Nash’s face pokered up. “We don’t know yet. Fire department seems to think it originated on the first floor. Sloane was upstairs in her office, working late. She was the only one on this side of the building. The alarms and the sprinkler system didn’t go off like they were supposed to, but she smelled the smoke, opened her door, and immediately called 911. Grave evacuated our side and went running into the library like an untrained idiot. He found Sloane on the stairs, and they were making their way out when the fire department showed.”
I wanted the names of every person who installed the alarm and sprinkler system because I was going to systematically ruin their lives. Then I was going to buy Grave a penthouse in whatever vacation town he wanted.
“How bad is the damage?” I asked. I’d rebuild it brick by brick for her. Whatever she wanted. She couldn’t stop me.
“We’ll know more in the morning. The structure seems stable, but…” Nash swiped a hand over his face. “Those books went up like fucking kindling.”
I absorbed it like a gut punch. Sloane would be devastated.
“I’m going to her,” I announced.
He shook his head. “Man, that’s not the smartest idea. She’s not going to want to see you. Not after the bullshit you pulled.”
“I’ll unpull it.”
“You’re either overestimating your charm or underestimating her stubbornness. Either way, you’re probably the last person she wants to see tonight. ”
He didn’t understand. No one did. When things turned to ruins, Sloane and I were there for each other. Always. It was time we both remembered that. Because I wasn’t walking away. Not this time. Not ever again.
“She’s not going to have a choice. She’ll listen to reason.”
Nash stared at me like I’d just invited him to a poker game with Bigfoot and the late Sammy Davis Jr. “Did you take stupid pills this morning?”
I glared at him. “I’m going to fix this.”
“Listen, Luce. I get that you have complicated feelings for Sloane. But I love that girl like a little sister. Always have. Knox too. If you fuck with her, if you upset her more than she already is, I’m not gonna be gentle with you. And we both know Knox won’t want to be left out of the ass kicking.”
I squared off with Nash and looked him dead in the eyes. “If you or Knox or anyone else in this fucking town tries to keep me away from Sloane, I will destroy you.”
His mouth curved up in the corner. “Looking forward to it, brother. Good luck.”
“Open the goddamn door, Sloane,” I bellowed, hammering my fist against her front door.
She hadn’t responded to any of my calls and texts since I’d kicked her out of my house, certainly none of the dozens since I’d shown up on her doorstep. But she had made the deadly mistake of turning the porch light out on me five minutes ago.
The first floor was dark. And I guessed she was either sitting in the dark enjoying my temper tantrum, or she’d gone upstairs to ignore me.
“I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well let me in,” I called.
The curtain in the front window closest to me twitched, and I lunged for the glass only to find the cat watching me dispassionately like she was some kind of guardian gargoyle. Could cats smirk? Because that was exactly what this tubby tabby appeared to be doing at my expense.
“You’re name is Meow Meow. You have no room to judge,” I told the cat through the glass.
The fur ball ignored me and focused her attention on the paw she was cleaning.
I gave up on the knocking and sought a new plan of attack.
The key.
I remembered Simon and Karen used to keep their spare key under the red planter they filled with ferns every spring and evergreen boughs every winter. Eagerly, I tipped it back and felt around the floorboards under it. Nothing.
Damn it. I guess some things did change. I moved the entire planter a foot to the right, then looked under Sloane’s whimsical welcome mat. I scoured every inch of the porch around the front door, then expanded my methodical search, pausing every minute or two to text her.
Me: I’m not leaving. Let me in.
Me: Are you okay?
Me: If you don’t at least respond, then I’m going to have to call Nash and have him do a welfare check.
Sloane: I’m fine.
Relief immediately gave way to suspicion. No insults. No accusations about shouldn’t I be drinking the blood of unicorns and leaving her alone. No hurling my past actions in my face.
The panic was back.
I checked the underside of the entire length of the railing. No key. When I got inside, I was going to bully her into giving me a spare key. Then I was going to have my security team install a state-of-the-art system to keep her safe. I paced to the end of the house where the porch wrapped around the side. The flashlight from my phone panned over the thick, flaky bark of the tree trunk.
For the first time in weeks, I grinned.
I vaulted over the railing and landed in the flower bed between a budding rhododendron and an azalea. I shoved my phone in my pocket, then wrapped my hands around the trunk. With one confident hop, I sacrificed my leather Brioni loafers against the rough tree bark.
The trick with climbing a cherry tree was to keep all the force pressing in a downward motion so the bark didn’t peel away from the tree. I shuffle hopped my way up the trunk until I reached the first branch. The first cherry blossoms had already started to bloom, filling my head with their familiar scent. It fueled me, fed me, and I climbed faster.
I chose an aggressive trek, and when I reached my foot for a higher branch, I heard the telltale rip of fabric. The rip was followed immediately by a flow of fresh air over my balls. The tree was a few decades older than the first time I’d climbed it, and I was out of practice, but I managed to land on the porch roof with only a few more scrapes and tears.
Sloane’s bedside lamp was on, I noted as I scrambled up the gentle incline over the shingles to the window.
My heart stopped.
Her light was on, but she wasn’t in bed. Sloane. My Sloane was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth. Tears washed clean trails as they cut through the soot on her beautiful face. Her clothing was dirty. Even her hair had lost its brilliant shine. Her ponytail drooped with the heavy weight of smoke residue.
The middle window was open a few inches. It always had been. So I did what I’d always done. I pushed it up and let myself in.
I could only imagine the picture I made, slinging one leg over the sill onto the cushion of the window seat. But Sloane didn’t laugh. Or yell. Or tell me to go fuck myself and leave her alone.
She looked directly at me, then covered her face with her hands and cried harder.
“Fuck,” I muttered, clambering into the room and racing to her side. “Sloane. Baby.” My hands searched her arms and torso for injuries. Because only the worst injuries could break her like this. The worst injuries and the worst heartbreaks.
Finding nothing, I shifted her into my arms. Panic was a living breathing thing in my chest when she didn’t fight me. She should be telling me what an asshole I was. She should be throwing me out. Not collapsing against me.
I picked her up and held her cradled against my chest, and when she didn’t start throwing punches and insults, I marched us to the head of her bed. I dragged the covers back, kicked off my ruined shoes, and sat against the pile of pillows, still holding her.
Silent sobs racked her body, forming wounds in my cold, black heart. A bottomless well of tears soaked my shirt as I held her tighter to me and let one hand stroke down her ponytail. Over and over again. She smelled like the kind of smoke that destroyed dreams, and I could hardly bear it.
Yet even though it carved me up to see her pain, I realized what a gift this was. To be here when she broke. To pick up the pieces and help her put them back together again.
I didn’t tell her it would be okay. I didn’t beg her to stop crying. I just held on tight as my pathetic, cowardly heart broke.
I thought I’d been doing the right thing by keeping her at a distance. She was supposed to have been safer that way. But by leaving her alone, I’d left her vulnerable to a danger I hadn’t anticipated. I wanted to protect her from me, from the dark shadow that was my past, from the danger that was my present. But I’d left her open and vulnerable to something else. Something that had almost stolen her from me.
If my distance couldn’t protect her, my proximity would. From now on, I would be Sloane’s shadow.