Only Mine, page 19
“They fixed it when Sleeping Beauty was asleep,” Ivy counters. “And when the frog was a frog. And when—”
“Those are fairy tales.”
The words come out harsher than they should.
Ivy’s face falls. “Oh.”
Wrenley squeezes her hand. “But hugs help a lot. Can I have one of those?”
Ivy launches herself at Wrenley with the enthusiasm of someone who’s been starved for affection. Wrenley catches her easily, lifting her off the ground in a spinning hug that makes Ivy giggle.
The sound punches through my ribs. I haven’t heard that particular laugh in five days. The one that’s pure joy, uninhibited and bright. I’m struck by how natural they look together. How right. Wrenley’s eyes drift shut as she holds my daughter.
“Better?” Wrenley asks, opening her eyes with a smile and setting Ivy down.
“Much better.” Ivy beams up at her. “Papa needs one too. He’s been extra cranky since you left.”
“I’m standing right here,” I mutter.
“That’s why I said it loud enough for you to hear,” Ivy replies pertly.
Wrenley stares at me, chewing on her lower lip. The sight has me wanting to bite her lip for her, and maybe run my tongue along it after.
I should snap out of it. Retreat. Maintain the distance I’ve worked so hard to create.
Instead, I move closer.
“Saint.”
My name on her tongue is the barest of sounds.
Her arms come around me tentatively, like she’s afraid I’ll bolt. When I don’t, they tighten around my waist, pulling me into her warmth.
My hands span the narrow width of her back. She’s so much smaller than I remember, more fragile.
One of my hands ends up tangling in her hair, bringing her closer. I let myself sink into the hug for just a moment, plunging into the sweet scent of her hair, the way she fits against me like she was made for this exact space.
Like the past five days of pretending I didn’t need this exact feeling were a complete waste of time.
“This is nice,” Ivy announces from somewhere near our knees. “Now Papa doesn’t look like he wants to punch trees anymore.”
Wrenley’s laugh vibrates against my chest.
But she pulls back first, her cheeks flushed. “We should keep going.”
The walk continues with Ivy filling up most of the space between us. She also breaks the charged silence by chatting about everything from squirrel behavior to cloud shapes, though my attention keeps drifting to Wrenley. The way she moves beside me. How she automatically shortens her stride to match Ivy’s. The soft smile that appears whenever my daughter says something particularly ridiculous.
But whenever Wrenley’s phone vibrates in her back pocket, her entire body goes rigid. The first few times, she pulled it out, glanced at the screen, then silenced it before shoving it back into her jeans. This time, there’s something in the way her shoulders hunch forward before she lifts her head, scanning the perimeter while she clenches her phone.
Alarm bells go off in my head.
“Everything okay?” I ask as we approach the town square.
“Fine.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just work stuff.”
A car backfires somewhere down the street, and Wrenley flinches so hard she nearly crumples to the ground. My hand shoots out to steady her, but she’s already pulled away, composing herself with visible effort.
“Is that where you live now?” Ivy points at the upper windows of Cornerstone Books.
“That’s right,” Wrenley confirms, but her attention is divided. She glances over her shoulder, scanning the street behind us.
“Can we see it?” Ivy bounces on her toes. “Please?”
“Another time,” I tell her without taking my focus off Wrenley. “I’m not about to reward you for running off, mon trésor.”
“Fiiiiiiiine.”
While Ivy examines a particularly interesting rock on the sidewalk, I ask Wrenley quietly, “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Wrenley nods while rubbing her lips together.
She’s lying. I’ve seen this look before, on the sous chef who worked for me in Paris after he was mugged. Hypervigilance.
“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on,” I say, keeping my voice low enough that Ivy can’t hear, “but don’t lie to me either.”
Wrenley’s eyes snap to mine, wide and startled. The truth sends shock waves of raw fear across her face before she masks it with a half-smile.
