“I don’t want to leave,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering and closing again.
“Then don’t,” I say, pleased that the first confession came when she was sober, and this one comes when she’s just drunk enough to make emotional confessions.
She doesn’t respond. She’s dozing off again, and I stand and scoop her up. She curls into me again, her body soft in my arms. “Kasey—”
“Can handle the winery,” I say, already in the house and crossing to the stairs. “If he can’t, he needs to be replaced.” I start the upward climb. She’s silent until we’re almost to the top, and then she seems to remember the conversation.
“But the collectors,” she says. “I need—”
“You don’t,” I say, entering the bedroom. “Debate me after you take a nap, preferably after Wednesday, when I can return with you.”
“You’re very convincing when you’re holding me like this. Even with your clothes on.”
I laugh. “I’ll have to remember that.”
“That’s not the alcohol talking,” she murmurs. “I mean it.”
“Even better,” I assure her, setting her on the bed, which remains unmade. She plops onto the pillow. “My head is spinning,” she says, as I take her boots off. “I really hate being out of control.”
I lean over her and press my hands to either side of her. “No. You don’t. You hate always having to be in control.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I know how to read people, you especially. And now you don’t have to be in control all of the time. You have me. And you don’t know it yet, or you don’t trust me yet, but I’ll take care of you.”
“No one takes care of me but me,” she says. “That’s just how it is.”
“Was,” I amend. “That’s how it was. Like I said. Now you have me.”
“Ah, Nick,” she whispers. “I don’t.”
“You don’t what?”
“Have you. At least, not all of you.” She traces my brow with her finger. “It’s in your eyes right now. It’s always in your eyes. The secrets I try to understand when I paint you…Things you don’t want to tell me.” Her lashes lower. “Maybe you will one day.” She inhales again and her breathing slows, evens, while my heart is racing. She knows I’m telling her a lie. She senses it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I stand up and shove fingers through my hair before walking to the door, and just as I would exit, she whispers, “Nick.”
I face her, and she’s looking at me as she says, “When you’re ready,” before shutting her eyes again. “I can wait.”
And therein lies the problem. I’m never going to be able to tell her. I’m never going to be ready to lose her. Because I need this woman. I need her like I need my next breath.
CHAPTER SIX
Nick
After leaving Faith in my bed, I end up on the balcony, where I sit down, pour the last glass of whiskey in the bottle and down it. What the hell is this woman doing to me? No woman has ever consumed me the way Faith has, and does. No woman has ever made me not just want her, but need her, like I need Faith. As I, in turn, need her trust that I do not deserve. Forced lies are killing me and most likely will kill us, a likelihood that only gets worse with each day I continue to let them become a divide between us. She senses it. She knows it. She knows me in ways people who have known me for years do not. I need to fix this. I’m damn good at fixing things. This can’t be the exception. I will make things right with Faith. I will make everything right in her world, including me.
Which is exactly why I left Faith sleeping this morning and got to work doing just that, including a long conversation with Beck. Pulling my phone from my pocket, my finger hovers over the auto-dial with his number, but I remind myself that I didn’t even send the man a copy of my father’s note until early this morning. He’s a damn good PI, but even he needs time to work. I punch Abel’s number instead, who, as of a few hours ago, became more than my friend and personal attorney. He’s now one of Faith’s attorneys as well. She just doesn’t know it yet. “Bring yourself and those documents I had you do up for me over here,” I order, when he answers.
“Have that bottle ready for me,” he replies.
He means the Glenlivet Winchester Collection: Vintage 1964 bottle valued at 25k that was gifted to me first by a client, and now by me to Abel for taking care of Faith. “It’s ready and waiting,” I say without hesitation, more than happy to give up a bottle of booze to ensure Faith knows she can trust me. Which is the role Abel is going to play in this web I’m weaving for her enemies.
“I might let you taste it when I open it,” he taunts.
“I’ll gladly share a drink of anything the day you finally get smart and stop fucking the wrong women, like your ex.”
“She’s not my only fuck these days, and even if she was, I’m fucking her. She’s not fucking me. We’re going to talk about how that plays out with you and Faith. I’ll be there in fifteen.” He hangs up and I stand up, taking the empty glass and bottle with me to the kitchen. I don’t refill that glass. I make an old fashioned pot of coffee, because I like the insulated pot right next to me while I work, and on quick pour.
I then sit down at the island, my stacks of work in front of me, my briefcase locked and to my right. I punch in the combination and open it, pulling out my father’s handwritten note to read it again, homing in on those poison words: Faith is dangerous. She was a threat. How? I grab a note pad and start writing down my thoughts:
—My father had to have been after the winery but why? Is it worth more than we think? It has to be. Actions needed:
—Get assessment done Monday.
—Beck needs to find out what might be beyond the obvious.
Moving on…next item:
—Why call Faith Dangerous? COVERED. He had to have felt she was dangerous to his plan.
—Seven to ten million wouldn’t motivate a man who was damn near a billionaire at that stage in his life. Would it? No. COVERED.
—Why pay Meredith Winter one million dollars in staggered payments? Down payment on the winery? But she couldn’t sell without Faith, is that why Faith was dangerous? She could stop the sale? Back to: Why is the winery more valuable than it appears?
—Autopsy results—WHEN?
—If someone killed my father and Faith’s mother, doesn’t that infer that my father and her mother were on the same side? Unless my father convinced Meredith Winter to be on his side. Or she convinced him to be on his side. Or they were both such players they were playing each other but either way they both ended up dead, by the same means. The same person had to have killed them. And that person was NOT Faith.
I move on to another key list, and one to discuss with Beck:
Suspects:
—Someone associated with the bank.
—Ask Faith for a meeting with Cameron Lemon, with her present so he will talk.
—Faith’s present-day attorney when she met me—he’s her father’s friend but it appears her father’s friends were usually her mother’s friends as well and in Meredith Winter’s case, that’s a problem.