Читать книгу The Complete Red-Hot And Historical Collection - Ким Лоренс, Kelly Hunter - Страница 62

JARED ARRIVED IN Amsterdam and made the city his own. Bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly, creatively organised and full of water, the city appealed to him. The watercraft weren’t like the ones he’d grown up with, and the canals were a rats’ maze, but the place was beautiful and free-wheeling and it appealed to him on a visceral level.

He’d have liked to see Celik grow up here in safety, but that wouldn’t happen so long as Antonov’s parasites kept after him. Celik’s perceived inheritance was the magnet, but the authorities had frozen it. No one could get to it. Not Celik’s mother—bless her non-maternal soul—not Antonov’s debtors, nor his creditors. That money wasn’t going anywhere.

Two years ago he wouldn’t have hesitated to go in and take the child, with no one any the wiser. These days his world was not nearly so black and white.

Undercover work had shown him the many facets of every situation. Likewise, Rowan’s approach to problem-solving took into account and tried to balance many different needs. Celik had a mother—a woman who had taken him in—and before Jared put any plan for the boy in motion he needed to talk to her and take her needs into consideration.

Jared wasn’t going into this guns blazing.

He thought Rowan would approve.

Getting to see Celik’s mother was easy.

Damon invented an obscenely wealthy, fully verified background for him and booked him an appointment. Two hours, four-thirty to six-thirty p.m., cash only.

Damon’s wicked sense of humour at work, but it gave him a cover persona and a trail leading nowhere should anyone decide to investigate.

Damon had invented another persona for Jared as well. In this one he was a highly skilled government operative, specialising in witness protection. It was this second persona that Jared had to sell to Celik’s mother in order for any of their plans to work.

He was here to lie, scheme, to light a fire and destroy a little property, and kidnap a child and possibly the child’s mother as well.

Every one of those activities should have given him pause.

And they didn’t.

Needs must.

He had a plan, finessed by Damon, and he was running with it.

At four-thirty p.m. exactly Jared entered a narrow street paved with cobblestones and walked towards house number twenty-three. The entrance door was flanked by flowerpots filled with colourful blooms. An ornate wrought-iron railing guided visitors up the three steps to the deep red door with its brass lion knocker. The house itself stood three storeys tall—one of Amsterdam’s historic ‘Gentleman’s Houses’, abutting one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals. Prime real estate, carefully tended and exclusive.

He rang the bell, and was surprised when Celik’s mother opened the door herself.

He knew what she looked like from the photos Damon had sent him. He’d been expecting polish and he got it. She was a very beautiful woman in her late twenties, with a face that had an innocence to it that couldn’t possibly be real, given her profession. But she had a kind of vulnerability—and her smile was sweet as she asked him his name and then stood back to let him in, waiting until the door had closed behind him.

She led him into a small sitting room filled with deep armchairs and elegant furnishings before asking him for more formal identification.

‘A driver’s licence, if you please, or a passport.’

He handed her the passport Damon had secured for him and she took a photo of it with her phone and presumably sent it somewhere, presumably for safekeeping.

Not a foolish woman, by any means.

‘Precautions,’ she said, with another sweet smile. ‘Should you become a regular patron, this part of the afternoon can, of course, be dispensed with. My name is whatever you want it to be this evening. Would you care for a drink?’

‘I’m really not here for what you think I’m here for.’

He pulled out the second set of credentials and handed them over and watched her innocent expression fade, to be replaced by sharp-eyed consideration.

‘I’m here in collaboration with Dutch and Russian officials. I work for an organisation that relocates certain individuals—if that’s what they need. I’m here to offer you and your son entry into a witness protection programme.’

Would she do it? He had a plan in place, just in case she said yes.

But neither he nor Damon had judged it likely.

‘No.’ He watched in silence as her pretty face contorted into a mask of pain and frustration. ‘Yes, I requested help, but this is not what I want!’

He and Damon had judged correctly.

‘Witness protection?’ she continued angrily. ‘Why should I give up my life here when this was never the arrangement? I bore that man a child, yes. A sick child that I couldn’t care for. The child’s father paid me to go away and stay away—and I did. That child upstairs was three days old when I walked away from him. I have the paperwork to prove it. I made no claim on him, or on any fortune he might some day inherit. I have paperwork for that as well. But does anyone care? No! “You’re his mother,” they said. “He’s your problem now—you deal with it.”‘

Not a lot of maternal instinct in that heart.

