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“Why didn’t you tell him?” Abagail’s voice rang down the hallway.

Nicola spun around, her hands clenching tightly. She shook her head, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Warren. If this was all for revenge, why didn’t you tell him?”

Nicola clenched her jaw hard, her heart racing. She hadn’t told him. After that first night together, she’d known for a fact that this was more than mere revenge. It may have started that way, but it quickly turned into something else. Nicola had enjoyed herself too much to let Warren take that from her. And she respected Abagail far too much to cheapen what they had by calling it revenge.

“I haven’t seen him or talked to him.”

“But why not?” Abagail walked closer, her shoes loud on the hardwood floors, forcing waves of impending danger to race through Nicola’s spine. This wasn’t good. “If that’s all this was.”

“It’s not…” Nicola’s voice broke, and her head was shaking before she could make it stop. “It’s not all this was.”

“No, it’s not.” Abagail was so close.

If Nicola gave in and moved beyond the anger, they could kiss. They could fuck. Nicola could push her against the wall and fuck her right here just like she’d done in the library but with a taste of victory in it all.

“I’m not yours to keep,” Nicola countered.

“I never said you were.” Abagail stared at her, hands in her pockets. She looked so calm right now. Nicola wished she could be in that space with her, but she didn’t want to be at the same time. “I just want to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” Nicola’s shoulders tightened, pulling her entire body together in the last burst of anger shecould possibly hold within her. “I don’t need your money.” She spat the last word out with every ounce of force she had left, and then she turned on her heels and walked away.

She couldn’t stand there any longer.

She couldn’t allow herself to be belittled like that.

“But you do,” Abagail said, loudly and gently at the same time. None of the anger of their argument was there. None of the control. It was acceptance and understanding.

But Nicola refused to believe it.

She took the door directly to the garage and slid behind the wheel of her car. Then she cursed when she realized the garage door was still closed and got back out to open it. Fuck this life. She wasn’t built for it. She should have realized that when she and Warren had broken up. She was never going to be accepted into a world that she hadn’t been born into.

Screeching out of the garage and squealing her tires as she pulled onto the street. Nicola left. She was so damn good at that, wasn’t she?

Couldn’t she ever just make the right decision the first time?

fourteen

“Ms. Kerrbox,” Grace sat across from Abagail in her office, a pinched look on her face that was entirely too serious.

Abagail nodded sharply, glancing out the glass window and toward Ivy, who was working happily away on her computer. Hopefully this wouldn’t take too long. She would have preferred to meet down at Grace’s office, but she didn’t have time today to figure it out, and she wanted to know what information Grace had.

It hadn’t taken Abagail more than twenty minutes to call her in and ask for a preliminary investigation to be done.

She needed answers.

And since Nicola was clearly not going to give them up, Abagail would find them any way that she could.

“What do you have for me?” Abagail asked, needing this meeting to start immediately. She’d worked with this private investigator before, and she was thorough. Abagail would work with her again, barring any major screwups in this matter.

“A lot.” Grace took a large manilla folder that was bursting with information and handed it over. “I would have emailed this, but you said not to.”

“Right.” Abagail nodded and took the folder. “What are the highlights until I can look through this in more detail?”

“Nicola Bolsinger is exactly who she says she is. Twenty-five years old, currently unemployed, though she has an interview at a local country club today. She has one sister and one aunt, but that’s the extent of her family. She talks to both frequently.”

Frequently?That word rang through Abagail’s mind. Nicola hadn’t mentioned either to her, at least not in any sense that they had such significant meaning for her.