“Sorry. Just jumpy lately.” She tucks her phone deeper into her pocket, fingers lingering there like she expects it to bite her if she moves away too fast. “Comes with the territory.”
I pretend ignorance. “What territory?”
She hesitates, and I can almost translate the internal debate playing across her features.
Her phone buzzes again. This time, she doesn’t even check it. She just presses her lips together so hard they turn white.
“Wrenley.” I step into her space. “What happened in Miami?”
Her entire body goes still.
“Papa, look!” Ivy interrupts, holding up a leaf shaped like a perfect heart. “It’s a love leaf! Miss Wrenley, you should keep it!”
Wrenley accepts the gift with a trembling hand and a mega-watt smile. “Thank you, sweetie.”
“Why don’t you come by the restaurant tonight?” The words tumble out before I can catch them. “For dinner.”
Wrenley’s eyes return to mine, wary and uncertain.
“Please, Miss Wrenley?” Ivy abandons her nature hunt to tug at Wrenley’s heart. “Papa makes the best pasta on Thursdays.”
“It’s just dinner,” I add, trying to keep my voice casual when there’s nothing casual about this invitation. “No expectations.”
A lie. I have a thousand expectations, most of them involving answers to questions I shouldn’t ask.
“All right,” she says finally, “What time?”
“Seven?” I suggest. “After the early rush.”
Wrenley’s phone buzzes again, drawing my attention to the way her grip tightens around it. Her eyes dart toward the bookstore, then back to me.
“Seven works,” she says, but her voice lacks conviction.
“Are you sleeping okay?” I ask without thinking. “Your light was on at 3 a.m. last night again.”
Wrenley freezes. “How would you know that?”
Shit. I rub the back of my neck. “Uh, the window of my back office faces the bookstore.”
At her concentrated stare, I add, “I’m usually there until two or three. The kitchen needs cleaning after service, and there’s always paperwork.”
“And you can’t help checking on me?” she asks. I’m relieved when it’s followed by a slight uptick to her mouth.
“I just want you to know you’re safe,” I confess before I can second-guess it. She looks like she needs someone to say it to her.
And mean it.
Ivy looks between us, curiosity blooming on her face.
“Safe,” Wrenley repeats, like she’s testing the word for authenticity. “That’s...” She swallows hard. “Thank you.”
Her simple gratitude ignites a ferocity in my chest usually reserved for Ivy. It makes me want to hunt down whoever caused her to be this scared in a cozy small town.
“Miss Wrenley has a cat in her apartment,” Ivy announces, clearly bored with our adult conversation. “Marcus told me. His name is Ralph, and he’s orange.”
“He’s the bookstore cat,” Wrenley clarifies, grateful for the subject change. “I pretty much pay the rent to him, not Marcus.”
“Can I meet him tonight? After dinner?”
“Ivy,” I warn.
“What? You said no rewards for running away. You didn’t say anything about after-dinner visits to cats.”
I fight a smile. My daughter, the lawyer. “We’ll see.”
Wrenley’s phone buzzes yet again. This time, her face drains of all color as she glances at the screen.
“I should go,” she says, her tone deceptively light.
Ivy wraps her arms around Wrenley’s waist one more time. “Don’t forget about dinner!”
“I won’t.” Wrenley extracts herself form Ivy’s grip and backs toward the bookstore. “Promise.”
I watch her retreat, noting how she keeps glancing around, scanning faces, checking corners. She doesn’t turn her back fully until she reaches the bookstore door, and even then, she looks over her shoulder one last time before disappearing inside.
“Papa, is Miss Wrenley okay?”
Ivy’s question mirrors my own thoughts.
“I don’t know,” I admit, keeping my eyes on the now-empty doorway. “But we’re going to make sure she will be.”
TWENTY-TWO
WRENLEY
Ralph watches blandly when I check my door lock three times.
“What?” I ask the orange cat sprawled on my bed. “I’m being thorough.”
