“Rachel, I don’t understand this.” I place my hand along the side of her face, my thumb grazing her cheek. I feel like I have to touch her or she’ll disappear.
Her hand covers mine and she shuts her eyes and breathes, like she’s savoring my touch. I’m savoring hers too. The feel of her hand on mine. Warm. Gentle. God, I want to touch her. All of her. She’s just as beautiful as she was years ago. I still feel that spark. That intense attraction. I’ve never felt that with anyone but her.
I can’t think about that right now. I need to get answers.
“Rachel, please tell me where you’ve been.”
She opens her eyes and takes my hand from her face and holds it, setting it on her lap. “I was in Italy, in that tiny village where we went on our honeymoon. We were there on Christmas. Do you remember?”
“Of course I do.” I look into her eyes. Those stunning bright blue eyes that mesmerized me on that first day we met. “You’ve been there this whole time? The past fifteen years?”
“Yes. Jack told me to pick someplace—”
“Wait.” I hold her arm. “Jack? What does Jack have to do with this?”
“Jack is the one who told me. He stopped me from getting on the plane. He picked me up at the hotel after Senator Wingate’s speech and took me to an underground room and told me what was going on. By the time we got to the room, the plane had already crashed. Jack showed me the video. And he showed me their order to kill me.”
So she knows. Rachel knows about the organization. Does she know I’m part of it? I hope not. But I’m sure she does. I’m sure Jack told her.
I rub my hand over my jaw, my other hand still holding hers. “Rachel,” I say, not sure how to explain this.
“I already know. I know about the organization. I know what they do. I know that you’re a member.”
Shit. She’ll never want to be with me now. She knows who I am. She knows I lied to her. She’ll never forgive me.
I immediately withdraw my hand from hers, but she takes it right back.
“No,” she says, softly, as she rubs her thumb over mine.
I look at our hands, our fingers now woven together. What does this mean? That she forgives me? How could she forgive me? How could she accept me, knowing what I’ve done?
“Pearce.” I look up at her again. “We need to talk about that, but not right now. For now, I need to finish telling you what happened.”
I nod. “Go ahead.”
“Jack told me to leave the country and hide out in a small town where no one would find me. The plan was for him to tell you what happened and tell you where I was so you could come get me once you figured out a way to keep me safe. But then…”
“Jack died,” I say, remembering the scene. “The night of the plane crash, Jack said he had to talk to me right away. He was in Connecticut and he wanted us to meet somewhere but I didn’t want to. I was too upset. I had spent that night trying to calm Garret down. We were both in shock over what had happened.”
Rachel is quietly crying now, and her pained expression causes an ache in my chest. I can see how much it hurt her to leave Garret and me, knowing what it would do to us. I can feel the guilt and regret she still carries with her, wondering if she made the wrong decision.
“So you didn’t go to meet him,” she says.
“I DID go. I met Jack at a scenic turnoff point just a few miles from the house. We were in his car, and he was talking to me, and then he suddenly collapsed forward onto the steering wheel. Someone was hiding in the woods and shot him in the head. Jack never told me about you. I never knew. If I had—”
“I know,” she says, grabbing a tissue from the box on the table. “After a few months, when you never showed up, I assumed something had happened. But I still had hope. I thought maybe you just hadn’t figured out a way to get me back. I didn’t know about Jack until three years later. That small village didn’t have Internet access so I had a friend of mine take me to Naples and I found a place where I could go online and look up information about you and Garret and Jack. That’s when I found out Jack died the night of the crash.” She looks down. “I knew then that you were never coming for me. You thought I was dead, and you’d moved on.” She shuts her eyes, tears spilling out.
So she knows about Katherine. And it still hurts her.
“Rachel, no.” I squeeze her hand. “I hadn’t moved on. I was forced to marry her.”
She nods. “I assumed that’s what happened. They’re supposed to choose who you marry. And it needs to be a daughter of a member. That’s why they wanted to kill me. They didn’t want you to be with me.”
How does she know all this? Did Jack tell her everything? Even our rules about marriage? Or did she just figure this out on her own?
“Pearce? Please answer me.”
“Yes. I was never supposed to marry you. It’s against the rules.”
“And yet you did it anyway, knowing what could happen to me.”
I am not prepared to have this conversation. I never thought I’d be having it. But now here we are. Everything’s out on the table. And I have to tell her the truth. Except I don’t have an explanation for what I did, at least not one that makes logical sense. My decision back then was driven solely by my heart, not my head.
“I was selfish,” I admit. “I fell so deeply in love with you that I couldn’t give you up. You made me feel something real for the first time in my life. I felt like my life finally had meaning. Purpose. I wanted to have a life with you. I wanted to make you happy. And I thought that you were.” My voice drifts off.
“I was,” she says gently. “I’m not saying that us being together was a mistake. I’ve never let myself even think that. Those twelve years with you were the best years of my life, and if I hadn’t married you we wouldn’t have Garret. I only made that comment just now because I had to know what you were thinking. Why you pursued me, knowing what could happen.”