‘Look, he’s a sweet kid. He’s soft. He has this innocence …’ she continued. ‘How that happened, given that father of his, I have no idea. But I can’t protect the boy from who he is and what his late father owes. I don’t have access to the money his father’s business associates want. I don’t have the weapons they want. I was never in Antonov’s confidence. But these people … they don’t want to hear that.’

‘You fear for your safety?’

‘Yes!’

‘I’m offering you and your son a chance to leave this place and start afresh. Somewhere Antonov’s debtors won’t find you.’

‘Take the boy—yes. If he goes away my problems will disappear. Take him. Please. And leave me out of it. I have a life here—and it’s a good one.’

‘If that’s what you want …’ He’d been counting on it. ‘I require your signature and your co-operation when it comes to getting the child away from the property without being seen. Your son will have a new identity and a new life without you in it. One that precludes any contact with you in future years.’

‘Take him.’ She spoke with no hesitation. ‘Keep him safe if you can. Let him grow to become his own man—there’s freedom in that, and choice. He could go to school, make friends with other children. I tried to get him to make friends, but he’s too used to being with adults … he’s never been anything but home-schooled.’ She shook her head. ‘The child thinks he’s too sick for regular school. He’s not. He was home-schooled because of his father’s protectiveness and paranoia.’

‘Under the circumstances, I guess the paranoia was warranted.’

‘All I’m saying is that if he stops being Antonov’s son, Celik can go to school. He can choose who he wants to be.’ She looked sad suddenly. ‘He won’t get the chance to start over if he stays with me.’

‘You do care about him?’

‘No! Not enough to change my life. There’s a difference between wanting someone to have a chance and caring about them.’

‘Do you need more time to make a decision?’

She shook her head and turned away. ‘No. Take him now. Take him away. I don’t care.’

‘Do you like yellow tulips?’

Her gaze met his in the mirror above the mantelpiece as she poured herself a shot glass full of cognac and swallowed it. ‘They’re a little common.’

‘Once a year, on this date, you’ll receive a bunch of yellow tulips. A message, if you will, that your son is alive and well.’

Once upon a time Jared would never have thought to offer anyone that kind of solace. These days he better understood that some situations could be beyond a person’s capacity to deal with them.

‘You really don’t have to do that.’

‘I’ll do it once. Should you refuse the delivery, you won’t get any others.’

‘Will you take the boy with you now?’

‘Before six this evening—yes.’

‘You have my thanks.’ She shrugged, elegant, unapologetic, and whimsical again now that her life had been rearranged to her liking. She crossed to the window and drew the curtains aside. ‘They watch my house all the time now. Two from below. One from a house across the canal. There may be more.’

‘There are more. But I’ve got this. May I see the boy now?’

‘Take the stairs to the top floor. He’s in the room on the left. You can’t miss it. His tutor is with him.’ She shot him a wry smile. ‘It’s school time.’

Jared climbed the stairs, opened the first door to the left and watched the solemn-eyed little boy’s face light up with relief.

‘Jimmy!’

‘Hey there, champ. How’s it going?’ was all he had time to say before his arms were full of boy.

‘And you are …?’ enquired the steel-haired matron sitting at a desk filled with books.

‘Just passing through.’ Jared smiled his most charming smile and watched the older woman’s eyes start to thaw. He looked down at Celik next and shot the boy a grin. ‘According to your mother you have five minutes of school left before we can break you out of here and go have some fun,’ he said in Russian.

‘Schooling is important,’ the teacher said, clearly having no trouble at all understanding Jared’s somewhat thick northern Russia accent. And then she offered them both a smile. ‘But maybe today we will finish early, no? Maybe just this once.’

By the time darkness fell Jared and Celik were in the basement of the old canal house and Jared was busy removing the narrow window that sat just above the waterline from its hinges.

‘Remember what I told you.’ Jared crouched down and held the boy’s gaze. ‘We’re going through the window and then we’re going for a swim using scuba gear. It’s just like the snorkelling gear you used to use, only better.’

‘Like what you used when you checked the hull for bombs. You showed me.’

‘Exactly like that. But it’s going to be dark underwater and you won’t be able to see much.’

‘And I’m going to be clipped to you.’

