He hurries us along the path, the mossy cobblestones borderline underwater at his feet. The mansion looks dark and deserted when I swipe my access card beside the double doors, hyperaware of every shadow, every noise, every open door.
He climbs the stairs in silence, save for the chattering of my teeth and the dripping of water from our clothes onto the polished steps. I drink in every inch of him and pretend that the way his thumb gently strokes my back as he walks doesn’t fill me with hope for our future.
In my room, Alex heads straight into the bathroom to get a towel, and I fish my phone from Colette’s borrowed purse to tell her I’m at the mansion.
My eyes zero in on the lone notification on the lockscreen, my blood turning to ice in my veins.
The photo of Alex and me is hazy from the rain, but I know it was taken no less than ten minutes ago, the two of us huddled together as we jog toward the mansion.
Unknown
What makes you think you get a happy ending?
Unknown
Leave him, or he’ll be dying with you.
I open my mouth to tell Alex, but then the second message comes through.
A photo of an airport. And beyond a wire fence, a Green Aviation jet.
Unknown
Wouldn’t want something to happen to his plane, would you?
No, no, no. Please, no.
I’m at the window in half a second, scanning the brambles and the hedges of the mansion’s unruly gardens. I brace myself with each startling flash of lighting, just waiting to see a shadowy figure standing alone on the lawn. Cain, Carmichael, Shawn. I’m simultaneously terrified and desperate to catch a glimpse of something, anything that might identify who is doing this.
“Ophelia,” Alex sighs, coming out of the bathroom with a towel for my hair. The exasperation is evident in his tone as he begins meticulously drying each strand. “You cannot be serious with this no strings thing.”
My heart is hammering in my chest, tongue tied in a knot. His eyes flick to the window, at my ghostly white reflection in the thin glass. The next gust of wind sends a branch of ivy into the window, and I jump out of my skin.
Alex frowns beside me, a steady hand landing on my lower back. “Are you all right?”
“I … I don’t think you should be here. You need to leave.”
His lips drop to my shoulder, but fear is like a blanket starving the flames of my desire. “I disagree.”
“Alex, you’ll leave tomorrow morning and then we probably won’t see each other for eight months.” I lay out the excuses as the text burns through my mind. “And I can’t handle you leaving me every time you convince yourself you’re not worthy of a relationship, and you’re so many miles away, and you have your sisters, and—”
And he’s always afraid that his presence in my life puts me in danger, but now I’m wondering if it’s the other way round.
“Ophelia,breathe.”
The blood is rushing in my ears, a deafening roar like the rotors of a helicopter spiraling down toward the forest. “I can’t.”
“You can, baby. You definitely can.”
I can’t drag my eyes from the window. I inhale to tell Alex about the text several times, but nothing ever comes out. What if someone’s hovering outside the door, if someone has bugged my room, if someone’s watching us from the window?
I need to call Mack.
A steaming mug of tea appears between my hands, delivered with a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “I can’t do no strings. Not with you.”
“Then let’s just …”
“If you’re about to saybe friends—”
