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“Are you saying you don’t want me to change?”
“I’m saying the same thing I’ve been saying all along…I’m not worth the trade.”
She climbs out, so I follow after.
As soon as we step foot in the quaint cabin, I hang back to watch her. I could’ve afforded a bigger one but I wanted to see how she’d react to a cabin that could fit in her mansion a hundred times and still have room to spare. Passing through the living room, she takes in the kitchen before moving down the hall to the bathroom and bedroom. When she returns a second later, she doesn’t even bring up the copper claw-foot tub in the bathroom, which is the other reason why I chose this place.
She only gestures to the woodstove fireplace, the blaze inside bright red, orange, and yellow like a Marigold Flame. “That’s the only source of heat?”
I nod.
“We’re going to need more firewood.”
The bundle of kindling the owners left us is small, hopefully enough to last the night.
“I’ll chop some in the morning.” Outside, we passed an ax stuck into a stump with a pile of whole logs next to it.
Lex cocks an eyebrow. “James Jones knows how to chop wood?”
“My childhood home had a woodstove fireplace in the basement we had to keep fed through the winter to heat the rest of the house,” I tell her, dropping one of the duffle bags onto the couch. “I mean, James Jones’s childhood home.”
“How’d you come up with James Jones? Did you just look up the most basic names in America?”
That’s exactly what I did.
“Basically. How’d you come up with Lenox Debrosse?”
She angles her body away from me to examine the window above the kitchen sink. It’s pitch black outside, and with the lights on inside, it’s causing a mirror effect. From where I’m standing, I can’t see her reflection, but she probably can.
“That’s my married name.”
I study her profile. “What’s your real name?”
“You mean my maiden name?”
“I mean your real name.”
Her attention relocates to the knife block by the stove. There are a few missing, but enough for her to cause some damage if she wanted.
Don’t do it. Don’t go for them.
She’s not ready to go deep yet. She opened up a little in the car, but not completely. I have to time this just right. Her fight-or-flight mode is always activated, and in order for this to work, for me to be able to tell her everything I’ve discovered, I need her to not only be emotionally ready, but physically, too.
Finally, she tears her gaze away, looking over the rest of the kitchen. “Depends who you talk to.”
“Lexi, Lenox…Aleksandra.”
She spins around to face me. “Lift up your shirt.”
“You think I’m wearing a fucking wire? I just changed right in front of you.”
Her eyebrows rise as she waits.
I yank my shirt up and spin in a slow circle, telling her, “You watch too many movies.”
“I don’t watch any movies.”
“Ever?”