‘That’s right. And we’ll only be this far under the water.’ Jared’s spread his arms about a meter or so wide and then shortened it to half that before lengthening the distance again. ‘So the moment you want to go to the surface you tug on my arm and up we go. Got that?’

The boy nodded.

‘And what does this mean?’ Jared continued the drill, commanding the little boy’s attention with his voice and eyes as he made the universal sign for okay with his fingers.

‘It means I’m okay.’

‘When we come up to the surface—and we will a few times—that’s the signal I want to see. It’ll tell me that you’re ready to go back under again. Okay? Make the sign.’

He held up his own curled fingers as an example. Celik made the sign and Jared nodded.

‘Good. Are you ready?’

The boy nodded enthusiastically, and Jared picked him up and stood him on the bench he’d placed below the window. They watched together as a long, many-seated, shallow-bottomed tourist boat stalled right in front of the little window. The pilot would slip overboard and then the boat would catch fire and provide them with some smoke and cover. Bless Damon and his remote management skills.

‘Remember when I told you that a boat was going to help hide us while we slide out the window and into the water? That’s the boat. And it’s going to blow up now.’

Celik’s eyes grew big and round.

Yeah, not a sentence a seven-year-old boy heard every day … Not even Antonov’s son.

The explosion was a good one. The boat went up in flames, accompanied by a roil of black smoke. Jared took the window out and hoisted himself through it and into the inky black water, and then motioned for Celik to come. It helped that the boy could swim like a fish and looked upon this as an adventure. It also helped that one of Antonov’s thugs had shown him as a six-year-old how scuba gear worked and had let the boy play around with it in a swimming pool before Antonov had put a stop to it.

The scuba gear he’d set in place earlier was still there. Less than thirty seconds later they were two feet underwater and swimming away from the blaze. Jared kept them close to the side of the canal and brought them to the surface beneath the shadows of the nearest bridge. He wanted to see that okay sign.

The kid was like an eel in the water, and when Jared gave him the sign the kid nodded vigorously, wrapped an arm around his neck and signalled right back.

So under they went again.

Two more times they surfaced, and soon enough came upon a row of houseboat hulls. Jared started counting them off. Six—and then a sharp right into an adjoining canal.

They were halfway through the turn when another boom sounded—a boom that shook the water. That didn’t bode well. Forward progress suddenly became a whole lot more difficult, with water flowing swiftly in the opposite direction, and Jared clung with all his strength to the canal wall.

That secondary explosion was neither his nor Damon’s doing.

Something to worry about.

Their last crawl along the side of the houseboat hulls took as much time as the rest of the swim put together, but eventually they surfaced again. Every muscle in Jared’s arms and shoulders was screaming with the weight of Celik and the drag of the water.

This time they’d surfaced next to a ladder that was half hidden between a houseboat and the canal wall. Jared wasted no time in getting the scuba gear off them and sending Celik up the ladder first.

‘There’s a towel waiting for you. Grab it and get warm.’

Moments later they were in the bowels of a comfortably shabby tourist houseboat and Jared was turning lights on.

‘Are we good?’

Celik nodded, his eyes bright and his hair sticking up in tufts. ‘Did we lose them? The bad men?’

‘Yes. Jump in the shower and get warmed up while I put some soup on. Then I’m going to tell you a story about a little boy who never knew he had an aunt. An aunt who loved him very much, even though they’d never met. An aunt who wanted nothing more than to meet this little boy named Celik and help him to grow up healthy and happy and strong. Do you like the sound of that story?

Celik nodded.

‘Good. Because next time I tell it I’m going to add speedboats, aeroplanes, sleepy mice and penguins.’

Rowan stood in front of the stern-faced grey-eyed man and stared down at a picture of what had once been an elegant Amsterdam canal house and was now little more than a pile of rubble, courtesy of some kind of explosion or bomb. The owner of the house—one Cerise Fallon—had not been injured in the explosion, but according to her there had been two others in the house at the time of the incident. A client, whose details had been lost along with her phone, and her seven-year-old son.

The next picture in the pile showed a picture of a beautiful woman standing in darkness, staring up at her burning house, her face lit by the nearby flames. Her tears looked convincing.

‘Two days ago you asked me if you could brief Jared West on a situation involving Antonov’s son,’ said Rowan’s boss. ‘Know anything about this?’

