Wherever It Leads (36 page)

That sparks my panic. My jaw drops as I try to breathe, try to force air down my constricted throat. My hearing gets blurred, the sounds as he takes a step towards the counter and lifts the offending package dulled by my rapid heartbeat in my ears.

“Did you open this?” he asks.

“No. Should I have?”

He blows out a breath and flops the envelope back on the marble. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a couple of days.”

“Now seems like a good time.”

“Brynne . . .” He looks at the ceiling and then squeezes his eyes closed. “Can we go sit down in the living room?”

“Nope. We can do it right here.”

There’s a good few feet in between us and I add a few more by going to the other end of the island. I have a sick, vile feeling in my stomach that this is not going to be a good conversation, and I don’t want to be so close to him that he can touch me.

Watching his face pull together, reminiscent of being in pain, my heart cracks. I hate seeing him like this, unsmiling, unjoyful. And I have to remember why he feels this way and not go to him, comfort him like I want to, even now.

“I don’t know where to start,” he laments.

I wait for him to continue, to look at me, to say something, but he doesn’t. All that comes out of him are tension-filled exhales and that’s not getting us anywhere.

“Tell me this,” I say, my voice sounding way more controlled than I feel. “Why does that envelope say Nzou on it?”

His gaze snaps to mine, his face ashen. He starts to come around the island, but for every step he takes towards me, I take one back.

“Brynne . . .”

“Why?”

Both hands on the counter, he eyes me warily. “Nzou is my company. I own it.”

My entire body goes weak, my shoulders slumping forward. It makes no sense. “Did you know that’s the name of the company my brother works for? It’s the parent company of his contractor. Of Mandla. Did you know that?”

Again—silence. But he doesn’t have to respond because his silence says it all.

He knew.

Of course he knew. He had to know.

I, too, hold myself steady with both hands against the counter. “Fenton, I . . . I don’t understand.”

“Your brother . . . Brady,” he gulps, “he’s employed by Mandla, a subsidiary of Nzou.”

“I . . . how . . .” The room spins, wobbles, shakes as I try to force the information into a puzzle that makes sense. “I don’t understand.”

“Mandla is a security company working in Zimbabwe.”

I think I’m going to pass out.

My eyes clamp shut to stop the room from rolling and to stop myself from having to watch his reaction. I need words. Only words. Only the truth.

“This can’t be happening,” I mutter, resting my head against my forearms.

“Mandla was a company of my mother’s. She was from Zimbabwe, from a family of British immigrants. My father met her there on a hunt, like I told you.”

“Pardon my lack of manners,” I say, popping my head up, “but I don’t care about your parents right fucking now.”

“Right. Okay. So Mandla was my mother’s way of pumping my father’s money back into her home country. It was a humanitarian-only company at first, but after she died, we had a group of our people fired on by insurgents. A couple of them died. It’s gotten really murky there in recent years. I knew I was going to have to provide better security for our workers, so I expanded our repertoire to include security as a whole.”

“Fenton,” I sigh, irritation thick in my voice. “Cut to the chase.”

“Brady went with us as a medic in the humanitarian aspect of the mission. Just like you already know, he was helping an injured child when he was abducted.”

The pain on his face matches mine. It’s a cool, twisted vision of grief and I wonder why, exactly, he’s hurt.
Does he know more than he’s letting on? Is he sick about having to come clean? Did he know my brother?

“I . . . oh my God,” I sigh, my eyes filling with tears. Anger keeps them from spilling over, an intensity that just builds. “How long have you known who I am?”

“Not long,” he swears, his voice abnormally steady.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I tried. I wanted to tell you, Brynne, but I was afraid—”

“Afraid of what?” I say, feeling the fury roll through my veins. I latch on to it, grab on to the feeling of being bamboozled by this good-looking liar. “Afraid of telling me the truth? Afraid of telling me you’re the one that left my brother to die?”

“No, Brynne, no . . .” He comes towards me, but I hold up a hand and laugh in his face.

“Don’t come near me,” I seethe. My words pound into him and he takes them with every ounce of the insult I injected. I can see them sear into his consciousness, burn a hole in his heart, and I hope it hurts like hell. “How dare you? How dare you . . . I don’t even know how to put it into words!” I shout. “Are you some kind of sadist?”

“Brynne, stop,” he pleads.

“
You stop
. I can’t even process this!”

Everything is rocking in my head—ideas, thoughts, possibilities, theories smashing into one side and then the other. I can’t make sense of any of it.

I watch his features fall, his shoulders slump forward as he watches me work through this information. All I know is that I hate him. I hate him in so, so many ways.

I pick up my phone and type in a text to Presley. I get a reply immediately that says she’s on her way.

