Page 46

And that was another mistake I couldn’t afford.

Instead of taking a cab, I walked. It was a long way home, but I needed the distance and fresh air. Needed the steady fall of my footsteps to drown out the noise from my monumental lapse of judgment.

I’d fucked up. Majorly.

How could I have been so stupid? She’d looked at me with those big, brown eyes, and I’d let myself get sucked in like an idiot. I’d convinced myself Carina’s reasoning made sense because I wanted it to make sense. I’d been desperate to taste her, and my jealousy over Samson had obliterated my good sense until I stopped thinking like a rational person and started acting like someone with nothing to lose. Like there were no rules defining the limits of our relationship.

The worst part was, I knew better. I was the one who’d written the damn rules in the first place.

Not only did my feelings for Carina go against the very contract terms I’d instituted, but Evie had gotten attached to her. Even if I scrapped the offending clause and pursued something with her, I couldn’t guarantee it’d work out. It most likely wouldn’t. And when our relationship inevitably flamed out, Evie would be devastated. Besides my mother, Carina was the only semi-maternal figure in her life. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—take that away from her.

Even if that meant giving Carina up.

A sharp ache settled in my chest. She wasn’t even mine to give up, not really, yet the prospect of walking away forever felt like someone had dumped a barrel of salt into a gaping, fresh wound. If she wasn’t mine, she’d eventually be someone else’s. There was probably a bevy of men like Samson lining up to date her, and I had to be okay with that.

That was my logical side. My emotional side rebelled violently against the idea.

My jaw tensed at the memory of Carina and Samson flirting at the pub, but my irrational surge of possessiveness was replaced by warning when I turned onto my street and spotted a black town car idling outside my house.

My steps slowed. All thoughts of Carina receded into the background as I reached for my phone and typed 999 for the police, just in case. I was probably being paranoid, but there were plenty of overzealous fans out there. Last year, Vincent had dealt with an anonymous stalker who was later revealed to be our team’s equipment manager. That had fucked everyone up for a while.

When I neared, the car doors opened, and an elegant older couple got out. They weren’t wearing brand names, but their perfect tailoring and general demeanor screamed old money.

Not burglars then, unless burglars were now pulling jobs in five-thousand-dollar bespoke shoes. Nevertheless, I kept my phone firmly in hand and eyed them with wariness as they approached me.

“Noah Wilson?” The man spoke first. American. Interesting. Despite his elderly appearance, he spoke with the deep, commanding baritone of someone used to being in charge.

“Who are you, and what are you doing outside my house?” I ignored his question. They were the ones who’d sought me out. They knew damn well who I was.

“We apologize for dropping by so late.” It was the woman’s turn to speak. Her voice was softer than her husband’s, but no less firm. “We landed not too long ago, but we didn’t want to wait until the morning. We did send a letter to let you know we were coming. Several, in fact.”

The prickle of warning turned into an onslaught. Greenwich, Connecticut.

“You haven’t answered my question.” The words sounded muted over the sudden pounding of my pulse. “Who are you?”

They exchanged glances.

“We’re Oswald and Elizabeth Anderson,” the woman said. “We’re Evie’s grandparents.”

CHAPTER 18

NOAH

I sat across from the Andersons in the living room. Silence pressed in from all sides, and our positioning reminded me of two teams sizing each other up before kickoff.

Wilson versus Anderson. The old guard versus the upstart newcomers.

“This is a lovely house.” Elizabeth broke the standstill first. Her posture was ramrod straight, and her gaze swept across the semi-messy room with cool reserve. It rested for a moment on the half-finished Monopoly game in the corner. “It’s so…lived in.”

I wasn’t naive enough to take that as a compliment. “That’s because people do live here.”

A thin smile crossed her face. “Indeed. Are there any occupants besides you and Evie?”

She spoke with such upper-crust East Coast formality that I was tempted to kick my feet up on the table and drop a few strategic F-bombs just to see the look on her face.

Sarah hadn’t talked like them, and she hadn’t talked about them either. She’d told me she grew up in Greenwich, but that was it.

In hindsight, there were small clues that she came from money—her impeccable etiquette, her love of horse riding and mentions of multiple ski vacations in Aspen. But her down-to-earth nature had been the opposite of the Andersons’ aristocratic haughtiness. If they hadn’t shown me their identification and a family picture of the three of them at home, I would’ve rejected their claim that they were related to her.