‘No, sir. I know nothing about this.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘I never briefed Jared. I haven’t been able to get hold of him. Have they found any bodies yet? Her son? The body of the client?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then how do we know this isn’t something that the Dutch authorities set up in order to spirit the child away? With the mother’s full co-operation?’

‘We don’t.’

‘Do we know what caused the explosion?’

‘From what we can gather a boat caught fire outside the house. And then someone shot a grenade into a first-floor window. There’s a Dutch forensics and recovery team working on it now.’

‘A grenade?’ Rowan winced.

‘Was it West?’ he asked again.

‘I don’t know.’ Nothing but the truth.

‘You said you hadn’t been able to contact him. How many times did you try?’

‘I called his number immediately after I spoke to you about the case two days ago. My assistant has been trying to get hold of him ever since.’

‘And your inability to reach him didn’t make you suspicious?’

‘He’s just bought a yacht. I thought—’ Rowan stopped. There was no point continuing.

‘You presumed?’

‘Yes, sir, I presumed to know where he was.’

‘Get him in here, Director. Preferably tonight. Make me believe that Jared West had nothing to do with this.’

‘Yes, sir, I’ll try.’

When Rowan still couldn’t raise Jared she called his sister.

‘Rowan!’

Lena sounded pleased to hear from her. Lazy Saturday afternoon drinks down by the river last weekend had a lot to answer for.

‘You’d better make it Director Farringdon, Lena. This isn’t a social call. I’m looking for Jared.’

‘He took the boat out storm-chasing,’ Lena offered, a whole lot more carefully. ‘He does that.’

‘Are you prepared to swear to that in court?’

Silence.

‘If I send the coastguards out looking for him are they going to find him?’

More silence.

‘Is there any chance at all that he can put in an appearance down here before tomorrow morning?’

‘How about I get him to call you?’ said Lena.

And Rowan felt her heart break, just a little bit, because any faint hope she’d had that Jared wasn’t involved in this was rapidly dwindling.

‘That’s really not going to be good enough.’

‘I’m sure he’ll do his best.’

‘Thanks.’ Rowan hung up.

She was pretty sure he’d already done it.

Three days later there were still no bodies and Jared still hadn’t called. On the fourth day the authorities advised that two bodies had been found. One as yet unidentified male and Celik Antonov.

For the first time in her career Rowan stopped all calls, sat back in her fancy leather chair and tried to remember how to breathe.

Sam stood in the doorway, her expression uncertain. ‘Director, shall I send Jared West’s identification details to the Dutch authorities?’

‘No.’ It was barely a croak. ‘Let them do the work. We flag nothing. We have no knowledge of this. And, Sam? Cancel my appointments for the afternoon. I think I’m just going to go … home.’

She felt a sting in her eyes as Sam nodded and shut the door behind her. She wouldn’t let tears fall here, in this place. It wasn’t professional.

Think, Rowan. Think about this. Nothing was certain … even the child’s supposed death.

Theory one: the Dutch authorities had spirited Celik Antonov away somewhere and were misleading them all. Oh, she liked that theory.

Theory two: young Celik had indeed lost his life, but the unidentified body was not Jared’s. Rowan hated this theory, but it was better than the third.

Theory three: Jared was dead. Celik—dead. And a wrong call by her—back when Jared had wanted to go check on the boy—had contributed to their downfall.

If that was indeed Jared lying there in a body bag.

If it was.

So Jared had gone to see the boy—what then? What had gone wrong?’

Rowan wrapped her arms tightly around her middle and tried not to rock back and forth. She couldn’t be this bereft. It wasn’t possible. How could she have fallen so hard and so fast for Jared West when she’d only had the tiniest taste of him? A handful of stolen nights and a couple of meals—that was all. Intense when they were together, but it wasn’t as if they’d been sharing each other’s lives for a dozen years or more.

She hadn’t been witness to his life for very long at all.

She couldn’t be in love with him. She just couldn’t.

Trembling, she picked up the phone and dialled a number that she’d memorised days ago. ‘Lena?’

‘Rowan?’ She sounded uncertain. ‘I mean, Director …’

‘Yes. They’re saying that Celik Antonov is dead and that an unidentified male died with him. They’re saying they have the bodies.’ Rowan barely recognised the sound of her own voice. ‘Tell me that you know where Jared is. Tell me you’ve spoken to him.’

