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I laugh weakly. “I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I had to pay his lawyer. He did a bunch of work after Clint died and I guess I thought it was prepaid.”
He lifts my chin and I sniff, trying to pull myself together. I’m not weak, but I cry as easily as turning on a faucet, and it’s embarrassing. Clint hated it at the beginning, and then he liked to goad me until I burst into tears.
Gerard just wipes them from my cheek and kisses my forehead.
“What’s in the box?” he says.
I go to the desk and lift the lid. Inside, there are stacks of folders and dozens of papers shoved between them. He leans over my shoulder as I grab a handful and pull them free. The top file falls open to reveal some tax documents from a few years ago.
“I think it’s just some paperwork,” I sigh.
He nods, but just before he turns to walk away, the files slip from my hand and thud to the ground. Papers flyeverywhere and we both kneel down at the same time to catch them. I’m scrabbling on my hands and knees, burning with embarrassment, when I realize Gerard is perfectly still.
I look up.
He’s holding a black business card and his eyes are dark. Not the way they are when he’s angry with me. No, this is so much more terrifying. He’s got an expression that could wither the skin off a person.
Cold and sharp like ice breaking over the lake. Dark ink spilling from his pupils.
The card is tiny in his fingers. Yet he’s looking at it like he’s holding a venomous snake.
“Gerard,” I whisper. “What’s wrong?”
He turns the card over. There’s nothing on the black matte paper except a little silver terrier dog. His eyes narrow and jump to me and back to the card.
“You’re scaring me,” I whisper. “What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head once. Then he rises and pushes the card into his back pocket and reaches for his shirt. I hate being ignored, especially when I’m panicking because he looks like he’s going to murder someone with his bare hands. I scramble to my feet and cross the room to him.
I never had the courage to confront him before. But after the last few days, I’m not scared of him. My hands fall to his chest and I realize I’m cold because his bare skin burns my fingertips. He stops, his shirt half buttoned, and studies me.
“Sovereign,” I whisper. “Please talk to me.”
He shakes his head once.
My hands twist in his shirt, but he ignores them and finishes buttoning it. His hat sits by the bed and I make a grab for it before he can. He goes still, eyes crackling.
“Please,” I beg. “I thought we promised to communicate.”
His jaw works. I know what I said isn’t true—I promised to be honest, he didn’t—but I hope he doesn’t point that out.
“You shouldn’t know everything,” he says finally, his voice a low rumble.
That pisses me off. I came here under the impression that my husband’s death was an accident. I slept with Gerard, I signed a contract to share his bed, not knowing he had murdered my husband. He kept so much from me and I can tell he has more secrets buried behind those eyes.
He’s good at being silent—too good.
“If you don’t stop lying to me, I’m not going to be here when you get back,” I say, my voice shaking.
His brow raises. “I thought you were falling for me, redbird.”
Hot tears spill over. “I am, but you can’t do this. You fucking killed my husband. You trapped me here on Sovereign Mountain, and now you look…you look like you’re going to kill again. Please, just tell me what’s going on. I can’t do this, I won’t.”
His lashes lower. “You’re not a coward.”
“I am,” I say. “I am a coward. And I’m not ashamed of it because not everyone is like you…you sit up here like a god and decide who lives or dies. I’m not like you. I’m not numb.”
I regret it as soon as the word leave my mouth—that was his word, the one he used when he opened up to me on the porch of the cabin.