The cat offers a noncommittal yawn, stretching languidly across my pillow.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, startling me. It’s probably Brenda again, checking on the new content schedule I promised. Or maybe Saint, confirming dinner plans. My fingers twitch with the hope it’s the latter.
But I know it’s worse than that.
I shouldn’t have checked my notifications while walking the trail with Ivy and Saint. But Saint’s sudden, towering presence with sky-blue eyes that know too much and his arms wrapping around me, the ropes of his tendons and tattoos holding me against him like I’ll never have anything to worry about again, forced me to find a distraction.
And so I did what I promised my therapist I wouldn’t do. My promise of no engagement, no scrolling, no obsessing over responses went out the goddamn window.
I chose the most innocuous post to check. The one with Ralph sleeping on my bed, captioned “Small-town life comes with built-in companions. #NewBeginnings #FreshStart.”
Most comments were harmless.
So cute! Love this for you! That orange boy is everything!
But then I saw it.
Pink looks better in your hair than blue did. Though I miss the way you’d twist it around your finger when you talked to me through the camera. I miss watching you sleep, princess.
I’m shocked my legs didn’t give out when I read it. I’m proud of how I handled myself in front of Saint and Ivy even though it took all my energy to keep it together until I climbed up the stairs to my apartment.
I deleted the comment instantly, of course, but it doesn’t matter. He’s out. He’s seen my new content. He’s found me again despite the multiple court orders telling him to fuck all the way off.
My chest constricts as I sink onto the edge of the bed. How? I’ve been so careful. No location tags, no identifiable landmarks. Nothing to connect me to Falcon Haven.
Yet somehow, he knows about my pink streak. Knows I’ve changed it.
But it might not be him. It could be a troll, fully aware of my situation and using it for clout. Trolls study influencers like specimens, learning our histories, our traumas, and crafting messages designed to destabilize us. It’s sick, but it’s not necessarily him.
Ralph pads over and butts his head against my elbow, purring.
“You’re right,” I tell him, scratching behind his ears. “I’m spiraling.”
I should call the jail and make sure he’s still there. Or call Brenda and ask her to check for me. Get off social media entirely, find a new job, a new country.
God, I used to love what I did. I found joy in everything that came with becoming an influencer: the planning, the editing, the content, the connections, and yes, the PR packages were never unwelcome. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Not to mention what it did for my social anxiety and how I blossomed when I realized I could build a career around something I was naturally good at despite how much I fumbled through face-to-face conversations. I found confidence. I found happiness. I found belonging.
My hands won’t stop shaking. The screen illuminates again, showing a text from Saint.
Still on for 7?
I stare at the message, my throat closing. I should cancel. Pack my things. Run again.
But I’m so tired of running.
I tap out a reply: Yes. See you then.
Ralph meows, clearly judging my life choices.
“It’s just dinner,” I tell him, though my heart pounds like I’m confessing to murder. “I’ll be in public. Surrounded by people. He’ll be busy in the kitchen.”
My phone vibrates again with a notification from Instagram. I swipe it away without looking, then power off the device completely.
I need a shower. I need to wash off the trail dust and the sensation of Saint’s arms around me and the lingering fear that someone dangerous knows where I am.
The bathroom is tiny, but the water pressure is surprisingly good. I stand under the hot spray for a long time, letting it sluice over my skin, trying to wash away the residue of fear.
It doesn’t work.
The comment is seared into my brain, a brand mark over the fragile serenity I’d started to build.
Pink looks better.
I miss watching you sleep, princess.
I scrub at my hair with too much force, the pink a mocking reminder of my attempt to reclaim some part of myself.
After toweling off, I stare at my reflection. The woman looking back is a mess. Dark circles under her eyes, a tremor in her lips she can’t quite control.
This is not the picture of a woman about to have a casual dinner date. But I promised Ivy. I promised Saint. And a small, treacherous part of me wants to go. Wants to sit in the warm glow of C’est Trois and see Saint in his element.