‘I’ve spoken to him,’ Lena said instantly.

Rowan choked on a moan.

‘Rowan? Director Farringdon? Do you hear me? I spoke to Jared not two hours ago. Whoever they have in that body bag, it’s not my brother. I know this.’

Rowan couldn’t speak. Her eyes were on fire and her throat kept trying to close. She couldn’t breathe.

‘Rowan, talk to me.’

‘No one’s—no one can find him.’

‘He does that. I couldn’t find him once for almost two years. I’m going to kill him. I told him to contact you. I told him.’

‘No—it’s—’ She tried to pull herself together and couldn’t.

‘Director—?’

‘I’ll let you go.’ A feeble end to a misguided phone call. ‘I have another call coming in.’

Liar.

Desolation warred with relief as Rowan put the phone gently back in its cradle and then put her head in both hands and dug her fingers into her scalp until it hurt. Lena said she’d spoken to Jared, and Rowan believed her. He was alive.

He just hadn’t seen fit to return her calls.

She made herself small and quiet—found that place deep down inside where she’d retreated so often as a child, that little dark hole where she could put herself back together again, piece by piece, until she was whole again.

Jared was alive. That was a block right there to build upon. Jared was alive and all she had to do now was sort out her private feelings for him and keep them separate from what was required of her professionally.

The Dutch were saying they had bodies. What good was it going to do anyone if she went sleuthing and discovered that this was a fabrication? What good would it do to confront Jared as to his whereabouts these past few days? Did she really want to know? Occasionally it was preferable simply to remain ignorant.

She’d know anyway. The minute she saw him again she’d know whether or not he’d had anything to do with Celik’s demise or disappearance.

She’d send him that report about the two bodies, and if that didn’t get him in here, spitting fire and glaring daggers … if that didn’t get him roaring at her for not letting him go check on the boy two weeks earlier.

As for the rest of her relationship with him …

Deep down inside she started to curl in on herself again—so little spine, so weak and pathetic.

No need to be in love with a man she’d only known a few weeks.

No need to mourn the loss of a connection that had never been there in the first place.

He didn’t trust her, and maybe she didn’t trust him, and without at least some level of trust there was nothing worth having.

She’d needed him to call her this week and share something. His actions, his whereabouts. She’d have even gratefully accepted the briefest of calls just to let her know that he was still breathing.

But no.

He’d offered nothing.

Jared flew into Canberra dead tired but determined to see Rowan. Damon had forwarded him the press release from the Dutch, citing Celik and an unknown male dead, case closed and no more questions.

Celik’s mother had probably told them of his involvement by now, but that was all they knew. Jared had told them nothing, so whatever game they were playing … he wasn’t in on it. No one knew where Celik was now. As far as Jared was concerned no one ever needed to.

He took a taxi to the ASIS building and talked his way past the front desk. His presence had been requested by the director of Section Five after all.

Several days ago now.

Rowan’s trusty assistant sat at the outer desk as usual, headphones on and fingers flying across the keyboard. It made his silent approach easier, and he was almost upon her before she looked up from her work. Her eyes widened at first, and then narrowed alarmingly. No welcome in them whatsoever as she slid her headphones off and stared at him in silence.

‘Hey, Sam. Is she in?’

‘If by she you mean Director Farringdon, then, no. Not in.’

Okay, maybe he should try that again. ‘May I make an appointment to see the director, please?’

‘Sweet manners, but you’ll still have to wait your turn. How about—?’ Sam turned her attention back to her computer screen. ‘Friday week?’

‘Seriously? She left a message saying she wanted to see me.’

‘That was last week, when she was being hauled over the coals for a stunt some fool pulled in Amsterdam. Two dead, apparently.’

Jared scowled. ‘I’ve seen the report.’

‘Have you, now? And yet it still took you three days to put in an appearance? Where have you been, Mr West?’

‘Busy.’

‘Aren’t we all? The director’s not here and she no longer needs to see you. I’ll let her know you’ve been in.’ She slipped her headphones back on, dismissing him. ‘You know the way out. You’ve walked it enough.’

Yes, he should have called her. He’d been somewhere in Poland when Damon had relayed her first message. He’d thought about calling her and lying outright, but that hadn’t sat well with him. He’d thought about calling her and coming clean, but he honestly hadn’t known what she would do with the information.