“When did you know?” I ask, biting the side of my cheek. The pain is quick and welcome, offsetting the numbness that threatens to overtake me.

“When your mother called in Vegas,” he chokes out. “You told me Brady’s story and I started to put two and two together.”

“That’s why we came home?”

He nods.

“How could you do this to me, Fenton? How? How could you let me . . .” My lip quivers, the anger evaporated. The look on his face starts to break me and I won’t let that happen.

Running into the master, I shut the door behind me. I need space. I need privacy. I need to go home.

He pounds on the door behind me. I hear the words he’s saying—that he’s sorry. That he wants to talk to me. To let him in. But I don’t. I can’t. Letting him in would betray my family, and I’m not going to do that.

Tears fall across my cheeks, so hot they sting, as I get dressed. I cram my things back into my bag and look longingly at the bed where, just a few hours before, I lay with him and had all kinds of silly thoughts about what might be, where this might lead. None of the options were this.

I realize he’s stopped knocking. My phone buzzes that Presley is at the front door and I tell her I’m coming out. When I open the door to the master bedroom, I catch the end of Presley barreling through a Fenton-opened door, her black hair flowing behind her. Her eyes are wide as she scans the room, and once she finds me, she runs to me.

All I can do is look at Fenton. His head in his hands, his back against the wall, he looks as beaten as I feel.

“Are you okay?” she asks, running her hands up and down my forearms.

I shake my head, the tears coming harder now. “Can we go home?”

Her lips pressed into a hard line, she takes my bag and then steps in front of me.

“Fuck you, Abbott.” Presley leads me out of the house, but as I walk by, Fenton touches my arm. I don’t have the power to pull it back.

“I am so sorry, Brynne.”

I just blink through the tears and leave him standing there, a line of wetness flowing down his face too.

M
y head throbs. Each pump of my blood feels like it’s going to split my skull in two pieces. Or three. Possibly four.

I stare off into space at the general direction of my closet, trying to figure out how I got in this position.

Nothing seems right. I’ve thought about it all day. The sun is going down, the world behind my windows sunless now. I’ve lain in bed for hours, alternating thinking with crying and doses of sobbing.

How can this be happening?

I flop onto my back. My body feels hollow. My soul is crushed, my heart splintered with the news that he broke my trust before he even knew he had it.

How could he not tell me? How could he lure me in and make me fall in love with him and all the while know that he’s the one person I loathe more than anyone else in the world?

He’s the man that won’t tell the truth about what happened that day. He probably paid off Grant and the others.

My stomach rolls and I race to the bathroom and spew the three bites of Greek yogurt Presley forced me to eat at lunchtime. I rinse my mouth with water and look at my reflection.

I look about as good as I feel.

My eyes are swollen, my cheeks now the carriers of burst blood vessels from puking. My face is stained with tears and the agony of realizing I’ve been lied to and played for a fool . . . and that a man I trusted betrayed me. Again.

I return to my room and see Presley sitting on my bed. I sit next to her, letting my head fall to her shoulder.

“Heya, friend,” she says. “You okay?”

“No.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“I have a couple of snarky comments, but none of them will actually fix anything.”

“I know, Brynnie. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“You really liked him, didn’t you?”

I nod and raise my head, feeling like a fool. “How could he do this to me? How could he not tell me?”

“Brynne. Breathe.” I hear Fenton’s ringtone and see my phone in her hand. “He’s been calling you today. I took your phone when you fell asleep.”

“I don’t want to talk to him. I have nothing to say.”

She frowns. “Are you sure? It seems like you have a lot of questions to me.”

“He won’t answer anything,” I snort. I stand, restlessness getting the best of me. My phone goes off again. “Turn it off.”

Presley doesn’t look convinced, but she does it.

“Ugh!” I growl into the air, tugging at the roots of my hair. “Why, Pres? Why did he have to be
him
?”

“I don’t know. It seems so unfair.”

“Unfair? How about asinine? How about the world fucking hates me again? Even after he knew who I was,” I say, still piecing everything together, “he told me he wanted to see where things went with me. He was still leading me on, making me think . . .”

I still, my heart breaking again. I look at my best friend and see the pain on her face.

“You really were starting to love him, huh?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “But not now. I can’t possibly love him now.”

“You can’t turn love on and off, Brynne.”

“Watch me.”

She stands and heads to the door. “I’m going to grab a shower.” She leaves me alone with my thoughts.

My phone lies on my bed and I pick it up and hold it. I know I could turn it on and call him, but the sound of his voice would break me in two. I already miss his touch, miss the smell of him on me. Miss desperately the idea of seeing him again.

But I won’t.

Because he lied.

Because it’s possible I don’t even know who he is.

I fall onto the bed and cry myself to sleep. Again.