Page 86 of So Close

I consider how to speak truthfully without showing my hand. After all, Ryan and Kane are friends who share confidences – or so I believed – and neither feels any loyalty to me. If I don’t tread carefully, I’ll alienate them both. “She has a powerful hold on him. If I just understood her better, I think I’d have a better understanding of my son.”

He sighs. “I don’t see how this helps, but … She’s the one who broke things off.”

“To be with Kane?”

“No. I don’t think so.” His jaw tightens briefly. “I don’t know, honestly. I know they weren’t together immediately after the breakup because he spent all his free time with me. He practically moved in for several months afterward. I didn’t handle losing her well. Spent some time drowning my sorrows and being promiscuous. I dragged Kane around for moral support.”

He takes another sip of coffee, and I note how he spins his wedding band with his thumb. Frowning, he stares straight ahead, his thoughts elsewhere. “I knew he wanted her,” he says quietly. “I caught him looking at her a few times, and it was obvious how he felt. Then he started refusing invitations to do things with us as a group. But every guy I knew had a little crush on her. He wasn’t the only one.”

“It didn’t bother you?”

“What’re you gonna do? With a gorgeous, sexy woman on your arm, you have to expect other men will want her to some degree. Kane was respectful about it. I felt bad for him, actually.”

“Did you feel bad for him when he went on to marry her?” I ask bluntly. Maybe there’s a rift there. It would be good to know either way.

“I didn’t find out until after she was gone. I only learned they’d been together and married when he told me she’d passed.” He runs his hand through his dark-chocolate waves. “I never saw or eventhoughtof them together, so I suppose how I felt about it didn’t register. Things were serious with Angela by then, so …”

I study him, registering his restlessness and the practiced answer as if he’s thought of Lily’s death often enough to have a canned reply. I don’t know what to make of it or how I can use it. Baharan certainly wouldn’t benefit from any tension between Kane and Ryan. Lily’s causing enough trouble as it is.

“Are you saying it didn’t affect you when you found out?” I prod him.

“Sure. Of course it did. Lily was important to me once. Which reminds me, I saw Amy on the way in,” he murmurs, “and for a second, I thought she was Lily. It knocked me sideways.” He takes another sip of coffee. “I haven’t thought of Lily in a long time, and now twice in one morning … Anyway, I don’t see how this is of interest.”

“It’s fascinating.” Not many years ago, on the cusp of marrying Ryan, a wealthy and successful CEO, Lily pivoted to marry Kane instead, when he had few prospects and a mountain of student loan debt. It would suggest she genuinely loves him and possibly loves him still. Call me a cynic, but I simply can’t believe it. The woman detailed in Rampart’s investigation doesn’t act without ulterior motive. But I can’t risk making insinuations or outright accusations that might get around to the wrong person. Better to lead Ryan to his own conclusions and let him go from there. “Kane’s been working from home the past two months.”

“Really?” He’s noticeably taken aback. “Well, he’s certainly earned that much leave, although I wouldn’t say working from home constitutes a break. If that’s what you’re worried about, I can tell you he sounded really good on the phone, like he used to back in the day. He even laughed and ribbed me a little. Said we should grab a drink soon. We haven’t done that in ages.”

My jaw sets. Men are such fools. A pretty face and a sinuous body could so easily turn off their common sense and their self-protective instincts. To hear that my son seems happier now than he’s been in years incites a burning in my chest. I feel nothing but revulsion for Lily.

“A steady sexual partner is usually a mood lifter,” I say snidely, unable to help myself.

Ryan’s brows lift. “Is he finally seeing someone romantically? Good for him. I was getting worried about him. I’ll admit I hoped that Sexiest Man coverage would put him in the crosshairs of a woman he couldn’t resist.”

With every word he’s spoken, I’ve felt the temperature drop until I shiver with cold. My top is cropped, with short, puffed sleeves engineered so that one shoulder is bare. My upswept hair leaves my neck with no warmth. I come to the awareness that goosebumps dot my skin. I almost expect to see my breath frost in the air.

“In thinking about it,” Ryan continues, crossing one ankle atop the opposite knee, “I couldn’t be mad at him about Lily if I wanted to. He had her for less time than I did, and he’s grieved for her a hell of a lot longer.”

He’s much too forgiving, in my opinion. There’s no way my son simplyforgotto mention his wife’s re-emergence, especially to his closest friend.

Is Lily that devious? Has she deliberately isolated Kane from everyone who cares about him, tightening her grip until she has total control? With power over Kane, she controls the money and Baharan. She’s already pulled him away from his home and Witte. And it was probably far too easy to do. Years of sleeping beneath her picture and surrounding himself with reminders of her primed him for an even deeper obsession. Like his father and me, Kane is a sexual creature, and he’s essentially been alone for too long, blowing off steam far too infrequently with one-night stands.

Did she beg him?Stay home with me. I need you.Did she suggest they leave?Let’s go somewhere, lover. Let’s be alone to reconnect.

How could Kane say no when he’s been fixated on her so completely for so long?

She already has a legal claim on at least half of his assets. If she gets pregnant, she’ll be able to claw out even more.

A baby. Could there possibly be anything worse?

I know he won’t take precautions; she’s his wife. Wearing a condom when he fucks her won’t even enter his mind, and it’s been patently obvious every time I’ve seen them together that all he’s thinking about is fucking her.Hemight’ve been the one to suggest they go away, leaving Witte behind, so he’d have fewer distractions from his frenzied rutting. He’ll rely on her to protect against pregnancy, and why would she?

“Was there something else on your mind?” Ryan asks.

With his intimate knowledge of both Kane and Lily, Ryan may be the only one who can get through to my son. Then again, maybe Kane won’t listen to Ryan at all out of jealousy. I don’t know what to do, what move to make.

“Aliyah?”

“He’s with her,” I blurt out. “Lily, I mean. And as worried as I am about her, I’m more worried that Kane is hiding her from you.”

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