She was a director for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. She’d have been obliged to hand that information over to them. She couldn’t tell them what she didn’t know.

Surely she would know that he’d been protecting her?

Surely she could see that a new start had been imperative for Celik and that someone had to organise it and that the best man for the job had been him?

Surely …

And even if they did have differences of opinion when it came to the way he’d handled the situation, surely she’d hear him out?

Wouldn’t she?

He had every confidence in her ability to bring a thoughtful, rational approach with her to their current predicament. That was why he was currently pacing the pavement outside her apartment block like a downtrodden preacher without an audience.

He saw her drive past and into the car park beneath the building. He knew he was in trouble when she walked back out of the driveway and started towards him. She looked older tonight, in the shadows of the evening. As if her own light had dimmed in the week since he’d last seen her.

It had only been a week.

Okay, a week and a half—and he’d got here as soon as he could.

She stopped in front of him and simply stood there and looked at him—and the tilt of her lips might have been a smile but for the complete lack of a smile behind them.

He tucked his hands in his pockets and tried not to worry.

‘You’re looking good,’ she said. ‘You always do.’

Okay, he had no idea where she was going with this. Nowhere good. ‘I got here as soon as I could.’

‘You heard about Celik Antonov’s death?’

‘I heard about his supposed death. Not sure I believe it,’ he offered carefully, and watched as what little light she had left went out altogether.

‘I tried to call you,’ she said quietly. ‘I was hoping to bring you in on the case before the situation worsened. I thought you’d want in on it. Did you not get my messages?’

‘They caught up with me a couple of days back.’ He opted for the half-truth, knowing as the words spilled from his lips that his explanation wouldn’t satisfy her.

‘And the reason they didn’t catch up with you before then …?’

‘I switched phones and left the old phone at home.’

At least that was the truth. He hadn’t known that Rowan had been trying to contact him practically from the moment he’d left for Europe.

‘I should have called you sooner, though. I just wasn’t altogether sure who I’d get. The woman I have a relationship with or the ASIS director.’

‘Something we might have discussed had you rung,’ she said bleakly. ‘Why couldn’t you have given me that opportunity? Do you trust me that little?’

‘I was trying to protect you.’

‘In that case, keep up the good work. Go home, Jared. And if you don’t have one of those go wherever it is that you go when you don’t want to be found.’

‘Rowan, please. Hear me out.’

‘No. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. Not in relation to any case that has just been closed. Not in relation to anything else.’

‘We have a relationship,’ he insisted.

‘No. A relationship requires some small measure of trust and respect for the other person’s feelings. We had sex.’

‘We had more than that.’

‘I thought you were dead.’

Okay, so there was that …

‘I go into work and have a report come in on Celik Antonov’s situation. I immediately ask for permission to bring you in on it. I call and you don’t answer. Two days later I get hauled over the coals for a situation that I know nothing about and I try to call you again. Still no answer. And then it gets worse. I get a report over my desk that Celik and an unidentified man are dead. I sit there and I wonder, and I try not to fall apart. Finally I call your sister and tell her that I haven’t heard from you, that I have this report on my desk. And she knows what I’m thinking without me having to say a word and she throws me a bone. She tells me that you’re not dead—and at least that’s something, right? You’re alive.’ Her voice cracked. ‘That was two days ago.’

‘Ro—

‘No! Do you have any idea how I felt? One phone call, Jared. You could have told me you were in Antarctica and I wouldn’t have pushed you for anything else. But you never made the call. You didn’t trust me with any information at all. How do you think that made me feel?’

‘Rowan, let’s take this inside.’ He was shaking. ‘Let me explain.’

But she went toe to toe with him instead. ‘What’s to explain? You don’t trust me. You left me and I didn’t even know where you’d gone. Where—in any of this—is your consideration for my feelings for you? Anywhere? Because I can’t see it.’

‘I can do better. I will. There won’t be another situation like the one we were just in. We can do this, Rowan—please. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry too. Because I so badly wanted to believe in us. But you don’t get to diminish me like that—make me feel as if I barely exist.’

The tears that spilled down her cheeks gutted him.

‘I won’t let you.’

‘Rowan, don’t—

‘No! Go away, Jared. I don’t want to hear it. I’m sorry, but we’re done.’