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Her stomach flipped. “I didn’tchoosehim. He told me I was in danger.”
“You neededhimto tell you that?” he asked skeptically.
“He also said not to trustyou.”
“Well, he would, wouldn’t he? After I held a knife to his dick and told him to keep himself away from you.”
“What—”
“I should have known that’s where you were going. Who else would you be meeting with your blouse buttoned up to your throat? I’m surprised you left your little librarian glasses at home. Or do you only wear those for me?”
“Why did you threaten him?”
“To protect you,” he said harshly. “The same reason I’m here now. I was sitting in the lot. In the wrong spot, apparently.”
Or the right one.She licked her lips. “Do the cops know that?”
He exhaled—a quick staccato pulse of breath. Another laugh, she realized, but there was no humor in this one. “If they did, it would be both of us down at that station right now.”
Donni swallowed. “Then I guess it’s good you kept your mouth shut.”
“Please,” he said. “I’m not the only one here with something to hide. Or do you think I don’t notice how you stiffen up every time I mention my father? There—just like you’re doing now.”
Fuck. She watched him fiddle with the radio, aware of his every movement now.
“Then why not go to the cops,” she said quietly, “if you have your doubts?”
“Because I’d rather get my answers from you. Look at us. We keep having the same arguments over and over because you don’t fucking trust me. When you walked out that door earlier, part of me thought you wouldn’t come back. That you would die hating me because I didn’t—”
He broke off, looking away. And she felt her surety of his villainy rattle like a pane of glass.
“I don’t hate you,” she said, after a long, tense silence. “Not anymore.”
Rafe sighed and stared straight ahead, watching the road.
“I was thinking about what you said. About waiting around for bad things to happen. And this need to . . . punish myself.” Donni gripped her knees. “But here’s the thing, Rafe. When you try to save yourself and fail—it fucking hurts. Sometimes . . . it’s just easier . . . to do nothing.”
“Was meeting Christophe doing nothing?” he asked tonelessly. “Or was it self-sabotage?”
Neither, she thought, staring at her hands. “I’m tired of doing nothing, Rafe. I’m tired ofbeingnothing.” She closed her eyes.And I have so much I ought to be punished for.
When they got to the house, he parked her at the table and handed her a bowl before storming down the hall to the guest room. The pasta salad he’d made. She stared at the oil-drenched noodles studded with reddish-brown olives and fluffy goat cheese. Her empty, achy stomach growled and she was glad he wasn’t there to hear it.
He came back in sweats and a tight white T-shirt, slumping into the chair across from her with a beer in hand. As she picked at her food, he looked at her moodily. His five o’ clock shadow was starting to become a beard. He opened the cap with his teeth before spitting it out again so it went skittering across the kitchen tile with a metallic clatter.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“What?”
“When I went to see the lawyer, someone left a note on my windshield.” She went very still. “They wanted me to go to Whytecliff. When I got there—you know that shed? The whole thing had been defaced, and someone was playing a recording fromSilent to the Grave.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Rafe took a long swig of beer, making his Adam’s apple bob. “Why would my father have pictures of you in his safe?”
Her stomach clenched like a fist. “Pictures? What kind of pictures?” she asked, too quickly.
“I think you can guess what kind.”
