I find him upstairs in the master closet, angrily opening then slamming his dresser drawers. Leaning against the doorframe, I cross my arms over my chest and watch him for a moment.
“If you’re looking for your patience, I think you lost it a good thirty years ago.”
“Now isn’t the time to be smart, wife.”
He bangs around in the dresser drawers for a few more moments, shoving folded clothes aside and looking underneath, then mutters a curse when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for.
Recognizing his mood is black and I need to approach him as one would a cornered wolf, I keep my tone neutral. “So your dad’s nice.”
That observation earns me a blistering glare. Though it might be wiser to, I don’t back down. I’ve got too many questions swimming around my head that require answers.
“I have to wonder, though, why he wasn’t the first person you told about our situation.” When Callum remains silent, I prompt, “Considering his ultimatum about your inheritance?”
“I know what you meant. But it’s complicated.”
“Seems like it.”
Sensing I’m waiting for more, he adds, “We haven’t always been close. There’s…tension. History. Unresolved father-son shit.”
“Yeah, I got that. What I don’t get is what you’re doing that he thinks is so dangerous.”
He falls still for a split second, then glowers at me from under lowered brows.
“You listened in on our conversation?”
My smile is warm. “I know. It’s rude of me. But I did learn from the master.” I shrug, knowing he’ll realize I’m referring to the dinner with my employees at Jameson’s that started this whole thing.
He gazes at me in stone-faced silence for a moment, then snaps, “It’s just business. Things you don’t need to be involved in.”
I look at him, so obviously upset but unwilling to give me even a clue as to why, and decide to jump right into the deep end of the pool.
Holding his angry gaze, I say softly, “I don’t dislike you.”
He seems taken aback, but quickly recovers. “You married me for my money.”
“Yes. Guess what, asshole? You married me for your money too.”
His expression sours. “Not the same thing.”
“Oh, really? Explain how.”
He clenches his jaw. “Why do you always have to test me? Is it a point of pride for you?”
“Let me take a page from your playbook and say don’t change the subject.”
His glare turns baleful. “I should’ve married someone less intelligent.”
“Talk about a backhanded compliment. Well done. Don’t change the subject.”
Our eye contact is so intense, it’s practically a physical thing. We’re standing six feet apart, but might as well be wrestling around on the floor for how rough it feels.
Finally, he demands, “Name one thing you like about me.”
I tease, “Aside from your charming temperament, you mean?”
When he doesn’t crack a smile, I relent. “Okay, sourpuss, I like your sense of humor.”
He lifts one brow into a perfect, sardonic arch.
“Yes, it’s true. When you’re not busy being bossy and barking orders, you’re actually quite funny. Don’t give me that look. I also like how thoughtful you are.”
He blinks, obviously surprised by that.
I enjoy catching him off guard, so I keep going.
“You’re incredibly generous, too. For some reason, I always had this misconception that rich people were stingy, but you throw money around like it’s confetti. Let’s, see, what else? Oh, I like your taste in interior décor. And in books. That collection of first editions in the armoire is fucking amazing. Honestly, I should light some incense and a candle and make it into a shrine, it’s that good. I also like your face. Which I realize is an odd thing to say, but if you knew me better, you’d know what a compliment it is. Sometimes, I look at a person’s face and something about it is so irritating, I just want to throw a shoe at them. Personal quirk.”
“You like my face,” he repeats doubtfully.
“It’s very symmetrical.”
His expression of doubt turns to one of derision.
“Shut up. I’m not done with my list. You can think of witty comebacks while I’m talking. I like how you walk through the world as if you own it. You’re comfortable in your own skin. I admit I’m a bit jealous of that, because I always feel like some alien who crash-landed on this planet and has to figure out how to blend in without getting shot at, experimented on, or stuck in a zoo. You’re self-confident is what I’m saying. It’s a very attractive quality in a person.”
Callum is beginning to look baffled. It’s so satisfying, I reach deep into my reserves of courage and continue.
“I like that you listen. You notice things. You keep track.”
“Example,” he demands.
“When I told Sophie she deserved a raise, you made her boss give her one.”
He thinks about that, then lifts a shoulder as if it was nothing.
“It was a very generous thing to do.”
“I didn’t do it for her.”
The instant it’s out of his mouth, he looks as if he wishes he could take it back. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, glancing away.
I feel a strange softening in the center of my chest, as if a hard knot that has lived under my breastbone for years is slowly unfurling.
I say softly, “Then who did you do it for?”
He glances back at me, jaw clenched and eyes burning.
The knot loosens until I draw what feels like my first full breath in years.
“Callum, I know I give you tons of shit, but I honestly think you’re an amazing person. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
He grimaces as if I kicked him in the gut with my words.
“Judging by that look on your face, I haven’t done a good job communicating my appreciation. I’m sorry for that.”
His expression cycles through a mix of different emotions, starting with shock and ending on frustration. He says gruffly, “Don’t apologize. Don’t ever apologize to me again for anything. If you knew—”
Whatever else he was about to say is bitten back when he clenches his jaw.
“If I knew what?”
“Nothing. I have to go.”
“Right. The mysterious phone call. Are you off to Prague again?”
He gazes at me in tense silence, then orders, “Don’t repeat that to anyone. And I mean anyone, understood?”
His manner is so odd and strained, it makes me nervous. My heart beating faster, I step closer to him. “Why? Tell me what’s going on with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Your father thinks you can.”
“My father has a stale crouton for a brain.”
“Really? The man who founded a multi-billion dollar empire is an idiot? Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
“You find everything I say hard to believe.”
“Not everything. Only the stuff that sounds like bullshit.”
