Page 103 of Lost in the Moonlight

She wasn’t gone. Willow would never disappear without saying goodbye. And I wouldn’t be an obsessive asshole who couldn’t give her the space she needed to figure things out with her mom. I wouldn’t be Felicity no matter how strongly the need to see Willow and protect her raged.

No, I had to trust Axel and his team would discover a way to end this for them—for all of us—before anyone forced her hand.

So instead of storming out of the café, I stepped over to the wall, set out my supplies, and used painter’s tape to hang the images I’d printed out. While I worked, I felt eyes on me. It wasn’t the skin crawling sensation I’d had all week, but more the curious sensation of people who recognized me. I hadn’t worn a baseball cap or glasses again today, but I wasn’t sure a disguisemattered anymore. My secret time tucked away here had come to an end.

I ignored the looks, trusted the two bodyguards to watch my back, and started drawing.

I’d already sketched the animals and part of the woman by the time Hector joined me. “You don’t have to do this, Lincoln.”

“I want to. It’ll never be the same, but it’ll be as close as I can make it,” I said. When I looked up, his normally grinning face was lined with concern.

“You know what’s going on with them. With Willow and Erica?” he asked.

“I do, but it isn’t my place to say.”

“You hired those men.” He glanced to the one leaning up against the wall only a few feet away. “To keep them safe.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.” His voice was deep with emotion. “It means more to me than I can say. More than even this.” He eyed the mural, throat bobbing. “And that means a whole hell of a lot.”

His employee, who always seemed one step away from falling apart, called his name. Hector rolled his eyes to the ceiling, patted me on the back, and then set off for the counter without another word.

My phone rang, and maybe because I was distracted, or maybe because I was still waiting to hear from Katerina, I answered once again without glancing at the number. “Hello.”

“I was just crawling out from under the psycho label you hung around my neck, Lincoln, and now you’ve got people hunting me down? Accusing me all over again?” Felicity’s voice was sharp and brittle. Nothing like the happy, warm voice she was renowned for using in her movies and interviews. It was one of the things I’d learned about her first. That she could carveknives in you with a simple tone and a smattering of words. That she got off on doing just that.

“You hung that label around your own neck, Felicity.”

“I saw what I wanted and went for it. I did everything I could to get it. If I were a man, people would be cheering me on, patting my back, and saying good job. Because I’m a woman, I’m called unhinged.”

“The fact that you had someone break into my home, my computers, and my phone said that, not because you’re a woman,” I snapped.

“Whatever. Just call off your hunting dogs. There’s nothing here for them to find.”

“I swear on all I hold holy, if you have anything to do with what’s going on right now, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure your career is over for good. You won’t even be able to get a gig for a backwater television commercial.”

“I have no idea what’s going on with you!” she hissed.

“Someone’s leaving notes, using your words. The ones you tossed out about me not deserving the fairy-tale of you. Who else would write them?”

“You don’t deserve me. Just like Rex Carter didn’t. Just like that shitty director who just rejected me for his stupid part doesn’t deserve me,” she ranted before inhaling sharply, and calming down some. “I’m done with you, Lincoln. I want nothing to do with you. Please leave me out of whatever this is and let me be.”

A dark chuckle escaped me, “Feels pretty crappy, doesn’t it? To want out of something. To want to move on and have someone dragging you back kicking and screaming?”

“So, this is some sort of twisted payback?” she demanded.

I pushed a hand through my hair in exasperation. Felicity had a way of tearing away my nice and making me show the ugly I didn’t even know had lived inside me before she’d entered my world. “No. Just like you, I want to move on. I don’t want to go back, not for revenge or any other reason. If you say you had nothing to do with this, I’ll try to believe you. But, like you were always telling me, you’re a really good actor. Lies are what you do for a living.”

“Leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.”

She hung up, and I ran a finger along a brow before hitting Axel’s number. When he answered, I said, “I just got a call from Felicity.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. She was pretty wound up when I talked with her. She insisted she hadn’t made contact with you in months, which we know is a lie. Then, she went on and on about how she didn’t give two shits what was going on in your life before saying if you brought the past back up and the media got wind, she was going to sue you for slander and take every dollar you had.”

“You think this is her?”

“I think we can’t close the door completely yet, but I’m working on it.”

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