood that I don't believe a word." She almost laughed. It rose in her chest, thin and cracked, and she pressed her lips together until it died. "You must be very tired," she said. "Of what?" "Never believing anyone." He stared. The room went so quiet that she heard the faint hum of the ventilation, the far-off ring of another phone. Then something moved across his face, too fast to name, and the mask came down smooth and cold. "I'm not tired," Adrian said. "I'm careful." He went back to the desk. He did not sit. He picked up a silver frame from beside his keyboard and turned it face down, a quick, practised motion, as though he did it every time someone entered the room. She had seen the photograph once, long ago. A woman in a grey coat, laughing, dark hair across her mouth. He covered her with the same hand he used to dismiss people. "A woman I have never met," he said slowly, "walks into my building and asks me to marry her. She carries a letter that points at my mother's death. When I ask where it came from, she looks at me like I've asked her to undress. And she is frightened. Not of me." His gaze lifted. "Of something else." Isabella's heartbeat thudded in her ears. "You're guessing." "I'm reading." He picked up his pen and rolled it between two fingers. "You've watched the door three times since you sat down. You flinch when I move to my left. You haven't touched the water I poured." "I don't drink anything I haven't opened myself." The pen stopped. It was out before she could take it back, and she heard it fall into the silence like a coin down a well. Adrian's eyes narrowed, not in anger. In interest. The slow, careful kind a man shows when the last piece of a puzzle finally turns face up. "Who taught you that?" "Nobody." "Someone did." "I said nobody." His mouth curved. It wasn't a smile. It was the cold recognition of a chess player whose opponent has just made a move too honest to be a bluff. "Whatever you want from me," he said, "it's tied to my mother. I'm certain of it. And I would rather have it inside my house, where I can watch it, than outside, where someone else might use it." Her breath caught. "Is that a yes?" "It's the beginning of a negotiation." He capped the pen. "I'll consider your offer, Miss Hart." "When?" "When I've decided what you're worth." He picked up his phone, already half dismissing her, already somewhere else. "But there will be conditions." Isabella rose. Her skirt snagged on the chair leg and she wrenched it free, furious that her hands would not stop trembling. She had her fingers on the door when he spoke again, and the voice had changed. Softer. Far more dangerous. "Tomorrow. Ten o'clock. Bring a pen." She did not turn around. "And Isabella." It was the first time he had used her given name, and it went through her like a thin blade drawn slowly from a sheath. "If you lie to me after you sign," he said, "I won't send security."
Chapter list
10 chapters total
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