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Reese looks grim when he pockets his phone. “Thanks,” he tells the woman. Then he looks at me. “Come on. Guess we’re not talking to her today.”
“But—”
Reese pulls me along and it’s only when we’re at the car that he lets me go.
“Reese, what the?—”
“It was the guy who followed you and Violet at the park,” he explains somberly. “That’s who I showed her. That’s who was with Holly.”
Dread drops into the pit of my stomach. It’s funny, almost. I was gunning so hard about being right, but actually knowing that Holly has a link to the man who stalked me makes me sick. He was here. He was with her.
And now, they’re both gone.
“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Reese says. “I thought she’d be here. I didn’t think?—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupt, suddenly feeling nauseous. “Let’s just go to the penthouse. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
* * *
Reese’s penthouse is even more luxurious than the mansion. Top floor, a view of downtown Dallas, with an interior design that’s like something out of Martha Stewart’s edgiest wet dream.
I wish that I could enjoy it. I wish that our first time here wasn’t under these circumstances. It would’ve been amazing to come here as a weekend getaway together. There’s a jacuzzi on the balcony and it’d be so easy to imagine sipping champagne while night fell and then tumbling into bed with Reese, skin wet and heated, limbs and tongues tangled. There’s a suede leather couch in the den and it’d be so easy to imagine letting him peel off my clothes layer by layer before spreading me out across it.
None of that will be happening tonight.
“You can take a bath if you want,” Reese says to me. I look over my shoulder. He’s just finished bringing in our stuff. “Samson will be here in about an hour.”
“Samson?”
“The bodyguard.”
“Right.” I sigh. “I don’t think I’m ready to unwind just yet. Too wired.”
I wander into the living room and sit down on the couch. It’s massive, cream-colored, and plush, like sitting on a cloud. I could sink into it and let my worries float away.
Reese joins me, sitting at the end, though he keeps a careful space between us, which feels like a way-too-on-the-nose metaphor for our life right now.
“You want to talk about anything?” he asks me. “Since we have some downtime.”
I sit there a moment, thinking about it. Reese gave me a lot of information about Holly when he confessed about everything. I’m still processing.
“I think I’m just really tired,” I say. “Tired and angry. If she’s trying to hook her claws in you, why do all this? Doesn’t that hurt her case?”
“Only if we can really pin it on her,” Reese says, teeth clenched. “She knows that the courts usually side with the mother on things like this. Unfortunately for me, I kinda got a record of bad behavior and, so far, there hasn’t been anything dug up on her that’s good enough to say, ‘Hey, she’s kinda crazy and shouldn’t have custody over a kid.’”
I frown. The thought of her taking Vi hadn’t even occurred to me, but now, it’s all I can picture. The swish of her red hair as she scoops my cherub up in her arms and disappears forever. “She can’t have custody over Violet. She left her on a doorstop, for fuck’s sake!”
“I know, O. I know.” Reese scoots a little closer, putting his hand on mine. My initial instinct is to pull away. Instead, I let him stay there. “Elliot says he might be able to get her with child endangerment, but it’s hard to tell how a judge will feel about something like this.”
I exhale sharply through my nose. “This is ridiculous. Have you told Elliot what we found yet? What that old lady said about the guy Holly was with?”
Reese nods. “I sent him a message about it. Said he was gonna forward the intel to his P.I. We’re lucky that one of the photos had the guy’s face in it. It’s not much to go on, but if the P.I. can find this guy and then turn up some proof that links him to Holly, we got this in the bag.”
He sounds so sure of it. But I can’t help but feel that this is only the beginning of the shitstorm, not the end.
I need a break.
Standing, I finally pull away from Reese. I can feel his absence immediately. Inside, I ache for him. I want to go to him for comfort, but I have to stand my ground. We may be going through this together, but he’s going to have to work to get us back to where we were before.
