Page 63 of Broken Halo

“He never knew. All these years he thought I threw him under the bus with his dad. Then he left for California and…” I shake my head and feel my throat thicken and not because of my dinner.

“You set him straight, right?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No. It doesn’t matter. It mattered then … not anymore.”

“Ellie.” She leans in closer. “It does matter. You didn’t see him after you left for New York. He was shattered. I told you that. But I promised you I wouldn’t interfere so Dad wouldn’t go after him. It took months for him to get his name cleared. After that, he was done. I tried to reach out to him once to say goodbye and he wouldn’t take my calls.” She reaches out, grabs my ankle, and squeezes. “He lost you and your child. I love you, but you’re not the only one who experienced that.”

I pull my leg up and tuck it inside my long maxi dress. The food that was settling my stomach just minutes ago starts to sour and I set my plate down next to my empty vodka glass, snapping back at my sister, “I know that. That’s why I tried to make it right. But last week he couldn’t stand the sight of me and then today…”

She hikes her perfect, thick brow. “Today what?”

I shake my head and scrunch back into the chair. “Today I have too much to think about. I need to find out who planted drugs in my panty drawer. I need my in-laws off my back and I need to focus on Griffin. I don’t have the energy for anything else.”

Jen pushes herself to her feet and takes my plate and empty glass. “Drink your water. All of it.”

I don’t drink my water because I’m getting sleepy and am about to curl into my chair when there’s a knock at the door.

No, not a knock.

Someone is banging on her door.

I flip around in my chair so fast, I sway and have to hang onto the arm. No one can get into Jen’s building without going through security besides me and our parents—and I really don’t want to see my parents right now. “Who’s that?”

Jen frowns as she pulls up the closed-circuit camera on her phone. Her face falls and her eyes dart to her fiancé, who’s just walked out from their bedroom in nothing but a pair of athletic shorts hanging low on his hips.

Her voice is low and pissed when she hisses at Eli, “You didn’t.”

He hitches his bare shoulder where the skin is still pink and fresh, evidence he was grazed by a bullet just a few months ago. “I did. Don’t be pissed. I told him I’d give him twenty-four hours to talk to her and you cut that short. I owed it to him to at least tell him where she is.”

“No!” I stand, my right foot tripping over my left as my legs get tangled in my dress. “I don’t want to see him. Tell him I’m not here. Make him go away.”

Trig bangs on the door again and this time yells, “Open the door, Jen. I know she’s in there.”

Jen rolls her eyes, as if Trig showing up here after he confiscated my panties and while I still have the evidence of our time in his office between my thighs, isn’t the enormous deal that it is. She looks at her husband-to-be. “You know, if you wanted a friend in Dallas, you could’ve been buddies with my former trainer, Jase, but you fired him.”

He crosses his arms. “That’s not funny.”

She gives him a private smile as she moves toward her front door and I exclaim, “No! Don’t let him in!”

She stops her hand on the deadbolt. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know.” My arms flop to my sides. “Fire him, too?”

She flips the deadbolt and swings the door open, hell-bent on ruining my life even more than I’m capable of doing on my own.

There he is, leaning against the door jamb with a hand in his pocket. If my hazy brain remembers correctly, it’s the same pocket where he stuffed my panties.

His eyes beeline past his boss and my half-naked bro-to-be, landing heavy on me. “There aren’t many places you can run, but getting someone to let me in to Stark Tower is by far the hardest part of getting to you.”

My eyes go straight to Eli. “I hate you and I’m evicting you from my building.”

He has the nerve to smile. Asshole.

Trig ambles through the door as if he were invited. Though, I guess he was by my former tenant. As he comes straight to me, I shift my weight and reach out to the back of the sofa for support, feeling the vodka do its job the longer I stand.

“You and I need to talk,” he starts.

I shake my head. “I have nothing to say.”

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