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There’s no more time to think about it when the driver’s side door opens and he gets in. I hold my breath, drawn to the powerful presence he exudes.
Fox isn’t someone that doubts himself. He acts and expects the world around him to fall in line to accommodate him.
A
s the car begins to move, I wish I’d arranged myself so I could see him. It’s disorienting to be shrouded in shadows beneath my blazer and the supplies he keeps in the back seat. I have no idea where we’re going. He doesn’t speak or turn on the radio, like he can’t bother with any distractions. I imagine his expression—his sharp, handsome features locked in permanent grim determination, square jaw set, stormy blue gaze unwavering.
Wherever we’re going, I sense that Fox will get what he wants. It’s a palpable feeling that fills the car and almost chokes me in my hiding spot.
I try to track where we’re headed by the number of turns, but he takes so many it’s hard to remember the order. I’d never be able to replicate it. Dad wouldn’t be happy after all the times he’s drilled me with the necessary things to do if I was ever kidnapped, but I always write off his insistence that it could happen on his overbearing parental paranoia. It seems all the times he made me practice with him when I was younger, not long after the Wilder’s deaths, haven’t paid off because we could be anywhere in Ridgeview and there’s no way I could pinpoint our location.
Despite the complicated route he takes, we don’t drive for longer than twenty minutes. The car finally comes to a stop and I hear Fox release a weary sigh. I really want to peel back my blazer and peek at him, but I smother the urge. I doubt he’d be thrilled to find me sneaking around and spying on him from his back seat.
Belatedly it occurs to me that I left Holden’s Audi at school and I have no idea where Fox lives. My eyes go wide, but I’ll tackle the problem of getting home without anyone—Fox or my parents—figuring out about my little adventure later.
I almost jump when a door opens. The car shifts as someone slides into the passenger seat, the back of it pressing into me slightly. Whoever it is seems small, not heavy enough to make the seat crush me between the foot well and the bench seat. I regulate my breaths, glad again for all the meditation I do to know how to find my calm place as I strain my ears to listen.
“You’re late,” Fox grumbles.
“Sorry.” It’s a woman, her soft voice trembling at the edges. She keeps shifting in the seat and I guess she’s not entirely comfortable around him. “It’s not easy to leave in the middle of my shift without someone noticing. I did what you said so no one followed me.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“You don’t understand. They’re—my employers aren’t what they seem. If they find out about this, I won’t just be fired.”
Familiarity tugs at me as I concentrate on their voices. Something about her voice—I recognize it.
“I know all about what they’re capable of.” Venomous loathing drips from Fox’s voice. He’s silent for a beat, then his sharp baritone is closer and I picture him crowding into her space the same way he does to me when he wants to be intimidating. “And I don’t give a fuck. Not my problem.”
The woman squeaks and I think she presses back against the window to get away from him. “I don’t want Mrs. Landry to find out.”
It’s an effort not to suck in a shocked breath. Lana. The person in his car is Lana, our family’s in-home chef.
What the hell? What is she doing here? Why is she talking to him?
I want to burst out of my hiding spot and demand answers, but I corral the irrational urge in favor of self preservation and listening for more information.
Nothing makes sense. I swallow, being careful to inch around to hear better while Lana sounds like she’s trying to get tears under control. My fingers clench around my school skirt as I try to understand what’s happening.
“Are you going to give me what I want or are you going to keep crying about it?”
Fox’s patience is running out. There’s movement above me—he’s digging through the canvas bag. It makes a little bit of light pierce the shadows I’m hidden in. Whatever he takes out makes Lana release a low, panicked sound. My mind races to figure out what he took out of the bag. A tightness in my stomach has me picturing a gun.
“I’m not playing around,” he says in a deep, detached tone. “You’re going to give me what I want, or I’m going to make your life harder than what they might do to you if they found out you helped me.”
“Yes—yes, okay,” Lana says hoarsely.
I’ve never heard her like this. She’s afraid. Not just of Fox, but also of my parents. What she said before echoes in my head. If they find out about this, I won’t just be fired. What more can they do to Lana other than fire her for meeting with Fox? The NDA they’ve made the household staff sign is ironclad, but I always thought it was because Mom cares so much about our public image with her prominent position.
Unease twists my insides into knots. Whatever is going on, it’s serious. Once again I’m hit with the suspicion that he isn’t the only one hiding things from me.
“Good. But I’m taking a thousand off the price we agreed on because you just pissed me off.”
Lana makes a distressed sound. “No, please! I—I need it all for my daughter’s treatment. We don’t have the insurance coverage, please—”
Fox growls something too low for me to make out, but it makes Lana settle down. My heart lodges in my throat. Lana has a daughter? She’s never told me about her. Not that we’re close, but there are some days when Mom’s lecturing me that she feels like the only one who knows my secret hell. Do I even know her at all?
I miss some of their conversation while I’m lost in my swirling thoughts, but when I refocus my blood turns to ice in my veins. Lana is giving him the details to our security system. She’s telling him how to get past the one thing I thought protected me from him.
