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She had to hurry.
* * * * *
8:09 P.M.
This was it—his last chance at finding where Aggie had hidden herself away.
It wasn't just that Nick needed to see her again, he was truly concerned about her safety. Clara and Naomi were protected, safe for now. He had been trying to get a hold of Andrew all day to no avail. He suspected that Aggie had confided in her brother where she would go to hide out.
With nowhere else to turn he had come here.
The door in front of him opened. The face that peered back at him creased into a frown. “Oh, it’s you. Well, I have to give you that, you are persistent.”
Praying this wasn't a complete and utter waste of time, he said, “I need to talk to you, Summer. It’s important.Veryimportant.”
“It better be.” Summer’s brown eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn't.”
Giving her watch a deliberate glance before looking at him, she stated, “You have one minute.”
When it appeared she intended to have this conversation on her doorstep, he implored, “Summer, please, may I come in?”
She sighed deeply. “Fine.”
She held open the door and led him into a small, sparsely furnished lounge room. She sat down on an overstuffed armchair, perching on the edge warily, as though not entirely sure that he wasn't going to do something to her. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Summer,” he said tiredly, sitting in the other armchair. He had really messed up badly if Aggie’s best friend was scared of him.
“She never wants to see you again.”
“She does,” Nick contradicted. Whenever he looked in her eyes, he could see that she did.
“You should leave her alone. You're only going to keep hurting her. You can make her forgive you, but you’ll never get her to trust you again. What you did was so cold. You planned on getting her to fall in love with you intending all the while to dump her and break her heart.”
“I did.” He nodded sadly.
“If you had done it a different way. Anything other than terrifying her by making her think she was going to be raped and murdered, then you might have had a shot at winning her trust back.”
“I tried. I followed her around to restaurants and bars for three months before I decided we had to try something drastic, she never even looked at me.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Summer’s face. “Aggie never picks up guys in any kind of eatery because that’s where she met her first fiancé. The one who cheated on her. After that we both made a deal, never date a guy who tries to pick us up while we’re out for a meal. If you wanted to get her to notice you then you should have tried the pool.”
“If I’d known her then like I do now, I would have. Only I would have done it right. Told her who I was from the beginning, been completely upfront and honest about my job and what I believed her father had done. I want to make it up to her. I want to explain again, try to make her understand. I want to apologize to her as many times as she needs to hear it, do whatever it takes to fix things. But to do all of that I need to see her, to talk to her.”
“I don’t get why you are so adamant about needing to talk to her. Were you actually serious when you told her that you had fallen in love with her?”
“More serious than I have ever been about anything in my life.”
Cautious surprise crossed her face. “So you set out to play Aggie and ended up accidentally playing yourself too.”
“I know that what I did wasn't right, but I was desperate. I didn’t want anyone else to die. But I was too late. Sebastian already has Emily. He could have killed her already. I messed up everything, and now I'm probably going to lose my job, and I might be going to prison, but the only thing I care about is making sure that Aggie is safe.”
“Safe?” Summer looked confused.
“Someone tampered with Naomi Candella’s car. It crashed with her, Clara, and Jonathon Dawson inside.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Summer paled. “Are they okay?”
“They're all alive, but Naomi was seriously injured.”
