My arm slips from Regan’s shoulders when she freezes halfway down the hall. “Your aftershave is a peppery scent, a spicy palette that elicits thoughts of hard fucks and painstakingly vivid dreams about trekking through the wilderness to find the beastly man hiding behind the smell.”
The cocky expression on my face fades when she murmurs, “My anger at being ditched made me mistake his aftershave as yours. I thought the smooth, velvety scent wafting in the air was anger seeping from my pores.” She fiercely shakes her head, eradicating the last of the grief in her eyes. “It wasn’t. It had a smooth, velvety texture to it, with a pinch of vanilla that had me recalling tranquil gardens and lazy lovemaking on a sandy shore.” Tears prick her eyes when she adds on, “It was a smell I’ve experienced only once before. It was on my darkest day. That’s why I was confused. My woozy head had my wires crossed. It wasn’t your scent I was smelling Friday night in my apartment. It was Luca’s.”
I take a step back, shocked. “What are you saying, Rae? That Luca’s not dead? That he’s the man stalking you?”
She shakes her head once more. “No. That isn’t what I’m implying at all. Luca would never do this to me or you.” She scans the angry bump on my right temple. “But I think I know who did.”
She pushes past me and charges down the hallway. She makes it ten steps before she realizes she has no clue which room is which. All the doors in The Manor are identical.
Hearing her unasked question, I point to a room two doors down on my left. I shadow her into my room, my steps stiffer than hers. I feel sorry for the guests in the room below ours. My angry stomps sound like an elephant sprinting away from the trapeze line.
With a grunt, a tear of a zipper, and a hoist, Regan flops onto the pristinely made bed in the middle of our room to fire up her laptop.
“What are you looking for?” I join her bedside.
Her throat works hard to swallow before she forces out, “Do you remember the confession I let slip after rolling my mom’s Jeep?”
She waits for me to nod before murmuring, “Luca and I were fighting that night because I walked in on him in a compromising position. . .with a man.”
Her last three words are barely whispers. She hates that she’s sharing stuff she swore she’d never share, but I already have a gist of what happened, and she knows it.
“Luca tried to brush off their exchange. He said what I had saw wasn’t real, that they were just fooling around, et cetera, et cetera.”
“What most men say when busted having an affair,” I interject, my tone snarkier than I anticipated.
Since I’m only working with half-truths, my jab at Luca’s integrity isn’t surprising, but with neither of us having the time nor the means to discuss the situation, I offer her an apologetic grin before gesturing for her to continue.
She does—thankfully. “ThepersonLuca was with that night was unappreciative of his recollection of events. At first, he took his frustration out on Luca—”
“Then it switched to you?” I read between the lines.
She nods. “I knew everything he screamed at me was true. I could smell Luca’s cologne all over him, not to mention see the honesty in his eyes. He was in love with Luca. . .”
She slows her words to suck in some quick breaths, hoping they’ll help ease out her next set of sentences.
Eager to save her from the turmoil, I fill in, “You knew he loved Luca because his eyes reflected your own.”
She nods again, but it’s not as determined as her earlier ones. Tears gloss her eyes as her hands ball into fists on her keyboard.
The sound of teeth grinding together fades when I curl my hand over hers. “Work with facts, not emotions. Facts are evidential. Emotions are fact-blockers. If you can keep your emotions out of it, you’ll find the truth lying beneath them.”
Once the groove between her brows soothes, I ask, “You said on the plane that you forced Luca to pick. How did you do that?”
She licks her dry lips before answering, “How any irrationally jealous teenage girl would. I told him it was either his new friend or me. He couldn’t have us both.”
Her face screws up as if she can’t believe how naïve it was for her to do that. I’m not surprised. She was just a girl who believed she was in love. I’m quickly learning that fascination and love are too entirely unique emotions. Don’t ask me how I’ve suddenly gained this knowledge, because there is no way in hell I’ll give you an honest answer, but I’m reasonably sure Regan is slowly unearthing the same wisdom.
“Luca picked you?” I ask, questioning the obvious.
“Yes. . . well, after a slight deliberation.”
My grip on her hand tightens when reality smacks into me. “Did this deliberation occur in front of the man responsible for the ultimatum?”
Shame floods her face before she nods. “Hence the need for my laptop. It’s probably nothing, but the look he gave me that night—God. It made me want to hack myself into little pieces.”
I stop recalling the pain, disrespect, and humiliation that rained down on me when Regan picked Isaac over me in that field all those years ago. I barely knew her back then, yet I was devastated I was put second, so I can imagine how immense the pain was for the man Luca dissed.
With this in mind, I snag Regan’s laptop. She looks like she wants to argue, but my next set of questions stuffs her retaliation back down her throat. “Do you recall if Luca said the man’s name? Or was he friends with him on any social media platforms?”
