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Charlotte chokes
over her laugh. “Don’t stab yourself.”
Adrenaline is rushing through our veins, but I am not smiling. A part of me feels empty and cold as I look down at the woman who had been such a close friend to me.
We all look up when Ian rushes in, followed closely by Fergus and Henry. They take one look at the situation, and Henry moves to pull a sobbing Jenna to her feet, taking her outside.
Ian wraps his arms around me. “Agatha. Are you—”
“I’m not okay,” I say, quietly. “Don’t ask me that.” I sit down in the nearest chair and try to make sense of what has just happened, feeling bewildered. “She said she was in love with me. How did I never see it?”
It’s Charlotte who speaks up. My childhood friend gives me a sad look, “She hid it really well, Agatha. Whatever she felt for you was something twisted, inside her head. You are not responsible for any of this.”
“She’s right,” Ian tells me. “I’ve known her as well, and I could never imagine this.”
Fergus comes to stand beside Ian. “She has a history of mental illness in her family. Henry ran a deep background check on her.”
“She tried to kill you,” I murmur to Ian, and he kneels by my side, forcing me to look at him.
“I survived, Agatha. I’m fine. So are you.”
Sarah’s voice makes me look at her. There is old pain in her eyes as she says, “It’s going to take a long time to wrap your head around this. But you’ve got your family and friends to get you through this. Focus on what you’ve got. That helps.”
I give her a small smile and nod, wrapping my arms around Ian’s neck and breathing in his scent. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”
The trauma of the event is nothing that is going to go away anytime soon.
Philip is dealing with Henry, who has Jenna in custody.
Everyone is trying to shield me from the details; everyone except for Zayn, who is the only one not walking on eggshells.
Jenna’s obsession with me transcended beyond anything I could have imagined. It turns out that Nick started to suspect something and he wanted to tell Ian, but the man held complicated feelings for Jenna, and that stopped him.
As far as my company is concerned, it turns out that George had been pushing company budget limits to keep dropping by to oversee the project. One quick call to his main office had them replacing him with a more level-headed person who isn’t aiming to get into my pants and isn’t that much of a control freak.
I had tried to deal with the whole mess by throwing myself into my work, but Ian hadn’t let me. He had told me to find another coping mechanism, one that didn’t make me exhausted, irritable and cranky.
I am lucky to have friends like these who are so adamant about protecting me from myself. Even Charlotte and Sarah will drag me off to lunch every other day to make sure I eat.
A few weeks have passed, and the sense of grief that had my heart in knots is slowly fading.
It’s a Saturday, today, and Ian is out for a meeting.
I haven’t told him about what Jenna mentioned about him wanting to marry me. She has taken out all the joy of that knowledge and until Ian speaks up I am not breathing a word about it.
I organize my closets.
Zayn is supposed to come over and watch the game that is on, but his live-in housekeeper took a nasty fall, and he has taken her to the hospital.
I offered to drop by to the hospital, but he grumbled at me about not wanting two women who couldn’t keep their traps shut.
So, I am alone at home, cleaning my cupboards.
My eyes fall on a piece of black lingerie that is as comfortable as it’s alluring.
A quick glance at the clock tells me that Ian will be home any minute now.
My wicked thoughts urging me on, I slip into the delicately crafted piece and study myself in the mirror. It’s a black see-through baby doll nightie; its sheer material is not really hiding a damn thing.
