I swiped hair out of my face to give my hands something to do. “And I did, but I also told him you guys had nothing to do with my dad’s business. Now, he keeps showing up… I think he wants to use me to get to Dad. I’m not sure.”
“So, he’s stalking you?”
“Is he stalking me?” I tipped a shoulder up. “He’s an agent. Can it be considered stalking if it’s legal?”
“It’s fucking stalking.” His neck corded, lips pulled back, but he moved on. “Question #2—did you know about the embezzlement?”
My head jerked back like whiplash. “No. Absolutely not.” My hand flew to my chest, fingers clutching my shirt. “I don’t know if I would have gone to the authorities if I’d known, but I would have told Betty and Hank. They put everything into the company. I didn’t know.” I chanced a glance at him, taking in his expression. Oh, Nash. “Is that why you've been mad at me this whole time? You thought I betrayed your family?”
That meant he thought I was responsible for Hank’s death.
A river of pity rushed through me. I flushed it from my system, knowing Nash would hate it if he knew it’d ever been there.
“I’m asking the questions. That’s the deal.” His restless tapping filled the car. “Question #3—where is Gideon Winthrop?”
I pinched the skin on my thigh, hoping to wake up from this nightmare. Each question was worse than the last and definitely not worth a trip to Eastridge to see Virginia. Trust fund access or not. “Nash…”
“It’s an easy question, Emery.”
“Not for me.”
I hated my dad, but I also loved him. It was the kind of love you gave fiercely. No stipulations. Pure. Wondrous. Permanent. I was pissed at him—so fucking pissed—but he was still my dad, no matter how much or how little I talked to him.
“Chill. I’m not going to hurt him.”
My eyes widened. “I didn’t even mention anything about hurting him. Were you planning on hurting him?”
I remembered the bruised knuckles he’d come home with. Dad was in his late forties. He wouldn't stand a chance in a fight against Nash.
“Do you trust me?”
“Honestly? Not to keep your hands off Dad, but everything else? Yes.”
He muttered a curse and swiped a palm down his face. “The deal is—”
“I know what the deal is.” I needed to buy time. “Give me today.”
“For?”
“I’ll tell you. I promise. Just give me time.”
Maybe I could warn Dad first, which required talking to him. I realized, as my heart sped at the idea, how much I missed my dad.
I sank into my seat, grateful when Nash pulled back onto the road.
“Why didn’t you go to my dad’s funeral?”
“Is this one of your questions?”
“Consider it complimentary for dealing with your ass.”
I owed him as much, especially since I wasn’t sure if I'd ever give up Dad’s location. “Reed asked me not to.”
Nash sliced me with his attention, stopping in the middle of the road this time. “He told you not to go?”
“Yes and no.”
“I know you buried Hank in his hometown, but Reed grew up in Eastridge. He wanted something done there. We obviously couldn’t divide the casket, but he asked me to bury an urn full of Hank’s favorite things in the center of the tree maze. While you guys were burying Hank, I buried the urn. It’s right in front of the Hera statue.”
“What did you bury?”
“His Panthers jersey. The pad of sticky notes he always used to press everywhere.” A smile ghosted my lips. “His favorite sunglasses, the ones he kept ‘losing’ while wearing. The book he’d read to me and Reed when we were younger. The prom king crown you didn’t want, but your dad found hilarious and mounted on the wall.”
“That’s where that went.”
“Are you mad I took it?”
He made me wait a few minutes for his answer. “No.”
Betty’s new house straddled the border between the middle class and filthy rich neighborhoods in Eastridge. I assumed Nash had paid for the home, and it suited her. So much so that every time I looked at it in the pictures Reed sent me, little fissures opened inside my heart at the idea of how happy Betty and Hank would have been there.
We pulled up sometime around eight in the morning, which was the equivalent of noon for Betty Prescott. The scent of breakfast lingered in the driveway. Nash cut the engine, popped open the door, and tilted his nose up.
I swung my door before he could, because as much of an ass as he was, his Southern mother had raised him to open doors for women. “How pissed do you think Virginia would be if I pigged out on Betty’s breakfast instead of the country club brunch?”
“Like a bear witnessing her cub getting kidnapped, only infinite rage and no maternal instinct.”
I grinned. “We should do it.”
Nash let us in with his key, my shoulders brushing his arm near the doorway. The smile on my face died at the sight of Basil and Reed sitting at Betty’s island. They didn’t look happy to see us. Even Betty didn’t look happy to see us.
“Fuck,” Nash muttered beside me.
I recovered quickly, leaping at Reed for a hug. “Reed!”
He returned it with an awkward one-armed pat. “Why are you here with Nash?”
“I needed a ride to Eastridge.”
“Looks like more than a ride, Em.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell me you’re not going to do something stupid.”
I distanced myself from him, flicking my attention to a wide-eyed Betty behind me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
This went from zero to a hundred fast, which told me Reed had already been in a mood. I gathered the situation as quickly as I could. Basil looked like herself, but didn’t act like herself. No scowl. No eye daggers thrown at me. Disconcerting.
Betty clutched her thin silver bracelet, an anniversary gift from Hank. Also a clue they were discussing something bound to break her heart. The last time Reed looked like this, he’d been cuffed in my living room.
He edged closer to me, which made Nash shift behind me. I held a hand out to my side, stopping them both.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded, “before hounding me with accusations you cannot take back.”
If this was his reaction at the sight of me and Nash, how would he react upon learning we’d had sex?
On. His. Bed.
“Ask yourself this,” Reed began, ignoring me, “do you want to be with someone willing to let his brother go to jail?” He jerked a finger at Nash. “Better yet, ask him how he got his millions or billions or what-fucking-ever.”
“Reed…” I didn't know what to say to that, except I knew I’d hate the answer.
Nash positioned himself next to me. Reed narrowed his eyes at us. We looked like a unified front.
“You told Emery she couldn’t go to Dad’s funeral?” Nash’s voice pitched low.
Betty gasped and clutched onto the kitchen rag on the counter. “Reed!”