Page 25 of Richmond’s Legacy

“I already filed the motion days ago,” she said. “I’m just back today to check on its progress.”

Which she could easily have done online. Please, God, tell me she wasn’t here hoping to run into me.

“Does Greer know about this?”

“I assume she does. I told Oren, and we all know he’s Greer’s little bitch these days. Ever since the day he met her, now that I think about it.”

“I didn’t realize you were there the first time Greer and Oren met.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” she said, her usually pale skin coloring at her cheeks. “My mother told me about it, though.”

“One more thing, Anna, and then I really do have to go. Greer told me—told everyone—that she saw you in the hallway upstairs and again outside the house moving into the woods that day when she almost got hurt. Were you in the house?”

“I wasn’t, Jace. You have to believe me. I have no idea why she would say that about me, but if she believes it, I’m…I’m worried about her.”

After a few more minutes of inane chatter and Anna hanging on my arm like an orangutan with abandonment issues, I was able to extract myself.

I decided to walk the two miles back to my home office to clear my head. Once again, Greer had information she hadn’t shared with me. And either Anna was straight-up lying to my face—about requesting the gathering in the first place and being there herself—or Marina had. I didn’t know who to believe. As far as I knew, Greer still had no explanation for how she ended up with a bottle of Ecstasy. Sometimes the most obvious explanation was the right one. Maybe she did have a drug problem.

And she was still trying to do everything on her own. How was she planning to defend herself against Anna’s lawsuit and keep Richmond House? It killed me to think she might be leaning on Wade for help and advice, but that’s obviously what was happening.

I walked faster. It was cold, but my heart was pumping in time with my strides, sweat beginning to dampen my chest underneath my dress shirt as I contemplated my next move. I needed to speak with Greer immediately. Today. Now.

Under normal circumstances, I’d lock myself in a room with her, and neither of us would emerge until she understood that she couldn’t keep things from me. Not about her mental state. Her addiction. Not about her pleasure or lack thereof. Not about the challenges she was facing. Nothing.

But I’d already tried that a few nights ago. I hadn’t locked us in, and we were in no place to talk, but I’d mistakenly thought our physical connection would solve all our problems. It hadn’t. Maybe she needed some more time to recover from her ordeal on the roof. Either that, or she needed time to shore up her overall mental health. Right now, sex wasn’t the answer, but I wasn’t sure I knew any other way to get through to her. All I knew was that I had to try.

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