He closes his eyes and mutters, “Goddammit, woman.”
“Hey, if you wanted a mouse for a wife, you should’ve married one. Talk to me, Callum. Please tell me what the hell is going on.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, runs it through his hair, and sighs heavily. “What’s going on is that I have to leave for work. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. That’s all I can tell you.”
“All you want to tell me, you mean.”
My hurt must echo in my voice, because he looks at me for a brief, intense moment, before closing the space between us and taking my face in his hands.
“You have to trust me,” he says urgently, gazing deep into my eyes.
“My trust is earned, not dispensed on demand.”
“Then at least cut me some slack until you can trust me.”
“Why should I? Your dad obviously thinks I’m in some kind of danger, but you’re refusing to give me an inch. And who’s that guy he was talking about? And the mess you said your family is in? What the hell is happening, Callum?”
He drops his hands to his sides and blasts me with his most withering, he-man look, towering over me like Godzilla about to ransack a city.
I say flatly, “Yes, you’re very scary. Happy?”
“No.”
“What a shock.”
We glare at each other in stalemate for an eternity, until he decides he’s had enough of it and brushes past me, striding out of the closet without a backward glance.
I spin around and call after him, “You know what? I take back all that nice stuff I said about you. You’re a monster!”
Over his shoulder, he growls, “Now you’re getting it, wife.”
He leaves me standing alone in his closet wondering which of his suits I should take the scissors to first.
I can’t sleep that night. I lie alone in bed, staring at the shadows shifting on the ceiling, going over everything in my mind.
The McCord family is involved in something dangerous.
Callum told no one he got married.
He did something he thinks I’d hate him for if I found out.
It was the way he recoiled when I thanked him that clued me in. The way he ordered me never to apologize. Those bitten-back words after “If you only knew.”
He’s keeping secrets from me.
But why?
And what’s with the mysterious phone calls? The sudden business trips? The man his father said they can’t trust?
There was also something odd about the way Callum said I had incentive to marry him and Konrad’s response. “Not everyone is as mercenary as you.”
I can’t make sense of that exchange, especially since the real mercenary is a man who’d force his son to marry to secure his inheritance.
I feel as if something important hovers just out of my reach. Like I’m missing the piece that will complete the puzzle, but I can’t find it anywhere.
In the morning, I’m tired and on edge, preoccupied with thoughts of Callum. I head to work, but my anxiety grows as the day drags on. I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, so I call Dani and ask if she can meet me for drinks after I close up.
“Not tonight, babe. Ryan called to say he’ll be late at work, so he can’t watch Mia.”
“Oh God, I’m such a dick. I completely forgot to ask you how his new job is going.”
She laughs. “It’s not like you haven’t had anything else happening in your life.”
“I still feel awful about it.”
“Don’t. He’s loving the new gig at McCord Media.”
“Really?”
“They gave him a huge corner office with a view and doubled his salary. What’s not to love?”
“I’m so happy for him!”
“All thanks to you, girl. All thanks to you.”
I’m about to respond, but get distracted by the sight of a man standing outside the entrance of ValUBooks. He’s leaning with his back on the wall and one foot kicked up against it, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Wearing a black leather jacket, black cowboy boots, and jeans, he looks vaguely familiar.
Though mirrored sunglasses obscure his eyes, he seems to be staring in the direction of my shop.
“Em? You still there?”
A frisson of fear runs through me, making me shiver. “I’m here.”
“You okay? You sound weird all of a sudden.”
“Let me call you back.”
I hang up before she can say anything else and stare hard at the stranger in black, my heart thumping and adrenaline searing my veins.
I know I’ve seen him before. I know it. But where? When?
Has he been following me?
As if he can hear my thoughts, he pushes off the wall and disappears through the open glass doors of ValUBooks.
Viv glances up from the box of books she’s unpacking and looks at me.
“What’s wrong? You’re as white as a sheet.”
I barely hear her, because now I remember where I’ve seen the man in black before. It was the day of the grand opening of ValUBooks. He stood in almost the same spot, peering toward my shop from behind mirrored aviators.
Turning to look out the window, Viv says, “What are you looking at?”
I lick my dry lips and wipe my clammy palms on the front of my shirt. “There was a man…a guy that looked familiar.”
She turns back and frowns at me. “Out in the parking lot?”
“Over by the entrance to ValUBooks. I think I’ve seen him there before, looking this way. There’s something strange about him.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Built. Dressed in black with mirrored sunglasses. Kinda looks like trouble.”
After a beat, she says, “Like that guy at your dad’s funeral.”
Startled, I glance at her. “What?”
“You mentioned it once a while back. We were reading a list some critic put together about the best funeral scenes in movies and Sabine said that when she’s buried, she wants to hire someone to stand apart from the mourners under an umbrella, looking on from a distance, so everyone would think she was involved in something mysterious, and you said that happened at your dad’s funeral. That there was a mysterious stranger watching from under a purple flowering tree. I remember because you said he had James Dean-meets-Wolverine vibes, and I could totally picture him in my mind.”
James Dean meets Wolverine.
My entire body goes cold. My arms break out in goose bumps.
I remember it now in perfect detail, though up until this moment I’d forgotten. What struck me at the time was that the man looked so at ease among the crypts and headstones, as if he spent most of his time there.
As if he walked among the dead for a living.
As if maybe he was a ghost himself.
And though it’s impossible, I’m convinced the man I saw outside is the same man I saw at my father’s funeral.
The funeral which was four years ago.
Though my heart is racing and my stomach is in knots, I walk quickly toward the front door. “Viv, hold down the fort for a minute. I’m headed over to ValUBooks.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“Going ghost hunting.”
