Cole’s hand closes around the back of a chair. Hard. I hear wood creak.
“Is that what you think my bodyguard is doing?” I ask.
“I think he likes you scared.”
The words slice through the room. Cole does not move. I step closer to the phone.
“No.”
“Kara …”
“No. You do not get to do that.”
Vanessa goes quiet.
My voice is shaking now, but it is still mine. “You do not get to twist him into something ugly because you don’t like that I trust him.”
“You trust him?” she whispers.
She doesn’t sound angry over this, more like devastated. It’s as if I have betrayed her. The absurdity of it nearly knocks me sideways.
“He has kept me safe.”
“I kept you safe.”
“When?”
“All those years.”
“When, Vanessa?”
Sloane’s gaze locks on mine. Rafi leans closer to the screen.
My heart is beating too fast, but I keep going because if I stop now, I may never start again.
“Culinary school?” I ask. “Is that when you kept me safe?”
The silence that follows is not empty. It is full of the thing hiding between us.
“Kara,” Vanessa says softly. “We were so young.”
My stomach drops. Cole steps toward me, but I lift one hand as if to say, not yet.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You were brilliant. Everyone knew it. Everyone saw you. Professors. Bloggers. Chefs. Those stupid boys in our cohort who acted like they invented reduction sauces because they watched one documentary.”
She laughs weakly, like we are sharing an old joke. “They were going to eat you alive.”
I cannot breathe.
“So you sabotaged me?”
“No.” The word comes fast, then softer. “No, honey. Not like that.”
Not like that.
Sloane’s face goes still in that terrifying way again.
