Page 14 of Twisted Hearts

Ugh. She already knew everything. What good would rehashing it all do? Especially while my head was pounding.

“Do you remember what I told you Daniel’s dad said the night the engagement happened?”

“About your dad? Or you being safe? Yeah, but I still don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, Daniel’s a total asshole and I doubt his dad is any better, but whattroublecould your dad be in?”

“I’m not sure, but he could force me to go back to Daniel.” A sleazy, oily sensation trickled down my body and made me shiver. I curled the blankets tighter around me and sat up straight. “And that would be hell. But there’s something more to it than that…I just can’t figure out what it is.Whywould my dad do this and tell me it’s to keep me safe? And he was scared that day, Jillian. I can’t put my finger on why, but he was—scared for meandhim.”

“But you weren’t able to find anything out after that. You tried, right?”

“Yeah.” I’d searched my dad’s office for days. Every time he wasn’t home, I dug through his files, his desk. I pulled books off his bookshelves to see if there were any clues to his strange behavior. All I found were boring financial books and spreadsheets that meant nothing to me. Dad didn’t even have a secret locked drawer in his desk like people in movies always found that hid his dirty secrets, but there was a day I couldn’t stop thinking about…a man who’d been in our house two days after Christmas, days before the engagement.

If I never saw him again, I’d count myself lucky. His presence in our house had dropped the temperature by twenty degrees he was so cold.

I told Jillian about this, the way my mom had hidden in her own library room, how he’d stepped out of my dad’s office down the hall as I entered behind her.

Black eyes the color of coal, fathomless pits of coldness in them. He was built like a brick house, dressed in a designer suit that had to be made just for him. My dad had trailed him, something that was discomfiting on its own because my dad was always in the lead. Always first. Always in charge.

But this guy? Dad had submitted to him, and his cheeks had been flushed, his eyes glassy as he kept telling him he would make it right, would make everything right.

“Make what right?” Jillian asked when I was done.

“I don’t know.” Wrapping my arm around my chest, I fought another shiver. “I have no idea, but he saw me and stopped. The way he looked at me…it was worse than anything Daniel did to me, and it was just a look. I just know it’s connected somehow, some way.”

“Well, you’re here now, and you’re safe.”

“For now.” Until I could figure out why my dad had forced me to marry Daniel and why it was to keep me safe, I wouldn’t be again. I might not have known thewhy, but I knew that much.

How had this become my life? A year earlier I’d been dating Daniel because my dad kept insisting he was good for me. He wasn’t, and Dad never listened, or he insisted on it despite my objections, but until I spoke the words to my mom, I hadn’t said a word to anyone. I went along with everything because that was what we did. We had power and wealth in a city that relied heavily on ties to the past, but that was who I was trying not to be anymore.

“For as long as we can make that happen, but since we’ve talked about you having to start over, I want you come to brunch with me in a little while and meet Shannon Powell.”

“Who’s that? And why?” Brunch with a stranger wasn’t exactly on my priority list.

“Wife of one of my clients. He just retired from the Raleigh Rough Riders, but Shannon owns her own business in Raleigh. I told her about you last night—”

“You did what?” I gaped at her and surprise made my pulse spike, but this was Jillian. She wouldn’t share my secrets or my story without my approval, and she wouldn’t tell anyone the smallest detail about me if she didn’t trust them. If Jillian trusted them, didn’t that mean I could?

“Relax.” Jillian smiled softly and pulled me to her. “I just told her you ditched your groom and left your wedding. She gets it. She did something similar years ago. She thought it was a hoot, and she also said if you need help getting on your feet, she has some ideas on how to help with that.”

“How?”

Jillian’s smile turned larger and she winked. “Get showered, meet me in the lobby in forty-five minutes, and find out.” My stomach growled, and Jillian laughed. “At least come and eat. You don’t have to take her help, but I think it’s a good idea.”

She climbed off the bed, bouncing across the floor like she wasn’t hungover at all anymore, and I narrowed my eyes at her. “Were you even hungover when you came here?”

“Nope. Klaus woke me up this morning and was very energetic about how he did it—that’s why I’m a mess. I just didn’t want to rub that in your face.”

“You’re such a brat.” I flung a pillow at her that she easily dodged.

“I know. Brunch? Downstairs?”

I was starving. I needed coffee. Anything after that…what did I have to lose? I might not have known Shannon, but I knew I could trust Jillian.

5

Adrianna

Shannon Powell was classically beautiful in that perfect girl-next-door kind of way with a wide smile and a hug that made me feel like we’d been friends for ten years and hadn’t just meet five seconds ago.

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