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“Not to mention your life,” he injected, watching her closely.
“I wasn’t exactly living, though, was I, Dad,” she admitted then. She felt as though she’d been sleepwalking until the night Sebastian found her in the arbor.
“You were at peace.” His expression darkened for a moment before he shook his head and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “Were you at peace, Alyssa? The last two years you seemed to be.”
The concern in her father’s expression had guilt tightening in her stomach. Shane and Sebastian weren’t going to let her go easily. And she couldn’t answer the question of whether she wanted to be let go. Even to herself.
“At peace,” she murmured, pushing her hair back behind her shoulder as she stared at the floor. “I was resigned.” Looking up at him, she gave him the only answer she had. “Is that the same thing?”
It wouldn’t have lasted long, Alyssa knew. She wasn’t the resigned sort.
“You’re alive now.” He grimaced, sitting back in the chair as his brows lowered broodingly. “You haven’t been alive for a long time. And I’m terrified that I’ll see you dead before it’s over with. Something’s shadowing those two men and it keeps lashing out at you. One day, you may not be so lucky in your escape.”
Rising to her feet, Alyssa walked to the wide bay window with its pillowed window seat on the other side of the sitting room. Her father hadn’t questioned a single renovation she wanted for her suite of rooms after she lost the baby. He’d done everything just as she wanted it. For eight years, he’d done everything he could to ensure not just her happiness but also her safety.
“Whatever’s shadowing them has always shadowed me anyway,” she finally reminded him. “Someone killed my baby, Dad. And I’ve never been convinced Harvey tried to kill me just because he found out about Shane and Sebastian. We don’t know how he found out, or what he was involved in. But the timing in relation to Shane and Sebastian identifying Gregory Santiago as the blackmailer bothers me.”
It bothered her a lot.
Gregory had been a bit arrogant, she remembered, and he hadn’t appeared to care much for Shane and Sebastian, though he’d never said why. Not that she had asked, either. Most of her time had been spent with her lovers rather than her neighbors. Just as her neighbors did. They were all there for the summer and determined to live their vacations to the fullest.
Alyssa hadn’t even known who lived in the apartment beneath Gia. Gregory and Marissa lived beneath her and Gia across from her.
“Do you remember much of what Harvey said that night?” her father asked. “Is it possible he was somehow involved in all this?”
“He said it would have been amusing if the baby had lived. He could have raised their son, and he found that hilarious. But he hadn’t known about Shane and Sebastian until recently is the impression I have.” Turning back to her father, she met his gaze helplessly. “But hell, what do I know? I thought Harvey had changed in the past few years we were together, but he assured me every reason he gave for needing to marry me was a lie anyway. So maybe he hadn’t changed. Maybe that was who he was all along.”
He’d been telling her since they were sixteen that his father would have him beaten for being gay. After she returned from Spain he’d confided to her that he had to marry before his father killed him. The last time, weeks before they married, Harvey had shown up with a blackened, swollen eye and fractured wrist. He’d begged Alyssa to marry him. She was pregnant, he’d pointed out desperately. No one knew, but she couldn’t hide it forever. He’d give her baby his name; she would get his dad off his ass.
And she’d agreed. Evidently she’d agreed to lies, though.
“Your mother hated him,” her father revealed. “She made him believe she was his ally, though. So much so that when he tried to kill you she actually convinced him she was going to help him.”
She had helped him all right. She’d killed him. But she’d killed herself as well.
“Mom was the most intuitive, calculating, manipulating person I have ever met in my life.” She smiled, remembering how her mother would instruct her after each instance when she’d watched her mother play her political and social games.
“Yes, she was.” Fondness still filled Alyssa’s father’s voice. “She drove me insane every day of the week, but she could maneuver people like no one I knew.”
She wouldn’t have maneuvered Shane and Sebastian for long, though, Alyssa thought. They would have let Margot think she was doing it, according to how much they wanted to stay on friendly terms with her. But they would have seen through her easily.
She met her father’s gaze slowly, saw the knowledge in his eyes, the acceptance and the love that had sheltered her all her life.
“I loved them until it destroyed parts of me that I’ll never recover. To survive, I had to shut so many parts of myself down that I’m afraid they’re dead as well. Now they’re back, the danger is gone, and they want to pick up where we left off.” Alyssa shook her head wearily. “And I don’t know if there’s enough of me left to trust any part of the fantasy they’re spinning for me.”
“You think it’s a lie?” Her father seemed surprised.
“To them?” she asked, then shook her head as she walked back to the couch and sat down heavily. “No, Dad, I don’t think they see it as a lie or a fantasy. That’s how I see it. It was a fantasy the first time. Who’s to say it’s anything more than a fantasy now?”
Sitting back, his elbow propped on the arm of the chair, he rubbed at the flesh over his lip as he considered her thoughtfully. “You don’t trust them, do you, honey?”
“They should have told me.” That regret was like a sickness she couldn’t hold back. “All those years, Dad, and I was left to face a betrayal that didn’t happen. My soul was ripped from me and they could have stopped some of the pain. And they want me to trust them now. How do I do
that?”
They hadn’t told her about the blackmail and they hadn’t told her that they were trying to protect her. They’d just left, thinking she would be there when they came for her.
“Men do what they think they have to,” he sighed heavily, pushing himself from the chair, his expression heavy, if a bit rueful. “Strong men take the weight of the world on their shoulders and never question if it’s their responsibility or their right. They take it, because they can’t bear the consequences otherwise.” Walking to her, he gripped her shoulders before bending his head to kiss the top of her head. “Perhaps they should have told you,” he said softly. “But what would you have done if they had? If you had learned of the thousands of dollars per month they were paying to protect you, to keep those pictures from public eyes? To hold forever private the sight of the woman they love amid her pleasure? What would you have done if they had told you, Alyssa?”
