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I give him a long look. “What do you know about love?”
His lip quirks in a half-smile. “A lot more now than I did a couple of weeks ago.”
A couple of weeks ago, we were strangers. And then he, Cian, and Rune helped me get away from Lawrence.
Is he saying…
He can’t mean…
No.
Kylian peers back at me expectantly, as if he’s waiting for me to ask him if the things he learned about love he learned from falling in love with me.
“One thing, cher,” Rune says.
I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. “What is it?”
“You already feel something for Olive Deane. You felt enough of that something to ask Cian to find her. And you feel something now for the thought of coming face to face with her to make you so wary.”
He’s right.
I go back to peering at the white building as the seconds and then the minutes trickle past. No one rushes me, though as the owners of a billion-dollar company, they probably have a million and one tasks they could be doing.
They give me all the time in the world to wrap myself in the strength I think I’m going to need to get through this meeting.
Nearly thirty minutes later, I take in a deep breath, release it, and reach for the door handle.
I learned a long time ago that wealth doesn’t just buy the best of everything. It buys ease.
Pack Ashe, led by Rune Fontenot, blows in through the entrance of the Almeida Private Clinic.
Cian never lets go of my hand as Kylian and Rune make it clear exactly what they want, and the staff fall over themselves giving them those things.
I’m aware of the spotless white hallway as I wait on my white leather chair to see Olive Deane. But only distantly. I’m thinking about the woman Sloane Eddiswood—my birth father—tucked away in here for twenty years, and I have no idea what I’m going to say to her.
Will she look like me?
Did I get my love of drawing from her?
What if she looks at me, and because I remind her of Sloane, she screams at me to get out? Didn’t Rune say we had the same eyes?
As I sit with Cian beside me, I notice Rune isn’t smiling. He’s standing halfway down the hallway, and he’s speaking in a burst of rapid-fire orders to two men in gray suits. The men’s heads are bobbing like a bobblehead toy.
I turn back to the open doorway two doors away from where I’m sitting in the hallway.
Olive Deane’s room. Mymom’sroom.
My hand tightens around Cian’s.
I’m not sure how long I stare at that open doorway, but I jump when a hand rests on my shoulder.
It’s Rune. Kylian is talking to the men now, as Rune smiles gently at me. “You can go on in, cher.”
I don’t move. “Will she be aware of me? Wouldn’t they have drugged her or—”
Rune shakes his head. “She’s not on any medication. One of the clinicians said that she just chooses not to engage with the world.”
I’m not surprised if Sloane left her to rot in this sterile place.
