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“How much?” Luna asked, brow raised.
Beck pinched the bridge of his nose. “Luna, put that away.”
“No, seriously, how much? How much would it take to make you go away? I’ll pay you to leave us alone.”
For the first time since they started this little spat, he glanced over his shoulder at me. “You’re not going to step in here?”
“Oh now you want me to weigh in?”
He blew air through his teeth. “You two are trouble.”
Luna waved her checkbook in the air. “Name your price.”
Rather than respond to my incredible new friend, Beck lowered himself onto the couch across from me. “Listen, my guy followed you the whole ride back from upstate, he’s keeping a low profile nearby and we will continue to switch shifts every few hours. Meanwhile, Sebastian is going to drop off the paintings directly to the gallery later today. He arranged for the transportation himself. If you need to leave this brownstone for any reason—any reason whatsoever—give me a call.” He handed over a business card. “Giving this to you again, since you seemed to not realize how easy it is to call me if you have a change of plans. Use it. The landscape is different now that you are back in the city. While this area is low profile and as of yet, nobody outside this room knows where you are, the longer you’ve been out of the limelight, the more people are interested in you. It’s only a matter of time before people figure it out.”
I hated that he was right. I’d seen the latest headlines asking about my whereabouts. Things escalated since the Vegas picture leaked. It was as if the mystery of my disappearance was a hell of a lot more interesting than the truth.
Beck stabbed at the card I held between my fingers. “Use the card, Faith. Sebastian fucked up, but he cares about you. He’s gone to great lengths to keep you safe. Let him.”
The man rubbed his hands down his thighs, the look in his eyes glacial as they found Luna across the open concept living space that connected with the kitchen. “Luna.”
Then he left, shutting the front door behind him.
FORTY-FOUR
SEBASTIAN
It felt like my world had been tilted on its axis.
Every room held a new Faith-inspired memory. The echo of her and her laughter haunted the place I usually considered home.
Harrison received his proposal. Even bleary eyed, I managed to do that. Although that was where my progress ended.
I had insisted that Beck’s team track Faith into the city and call me the second he left Luna’s house to provide an update. Assuming Faith kept a low profile, she should be safe with his assistance. At least physically safe.
With a few strategic calls to her gallery, I managed to get the best art transporter in the city to safely remove the pieces from the atrium. They’d head directly to their temporary home for the showing. If I had my way, I’d purchase every single one of them, but I knew that would only be met with ironclad resistance.
I set a punishing pace while running the trails behind the house. Even Willow had turned around to go back, not interested in trying to keep up.
My mind reeled as I logged mile after mile, pushing aside the conversation with Faith and how I would redo it, replaying it over and over again in my head. I didn’t want to have the conversation with her about what happened next because I didn’t want to fuck it up, and then I went ahead and fucked it up anyway. Had I been prepared, had I not been exhausted from the day, maybe I would have been smart enough to do something different.
I continued to swear as I sweat, taking sick satisfaction in my self-induced punishment.
Eventually my body gave out and a muscle cramp sent me stumbling into a tree. “Fuck.”
I laid my forehead on the bark as I tried to stretch out my calf. When that didn’t work, I used my hands to massage the muscle until the sharp pain subsided. I glanced at my watch and found that I’d covered twelve miles. It was another mile or so back to the house, so I limped along, the searing pain distracting me enough from the deluge of thoughts about Faith.
My mom sat in the kitchen as I stumbled inside the house, while Willow splayed out on the cool tile floor. “You look worse for wear. Want to tell me why Faith texted me the details about her gallery opening rather than telling me face to face? Does it have anything to do with why those handsome security men are no longer stationed outside?” She sipped on her tea, looking up at me expectedly.
Slowly, I lowered myself into a seat across from her, hissing as my calf muscle tightened. “Fuuuck.”
My mom was unamused. She blew on her tea while she waited.
I managed to grab a sports drink from the fridge before taking my seat again, chugging half the bottle before I opened my mouth.
“Faith left last night.”
Frown lines carved into my mother’s face. “After I left?”