“When I married you, there was no rule saying I couldn’t. It was supposed to just be a given. Nobody else had ever tried to marry someone who wasn’t approved. But the week after we eloped, they made it an official rule. That’s why I wanted to get married that weekend. But Rachel, I would’ve married you even sooner than that if you’d agreed to it. I knew I wanted to marry you long before I asked you.”
“What about Katherine? Did you know she was the woman they picked for you?”
“No. I had no idea. About a year after the plane crash, they told me I had to get married again, and that Katherine would be my wife. I fought their decision, but then they threatened me so I agreed to it.”
“How did they threaten you?”
I don’t want her knowing they threatened to harm Garret. It was a long time ago, and he’s safe now.
“It doesn’t matter. The end result is that I was forced to marry her. But Katherine and I are divorced now. We have been for years.”
“You had a child.” She looks down as she says it.
“Yes. Lilly. She’s 12.”
Rachel takes another tissue and wipes her eyes, then sits there quietly. It hurts her to know I was married to Katherine and had a child with her, but I can’t change that. And I don’t regret having Lilly. I love my daughter and can’t imagine not having her in my life.
“Rachel.” I wait until she looks at me. “Say something.”
She takes a breath. “Out of all the women they could’ve chosen for you to marry, I just wish it hadn’t been Katherine. It makes me sick thinking of you and Garret living with her. Having dinners and holidays with her parents, with Leland knowing what he’d done.”
With Leland knowing what he’d done. What does she mean?
“What did he do?” I ask, my jaw clenched.
“He rigged the plane to go down.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, close my eyes, and try to breathe. I’m so furious right now, I feel like I can’t control it. “How do you know this?”
“Jack told me. He saw Leland at Wingate’s f
undraiser, the night before the crash. Jack said Leland wasn’t supposed to be there, so when he saw him, he became suspicious. Jack confronted Leland and he admitted he was in on the plan to kill me. Jack recorded their conversation. I saw the video. I saw Leland telling Jack they were going to kill me. He showed Jack the order to do it. Leland was the person put in charge of bringing down the plane.”
I can’t fucking believe this. Leland killed my wife, or thought he did, and yet he came to my house, ate dinner with my family, had holidays with us. All the while knowing what he’d done. Gloating over it, right in front of me. All those condescending looks. Odd comments that never made sense. He was playing me. Playing me like a fool under my own roof.
“I’ll kill him,” I say, then realize I said it out loud.
“Pearce, no.”
I look up and see Rachel watching me, concerned about what I might do. I don’t care. She knows who I am now. She knows what I’ve done. She knows what I’m capable of. And if anyone’s worthy of being killed, it’s Leland. An eye for an eye. He killed my wife, or at least tried to. And now he will die.
“That man will not live to see another day.” I try to get up but she takes hold of my hand.
“Pearce, don’t do it. It’s over now. He didn’t succeed.”
“And you think he won’t come after you after he finds out you’re alive?”
“He has no need to. Why would he care about me? You’re no longer married to Katherine and…you and I are no longer married.”
I can’t tell if she’s saddened by that or not. I’m unable to tell how she feels about me. She’s holding my hand and sitting close to me, but that doesn’t mean she wants me back. So much time has gone by. So much has happened. Did she ever remarry? Or did she date other men? If so, how many? I can’t think about that right now.
I return to the topic that has me so enraged I want to fly to New York this instant and shoot Leland and watch him die.
“Leland would kill you just to spite me,” I tell her, being completely honest. “He has to die, and I will be more than happy to do the job.”
She covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes on me, her expression fearful. She’s fearful. Of me. Dammit. I shouldn’t have said that to her. She knows I’ve done bad things, but I don’t need to remind her of it. Then again, she needs to know the world I live in, and that in order to survive in that world, you do what you have to do.
“Rachel, he tried to kill you. And he’ll try again.”
“I don’t want you killing someone.” She lowers her hand from her mouth. “There has to be another way.”
I put my hand firmly on her shoulder. “If Leland were trying to kill Garret, would you kill him?”
She swallows. “Yes.”
“I would as well. I would do anything to protect my family. You’re my family, Rachel. And I will not let any harm come to you.” I gaze at her and see her fear turn to understanding. Putting this in terms of Garret made her realize I don’t have a choice. Leland has to be killed. “We will not speak of this again. I will take care of it.”
We hold gazes for a moment, and then she looks away.
“What is it?”
“I need to finish telling you what happened.”
“Go ahead.” I let go of her shoulder and sit back, still holding her hand.
“After I found out about Jack and realized you never got the message, I tried to leave. I was going to fly home that week. But before I could, these men came to my room in the middle of the night and tied me up and showed me a video.”
I’m tensing up again, my muscles clenched. “A video of what?”
“Your father.”
My blood is boiling, my temper rising. “Are you saying my father knew you were alive?”
