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“Insulation,” Lesley said. “This place is adobe. Oli’s set off fireworks in the yard and I never heard them. Besides, we were a little occupied last night.”
“I should have parked on the street. She might have left your car alone.”
“You think Vicky did this?”
“Who else? Why would anyone come back here and target these cars specifically?”
“How did she find us?”
Antony shrugged. “I have no clue. Public records? She followed us? I wouldn’t put anything past her. She has the means to find out all sorts of stuff if her real estate license is still valid.”
“Well, let’s call this in so we can get it taken care of. If we have to go anywhere, we can borrow Mel’s car. She’s out of town, so it’ll be fine.”
A couple hours and a few phone calls later, and all reports and claims had been filed. The police walked around the yard and found a screwdriver casually tossed into one of the flower beds that bordered the neighbor’s fence. Hopefully, the culprit had been careless enough to not wipe it clean.
Culprit. Antony was kidding himself by not just naming Victoria. How she found them was beyond him, but neither of them had been particularly careful about watching for followers, either. Antony was trained in surveillance, for fuck’s sake, and he’d failed to protect Lesley twice now. He stood, staring at the damage on her car. This was all on him.
“No, it’s not,” Lesley said, coming up next to him.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“No, but you’re standing here with that look. Not your fault. You didn’t ask for her to show up.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Wrecker is backing down the lane now. They’ve got your replacement tires. I’ll be right back.”
Lesley was a wreck inside. She locked herself in the bathroom and turned the sink on. She soaked a washcloth in the hot stream, wrung it out, and held it over her face while she sobbed. From the moment Antony came into her safe, quiet little life, he’d upended it. She was scared and scared meant shutting down. He had nothing to do with Smith or her drugging, or even this. But right now, she wanted to scream and rail and blame him for all the confusion in her head, and that made her even madder—if Antony hadn’t been around, things would have been so much worse. Still, nothing had been quiet or simple about her life since that man, that beautiful, complex man, spun her around on the dance floor. She sighed. Quiet and safe also meant boring, and also that she’d never truly taken any chances after Steven. Now she was at the edge of the biggest leap she’d ever considered taking. It wasn’t fair, not by a long shot, which was why she stood in her bathroom snotting all over a washcloth, hoping he hadn’t come in and heard her.
She quickly rinsed out the washcloth and hung it up to dry. Her entire face was red, but she could blame the heat of the water. She walked back out to the yard, where Antony and the man with the wrecker finished up the last of his tires. Antony looked at her and frowned but remained quiet.
Once the man left with her car, she turned to where Antony stood.
“You want to go get some lunch?” he asked.
She shook her head. Her stomach was spinning on itself. The feeling that she was making a mistake loomed over her, but she needed to do this. “No. I don’t think I can eat right now,” she said. “Antony, I need a couple of days alone.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You want me to leave?”
She nodded. “Yes. Just for a bit,” she said, and took a step toward him. He didn’t move. “I need to process all of this and figure things out.”
His eyes went dark, and he set his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he ground out.
“You still have nothing to be sorry about,” she said. “I mean that. I just haven’t had any time alone, and now with all of this,” she said, waving her hand between them. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Antony shoved away from the car and closed the gap between them, kissing her quickly, and trailing his fingertips down her cheek. “I’ll leave you to it, then. See you around.”
Lesley opened her mouth to speak, but he got into his car and sped out of her driveway, engine roaring.
As he accelerated away, so did her stomach. She turned and threw up on the hedge to the side of the drive.
***
Somewhere in Antony’s rational brain, he understood that Lesley only needed some time alone. He couldn’t blame her—they’d been together almost constantly, and a lot of shit went down in a short amount of time.
His lizard brain, though. That sonofabitch was buzzing and drowning out everything, telling him that Lesley just dumped him. That he’d fucked her up by getting her involved in his life.
He sped down the highway and onto post, stopping off at the Class Six. Fifteen minutes later, he turned the lock on his apartment, opened a bottle, and worked on drowning his entire brain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The banging on the door would not fucking stop. He’d yelled at whomever it was to fuck off, but it persisted. He stood, stumbling slightly, and hobbled over to the door, flinging it open.
