Page 30 of The Mood Board

Chapter 12

Bailey

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I STARED AT THE FROZENmeal resting on the counter in front of me. The time and good sense told me I needed to eat, but my stomach rejected the thought by turning and twisting until I felt sick. How was I supposed to eat with all of this going on?

Liam was still in jail, and they wouldn’t let anyone see him. His lawyer was still trying to get back from Italy. None of us knew why any of this was happening beyond our speculations. About the only thing I did know was that this was awful.

I had a terrible, yawning sensation of emptiness right in my center, so big it almost felt like I would fall through and cease to exist. Where things went from here, I didn’t know—everything seemed so bleak.

The frozen meal went back into the freezer where it had been stuffed since Liam and I had moved in together, a throwback to the days when I had no time to cook and no one to eat dinner with. The rest of the food blurred as my eyes filled with tears, and I shut the door as though I were trying to close all of the terrible thoughts out of my head.

It didn’t help, of course. They were still there, taunting me, telling me everything would end horribly, that Liam and I would never end up together. I should have known better than to listen, but I had no idea what would happen from here, and the thoughts were too intrusive, too real, for my overwhelmed and exhausted brain to fend off.

I shuffled out of the kitchen, hating the way the house, usually so full of life and love, felt so quiet and empty. Maybe I should go back to bed. At least in that oblivion, I couldn’t think. Although I hadn’t been able to sleep during what had remained of the night after the police had left and Tom and Bianca had gone home.

Worse, the house was still a wreck, evidence of the “raid,” as Tom, still seething, had put it. As if things weren’t bad enough, I had to live with that now, and I just didn’t have the energy to clean it up.

The doorbell rang as I made my way toward the stairs. I paused, gun-shy after last night’s horrible surprise. But I was even more surprised to see Janelle through the peephole, standing in the early morning light arching in from under the porch’s roof.

For a moment, I thought about pretending I wasn’t at home or maybe turning her away. But then she moved closer to the door.

“Bailey, I know you’re in there. I heard you moving around.”

Growling to myself and gritting my teeth, I unlocked the lock and tugged the door open.

As if the day hadn’t been terrible enough, Janelle was suddenly gracing my life.

“What do you want?” I asked, my capacity to be nice entirely gone.

The woman blinked, her mouth twisting into something resembling a curl of dislike. But it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, leaving me to wonder if I had seen it. Instead, she smiled and thrust a bag at me.

“Here, I brought you breakfast. Liam said it’s your favorite place, and I thought you might need some comfort food.”

Slowly, almost as if it would bite me, I took the paper bag from her hand and turned it to look at the stamp. Not that I needed to—it was my favorite bakery, after all. And inside was my favorite bagel—an egg everything bagel.

“Liam told you what I liked?” My words came out harsher than I had meant, but it was an extra stab in the gut to know that he was sharing personal information about us with her.

“He only told me because I asked him where I could find a good bakery around here,” she replied, her smile rueful. “Then he spent the next ten minutes telling me the story about the first time he tried to get you an order from there because you had mentioned it once before.”

That story—I hadn’t thought about it in quite a while. It was after Liam had hired me to do the interior design for his home, the one I was standing in now. He had casually brought back bagels from my favorite bakery because I had mentioned that fact. The problem was, he couldn’t remember which bagel I liked and had bought one of every kind.

I hadn’t known it then, of course. Liam had simply handed me the bagel and left with the big bag. He had then gone out and had to give away dozens of bagels to anyone who would take them. I was sure at least one person thought he was trying to murder them with poison-laced baked goods.

At the thought, the pain welled all over again, and I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep back the tears welling in my eyes. I sure as hell wasn’t going to cry in front of Janelle.

“Hey.” Janelle offered me an empathetic smile. “I know this is hard for you. A bagel isn’t breakfast—why don’t you let me come in, make you some eggs and fruit, and you can rest.”

The offer was tempting, but it was from Janelle. Instead of accepting, I looked at her suspiciously.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Because this whole situation is terrible, and maybe you could use a friend,” she offered, raising her palms with a shrug. It was still an elegant gesture. Even the gray T-shirt and jeans she wore looked elegant and effortless, and of course she was wearing heels, even if they were kitten. I, of course, hadn’t even brushed my teeth and was wearing leggings and one of Liam’s raggedy old sweatshirts.

For a moment, I still thought about turning her away. But I didn’t have a single reason—she had come here with food and offered to feed me at my lowest. She had only shown me kindness.

“Okay.” I finally relented and stepped away from the door, heading back toward the kitchen, Janelle’s steps following me.