“Yes. He knew Jack had gone to speak with you the night of the crash.” She pauses. “Holton is the one who killed Jack.”
Rage surges through my veins. “He said that? My father admitted to killing Jack?”
She nods. “Yes. I’m sorry, Pearce. I know how much you loved Jack.”
“What else did my father say?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“When Holton saw Jack going to meet you that night, he suspected he was there to tell you that I was alive. He assumed Jack had saved me. Holton didn’t know where I was, but he was looking for me. And he found me when I went to Naples. The street cameras captured an image of my face and it was fed into a database and linked back to me. Your father was alerted and he sent those two men after me.”
My father knew she was alive. He knew, and he didn’t tell me. And he killed Jack, the man who was like a father to me.
The rage inside me is so intense I’m about ready to explode. I’m trying to control my temper, for Rachel’s sake, but I need to at least move. I need to stand up and pace the floor, but Rachel’s holding both my hands and looking at me so intently that I remain where I am.
“I thought for sure Holton sent those men there to kill me,” she says. “But then on the video, he said instead of killing me, he wanted me to be stuck in that town forever, unable to get back to you. He called it my own personal hell. He threatened me. And he threatened Garret. He said something would happen to Garret if I ever tried to leave or tried to contact you or anyone else from my old life. When the video ended, the men in my room drugged me, and when I woke up, my passport and all my money were gone. But they left me this.” I take the necklace out from underneath the neckline of my dress and hold up the small heart locket. “He wanted me to see Garret in this photo every day, knowing how much it would hurt me to know I would never see him again.”
I force myself to set aside the fury I feel at my father and put my focus on Rachel. My father is gone. And in the end, he got what he deserved. I don’t want to waste more precious time and energy being angry at him. That’s what he would’ve wanted. So instead of giving him that, I calm down and focus on Rachel and what she went through. It was all because of me. Because I exposed her to this world she never should’ve been part of. Because I didn’t see my father for who he was. I wanted to believe he’d never harm her, and even though the signs were there, I ignored them. I lived in denial. He kept her there for all those years and I never even suspected it.
I pull her into my arms. “Rachel, I’m so sorry. If I’d only known.”
“I was so scared.” She’s shaking just thinking about it. “I didn’t know what to do.”
I hold her tighter. “He lied. My father lied. He never would have hurt Garret.” I don’t want to tell her why. How he had plans for Garret. That story will have to wait for another day.
“That’s what I thought. I couldn’t imagine him hurting his own grandson. So I decided to try to leave. But I couldn’t. Holton had those masked men watching my every move. When I tried to leave, they kept stopping me. They wouldn’t let me get beyond the outskirts of town. Then I tried getting a message to you. I worked at a restaurant and whenever American tourists came in, I tried to get them to give you a message. But none of them did.”
My arms relax around her and my shoulders slump. “Shit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
20
PEARCE
“What?” Rachel asks. “What is it, Pearce?”
“There was a man.” I rub my forehead, remembering him. “A banker from Wall Street. He came up to me after a speech I gave at a conference a few years ago.”
“Was his name Michael?”
“Yes. I believe it was.” I look at her and sigh. “I’m sorry, Rachel. He told me about you, but I thought it was some kind of hoax. The things he knew about you were all things anyone could obtain from the Internet.”
“Did he mention the town in Italy?”
“Yes. And when he said it, I assumed someone from the organization was playing some kind of sick joke on me. When we were at parties, we told people about that town and how we’d been there. Those parties we used to go to were all attended by my fellow members. So when I heard this man mention that town, I
assumed he was hired by one of the members.”
“They’d really do something that cruel?”
“Yes. But if this man had said just one thing that was personal, something only you and I knew, I would’ve looked into what he was saying. But he didn’t, so I didn’t believe him.”
She has that pained expression again. “I told him to thank you for the Christmas ornament. The angel. I told him to tell you that I put it on the fireplace mantel.”
“Rachel, if he’d told me that, I would’ve been on the first flight out. That would’ve been enough for me to at least have hope that maybe he was telling me the truth. I would’ve looked for you.”
“I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” she says softly.
Why didn’t I listen to that man? Why didn’t I look for her? If I had, I would’ve found her years ago.
“So how did you get here?” I ask. “How were you finally able to leave?”
“An American family came into the restaurant earlier this week and the two daughters were talking about Garret. They said he was on some TV show. I forget to ask Garret about that. Was that true? Was he on TV?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. Just continue.”
“I was talking to the father and asking about you and Holton and that’s when he said Holton had a stroke and died five years ago.” She sighs. “I’d gone five years without knowing. I could’ve left five years ago.”
“If I’d known what he’d done to you, I would’ve killed him long before that.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Then again, maybe she needs to know. If I want a future with her, I can’t continue to keep secrets from her.
“What are you saying, Pearce? Did you do something to your father? He didn’t die from a stroke?”
I fix my eyes on hers. “Protect your family above all else. Do you agree with that statement?”
Only Her Page 19
