Page 231 of Enigma: The Complete Collection
My gaze shoots to the clock on the microwave. “Shit.” With everything that happened last night, I forgot Dr. Avery scheduled me a Sunday morning appointment. “I’ll be ready in five,” I promise before darting to my room.
The accuracy of my timing is a little askew. Fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Hugo’sbaby.He’s back to wearing his standard work attire—a black suit with a white dress shirt, but the shadow on his jaw is darker since our rushed departure didn’t give him time to shave.
Upon feeling the heat of my gaze, his head slants my way. “What?”
“You’re hard for me to read.” I thought Isaac was the only man protecting a bucket-load of secrets, but Hugo’s glacier-blue eyes are just as full. “You’re a huge box of secrets I want to unravel.”
He smiles, but the way his grip on the steering wheel tightens reveals his true response to my statement. He’s as locked up as a Fort Knox.
With a huff, I float my eyes back to the scenery flicking past my window. People are milling on the sidewalks, hustling to ensure all their to-do tasks are ticked off before Christmas arrives in a little over a week.
A rock settles in my stomach. I had intended to spend my first Christmas in Ravenshoe with Isaac. Now I don’t know where I’ll be. If Regan gets the charges dropped, what happens to me then?
My attention is diverted from outside when air whizzes between Hugo’s teeth. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this…again.” As his eyes drift between the traffic and me, his grip on the steering wheel tightens. “There’s only one way to fully get to know someone.” He pauses long enough to pique my interest before asking, “Do you want to play twenty questions?”
After nodding, I offer for him to go first, hoping it will ease the worry fettering his face.
It does—somewhat.
He takes a few moments devising a response before asking, “Why do you hate pumpkin so much?”
I giggle, grateful he didn’t come out swinging. “Because it’sdisgusting.” My last word is drenched with sarcasm. “MyDedushkaforce me to eat it when I was younger. I gagged the entire time. When his back was turned, Uncle Tobias scraped my plate onto the floor so the dog could eat it, but pumpkin is so disgusting, even he refused it.”
Hugo’s chuckle booms through my chest. “You need to try pumpkin pie because nothing wrapped in pastry is disgusting.” His gaze shifts from the road to me. “Your turn.”
I take my time thinking about a suitable question. I have so many I want to ask him, but I don’t want to force him to share privy information unless he wants to, so I keep it simple. “How long have you owned yourbaby?”
Hugo swallows harshly as moisture fills his eyes. “This was Jorgie’s first car.” Jorgie was his sister, Marjorie’s nickname. “She nagged me relentlessly to help her restore her to its former glory, but I was always too busy to get it done. It sat in the back shed at our parents’ house for years after her death.” A ghost of a smile crosses his lips. “I mentioned it in passing one day to Isaac. It turned up fully restored on my doorstep a month later.”
Tears prick in my eyes. Isaac pretends he’s a ruthless enigma who doesn’t have a heart, but the man behind the mask is far from the man his reputation denotes.
After wiping under my eyes to ensure no tears have fallen, I angle my torso to face Hugo. “Your turn.”
His index finger taps the steering wheel as his lips purse. After a short stretch of silence, he asks, “What are you going to do if the charges get dropped tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
I haven’t considered what my next move will be if the murder charges are dropped. I’ve been too occupied wading through the mess between Isaac and me to consider anything not associated with him.
“I might go back to Tiburon.” I have to strangle my words out since my mouth refuses to relinquish them.
“Running away from your problems won’t fix them, Izzy.”
“I know that, but some things are unfixable.”
“No, they aren’t,” Hugo interrupts, shaking his head. “Everything is fixable. Take this car, for example. It sat rusted and undriven for over five years, and she’s fixed. With a bit of time and effort, anything can be fixed.”
I remain quiet, unable to form a reply. I’ve had relationships before, but nothing consumed me the way my relationship with Isaac did. The feelings I have for him are at times overwhelming, and if I’m totally honest, scary. I didn’t know anything like this existed. Without him in my life, I truly feel lost. Dead. Completely heartless.
But do you know what the scariest part is? Knowing the man who consumes your every waking moment is the same man who could shred your heart into a million pieces. It’s the doubt hovering over Isaac’s betrayal I’m finding the hardest to work through. He doesn’t know what happened that night with Clara, so how am I to understand it?
It only leaves me two choices. I either live without ever knowing what happened or live without Isaac in my life. With how much pain stabbed in my heart during my last confession, I doubt that is the solution to my prediction. Just the thought of him not being in my life hurts more than I could ever express. I genuinely feel like I can’t breathe without him.
The remainder of our drive passes in a blur, our game of twenty questions over in three. As I pace toward Dr. Avery’s office, I shut down my brain, praying daftness will mask the turmoil in my heart. Since I’m not paying attention to where I’m walking, I trip over the concealed lip at the entrance and tumble to the ground, landing hard on my hands and knees.
Pain radiates through my wrist when it jars against the tiled floor, but I scamper to my feet, mortified with embarrassment. The zing radiating down my wrist shifts to a jolt of pleasure when I’m assisted off the floor.
When a mouthwatering scent engulfs the air surrounding me, I snap my eyes shut and inhale deeply, relishing the delicious smell. When my eyes flutter back open, my breath snags halfway to my lungs. The most riveting gray eyes I’ve ever seen are staring intently at me, studying my face.