I choose a simple black dress and spend too long on my makeup. Ralph watches me from the doorway, his green eyes unnervingly perceptive.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him, stepping into the new suede cowboy boots I bought yesterday. “I’m fine.”
He blinks slowly, unconvinced.
Grabbing my keys and a small clutch, I take a deep breath. The lock clicks behind me, a small sound in the quiet of the stairwell.
One foot in front of the other. That’s all it takes.
The walk to C’est Trois is only a few blocks, but every shadow seems to lengthen, every passerby feels like a potential threat. By the time I reach the restaurant, my palms are sweating.
The front windows glow gold, condensation fuzzing the edges of the glass. Inside, the tables are half full. I hover on the sidewalk, half lit by the interior, half hidden by the shadow of the awning. My reflection stares back: tall, a little haunted, armed with lipstick.
Saint clocks me through the glass before I make it to the door. He looks up from a conversation with a server, his head tilting a fraction.
In that second, the world slows. That impossible blue collides with my gaze, and I’m unmoored, tossed back into last week’s perfection: his body pinning mine to the mattress, his mouth on my scars. Holding me in place.
Saint is the first to compose himself, but I can tell that my appearance has knocked his evening off its axis.
C’est Trois is warm and bright inside, and the host stand is operated by the same blonde from my last visit. She spots me when I walk in, pasting on a smile and asking, “Table for…?”
“Toussaint.”
The name sticks against the back of my throat.
Her gaze flicks over my outfit and hair. “Right. He said you’d be joining him. This way.”
She leads me past the open kitchen, where Saint stands at the pass. He’s in chef blacks tonight, sleeves rolled, arms tense with veins cresting under his tattoos.
When the hostess says, “Your guest is here, sir,” he looks up.
His blue pulls me under again.
Saint gestures me into the kitchen. “Right on time. Ivy’s waiting at the private table in here.”
It takes a minute to process that he’s inviting me into the heart of his domain. Willingly.
I’d expected a quiet table in the corner, maybe his subtle wave from the kitchen, but not this. Not the heat, the clang, the rush of a dinner shift in progress. Not the wall of noise and scented steam and the sudden, total attention of every cook on the line as the boss’s “guest” trails in wearing a dress that now feels absurdly fancy for the occasion.
Saint’s kitchen is a different ecosystem than the dining room, and he moves through it with the animal grace of someone who isn’t thinking about motion at all. Someone who is, in fact, the sole gravitational force in the room.
The VIP table sits in an alcove at the back of the kitchen, a polished cherry wood table for four gleaming under a single copper pendant light, while the rest of the kitchen blazes under industrial fluorescents. A white linen tablecloth, crystal glasses, and heavy silverware create the impression of a dining room luxury, but with the unmistakable thrill of being behind the velvet rope.
Ivy waves frantically from her seat, half standing on her chair until Saint gives her a look that settles her back down. I notice a small placard on the table: RESERVED.
“The chef’s table,” Saint says, pulling out a chair for me. “Usually booked months in advance.”
“Or years, depending on who you are,” calls another chef without looking up from the salmon he’s plating.
“Mayor Dillinger’s still mad about tonight,” adds another cook, eyebrows waggling suggestively in my direction.
Saint’s jaw tightens. “Focus on your stations.”
“You denied the mayor?” I ask, sliding into my seat.
Saint stays close enough to catch his scent, smoke and salt, appearing at my elbow. “I told him we were fully committed.”
The word “committed” does something stupid to my pulse. I reach for my water glass to have something to do other than melt.
My phone vibrates against my hip in my purse. The sound is barely audible over the kitchen noise, but I feel it. Once. Twice. Three times in quick succession.
“You good?” Saint asks, catching my slight frown.
“Fine.”
But the buzzing continues. Insistent. Too many for Brenda. Too aggressive for anyone who has my number with my permission.
