And I hadn’t seen this coming.
Mama swallowed. “He just gave me my notice.”
Pressure warped my eardrums, and a buzzing filled my head. Mama would be jobless. We would be homeless. And as bad as that was, it wasn’t the worst news.
Cole was leaving for good.
Mama must have seen the shock and fear on my face because she crossed the room and gripped my elbows. “Oh, baby, don’t worry. We’ll be fine. He’s not in a rush,” she said quickly, swiping my bangs out of my eyes. “With everything in the news, he doesn’t think they’ll be able to sell for months. He wants me to stay on until then, and he’s giving me a severance package. Can you imagine? A housekeeper with a severance package?”
She gave a little laugh, but it held no humor, and I knew she was just a rattled as I was. I frowned as I realized I’d just been thinking about me. This had to be hard for her too.
“So, he just called and fired you over the phone?”
“Oh, no,” Mama said, shaking her head. “He came to pick up a few things he’d asked me to gather. We spoke in the kitchen, and then he went to look for some papers in the study—”
I didn’t let her finish. I jerked out of her grasp and sprinted for the door.
“Elise!” Mama called after me, but I was already outside, tearing across the patio to the back porch. I thanked God when I found the kitchen door unlocked, and I nearly spilled onto the floor when it opened for me.
“Cole?” I yelled, righting myself and running for the far side of the house where Mr. Whitehurst had kept his study. Just off the family’s den. No call answered me, and when I cleared the door, I saw at once the space was empty.
“Cole?”
Maybe he’d gone upstairs before leaving. Maybe he was still here. And just as I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard it. The thrum of the Audi’s ignition. My heart catapulted into my throat, and I spun on my heel. I threw open the front door and let it bang behind me before I sped down the porch steps.
“Cole!”
Through the windshield I saw his head snap up, and his eyes flare. And just as quickly, they went cold. I ran around to the driver’s side door and — without thinking, without apology — jerked it open.
His face registered surprise at my bold move, but only for an instant.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Cole blinked once and then frowned at me. “What areyoudoing?” I heard cool detachment in his voice, but I ignored it. I knew the real Cole. He’d shared that with me. If he was being aloof right now, it was because he was in pain. His world had been torn apart. I could get past that.
“I’ve called and texted like a hundred times. Were you just going to leave without saying goodbye?”
I thought I saw a flash of something like pity pass over his face. And for an instant, my confidence wobbled, but then the pity was gone, replaced by that slight frown. As if I was boring him.
What the hell?
“I thought it was for the best,” he said evenly. It was the evenness that checked me. He sounded so… so…polite.Cole Whitehurst had never — not ever — been polite to me. Not for the years he ignored me. Not when he’d teased me. And certainly not when he kissed me senseless.
“Cole… what—”
“I have to go, Elise,” he said flatly, grabbing the door’s leather interior handle with an obvious aim to shut it. I yanked back, angry now and more than a little confused.
“No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
Cole closed his eyes. I watched his jaw clench and his throat work. Pain. He was in so much pain. It almost cut me in two. I raised my hand and placed it on his shoulder, feeling his strength and heat under my palm. And for a moment, I felt him give under my touch, as though he was letting me in. Letting me help him. Letting me care for him.
But then he jerked away.
“No.” He opened his eyes, and the cool, detached, polite look was gone. “I did this. I let this happen.”
I shook my head with violence. “You didn’t. It’s not your fau—”
Sneering, he looked almost feral. “I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to be getting her out. And where was I when that bastard was pointingmy gunat her?” His voice came out a strangled growl, his mouth tightening in disgust. “In my back yard, kissing a child.”
