Page 75 of Six of Hearts
"Exactly." Khloe leans forward, her eyes intense. "Someone went through a lot of trouble to scare you away from him. They had you followed. They knew where you lived. They sent you evidence that was clearly meant to freak you out. Why?”
My mind races. "I didn't... I haven't thought about that."
"Maybe you should." She squeezes my hand.
"I'm not saying Ronan didn't do something in his past. Maybe he did. But if he's in witness protection like he says, doesn't that mean he was trying to do the right thing? And if someone'strying to scare you away from him now, doesn't that seem like maybe they're the bad guys?"
I stare at her, my heart pounding. She's right. I've been so focused on what Ronan did that I never stopped to think about who wanted me to know about it.
Or why.
"I don't know what to do," I admit, my voice small.
"You don't have to know right now," Khloe says.
"But maybe stop running from it. Sit with it. Feel it. And then decide."
I nod, wiping my eyes. My chest still feels tight, my hands still shake, but something has shifted. A tiny crack in the wall I've built around my heart.
I think about Finn's little face in my dream. The twins arguing over Legos. Hazel's ballet recitals. Mila's endless energy. Leo's quiet smiles.
I think about six men who somehow became everything to me.
And I think about Ronan's voice at my door, broken and desperate: Please. You have to come home.
I'm not ready to go back. Not yet.
But maybe—just maybe—I'm ready to stop running.
Twenty-Three
Ronan
Two Weeks Later
I was rushing over to Noah’s after he had begun saying some things that were concerning and upsetting. Randomly, at about 8 o’clock the night prior, he began sending me unused profiles of nannies that we had passed on when we hired Aria.
I didn’t know if he was just trying to upset me, or if he was actually considering looking for a new nanny, but either way, he clearly required intervention.
Aria had been gone for just shy of a month, and it was wearing on all of us. We were back to trying to juggle our jobs and manage our children’s schedules, and that was nothing compared to the heartache of being apart from Aria and not having her bright, effervescent face around to brighten all of our lives.
The kids were downright depressed with her gone, and even the round robin of putting up Christmas decorations at one another’s homes had done little to lift their spirits.
Our homes were dressed with Christmas trees, lights, garlands, and presents, but our gloominess doused the cheer. We missed Aria more than any of us realised we were going to, and I still couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was my fault.
I entered Noah’s house just after he’d gotten the twins down for bed, and he was in his den working on a glass of scotch, with a nearly empty bottle sitting in front of him.
“Hey,” he greeted groggily, his sunken eyes and sullen expression glowing in the light of the den’s roaring fireplace.
I noticed as I got further into the room that the same profiles Noah had been sending me were fanned out on the table. I stormed over to them and gathered them up, and tossed them onto the flames. Noah shrugged.
“I have copies.”
“Why are you even looking at these?” I growled. “Replace Aria? Have you lost your mind?”
“Have you lost yours?” Noah said. “I want her back more than anything, but it’s been three weeks and she hasn’t so much as confirmed she’s alive. Fuck her. We’ll find someone else.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said to him.
