Page 32 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

“I’m not having a meltdown.” Worried that I might say or do something else that would lead my brother to suspect me of something, I got up from the table. “I just need some sleep. But I agree with you about leaving Diana alone. I, too, have determined she’s not a threat, and as far as I’m concerned, neither of us will ever have to think about her again.”

“Fine by me. There are plenty of cute fish in the sea.” Even though I had my back to him, I could tell he was watching me leave the room. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Don’t be. I’ve already forgotten about her,” I lied, waving him off as I walked out the door. “She’s officially out of sight, out of mind, and out of my life.”

Chapter 14

Diana

Ihad to tell Georgie something. She would notice me acting strangely at work the following day, and I knew I would either have to come clean about finding the email or the business card. Hopefully, whichever nugget of truth I delivered unto her would be satisfying enough, and she wouldn’t press me too hard. In reality, I really didn’t want to talk about either of my recent discoveries—not until I understood what was going on, at least.

But as I predicted, Georgie immediately noticed my discomfort and asked me if something was wrong while we sipped our morning coffee before opening the bookstore.

“No,” I said. “Er—not really. Wrong isn’t the right word.”

She stared at me. “Explain.”

I sighed and reached into my pocket. I’d decided to go with the business card. Somehow, I felt it was the lesser of two revelations. “I found this on the ground next to my car last night. I don’t know where it came from because I sure as hell didn’t keep any of my dad’s old business cards after he skipped town.”

Georgie took the little slip of laminated paper from me and frowned at it. “Huh. That’s odd. It doesn’t even have a name on it. What’s that about?”

I nodded. “It’s one of the general business cards. My dad used to have personalized ones, but also these, in case he met someone he thought he could help but didn’t know which investment expert to match them up with.” I waved my hand in the air. “Something like that. I never really paid attention to him when he would talk shop. But I do remember that he networked everywhere he went, so for many years of my life, I came across these cards everywhere. They would always show up in the laundry, having been left in his pants pockets. They would spill out of the glove compartment of his Lexus. I couldn’t escape them, really. But nowadays…” I trailed off.

“You don’t see them usually.”

“Never,” I said. “That’s why it gave me such a shock last night when I noticed it was poking out from under my shoe. Even before my family left the country, my dad burned a lot of paperwork, including a box of new business cards he’d just had made. The glossy laminate smelled disgusting as they went up in flames.”

“Why would he do that?”

“My guess was that he was just trying to get rid of anything that connected him to the company in any way. As if that was going to keep him out of trouble.” I laughed harshly. “It was way too late at that point.”

“Okay, so what do you make of it then? How did the card end up in the driveway of my grandmother’s house?”

I shrugged. “I wish I knew. I suppose there’s a very slim possibility that the business card has been sitting in my car all this time and, for some reason, slipped out recently. That’s the only thing I’ve come up with, but it doesn’t feel right.”

“This might sound a little crazy, but you don’t think someone’s trying to send you a message or something, do you?”

“Maybe.” The thought had crossed my mind. I’d stayed up late the night before, not only trying to calm myself but also trying to figure out how on Earth that card could end up on the ground right next to my driver’s side door. I’d say it was the sex in the back seat, but that’s just it. It was in the back seat. Not by the glove compartment. “But if they are, I don’t understand what they’re trying to tell me. Everyone knows my family has all disappeared and that I had nothing to do with what happened at the company. Just leaving this business card sitting by my car doesn’t make any sense.”

“It could be your family that’s trying to make contact.”

My hands tensed at my sides. “That’s a very strange way for them to make contact with me. I don’t see why they couldn’t just call or send a text.”

“If they thought they were still being tracked…”

“But this?” I pointed to the card. “No. This is too subtle for them. Even if my parents were still cautious about how they corresponded with people in the States, they wouldn’t have someone drop this card on the ground for me without further instructions. To what end?”

“It was just an idea…”

I sighed. “I think it’s more likely that if someone did leave the card there on purpose, it was because they were trying to intimidate me. Let me know that they haven’t forgotten about my father's crimes.”

Saying this out loud made it feel too real. I took a long sip from my coffee and looked anywhere but back at Georgie. She was quiet for a while, the worry radiating off her like heat from a stove.

“It could also just be pranksters,” she said after a few seconds. “We still haven’t ruled that out. Maybe the rowdy teenagers are trying to get a rise out of you by making things more personal… You’ve distanced yourself from the Pearl family legacy, sure, but it’s not as if nobody in town knows who you are. Most people do. They are just nice enough not to bring up the past.” She smiled, but I could tell it was forced. “Or it really did land there by accident. It flew out of your car, or someone dropped it by mistake. We shouldn’t rule that out.”

“That would be a pretty crazy coincidence, don’t you think? If someone had the card in their pocket and it slipped out just as they were passing my car.”

“Crazier things have happened.”

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