Page 19 of Don’t You Dare Marry Me (Love in Massachusetts #3)

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“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.

“Parents?” Abagail asked.

“Both parents were killed in a motor vehicle accident involving a drunk driver.”

Abagail froze. Her hands trembled. She glanced from the folder up to Grace’s eyes, meeting her gaze over the desk. “Killed?”

Grace nodded, confirming what Abagail had heard. “It was a brutal accident. I printed out the details for you, but to sum it up quickly, they were driving home from a dance tournament when a drunk driver hit them head on. The driver survived.”

“But her parents didn’t,” Abagail surmised. She wasn’t sure she wanted to read that report. She would, of course, read it, because she wanted all the information she possibly could have on Nicola, but it didn’t mean she wanted to.

“They didn’t. But their younger daughter did.”

“Younger daughter…” Abagail echoed, running her fingers over the edge of the envelope as a way to center herself.

Grace nodded and hummed. “She was injured badly and has since been hospitalized for the last six years and currently resides at an in-patient care facility. She won’t ever be able to live at home on her own, and unless someone is willing and able to stay with her full time, she won’t be able to live outside of a facility again. ”

“The aunt?”

Grace shook her head. “She works full time and lives on the other side of the state. This will need to be someone who doesn’t work and is solely a caregiver.”

Abagail’s stomach twisted. Nicola had never mentioned any of this, and if she was still talking to her sister frequently, then that would mean that they were still in contact with each other. “Nicola wasn’t in the car?”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“I can’t imagine…” Abagail trailed off, not entirely sure where she was going with that comment.

She couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to get that news.

She couldn’t believe how hard that must have been on a nineteen-year-old girl to have her entire life just ripped away from her in seconds.

She couldn’t understand how Nicola had survived up to this point.

“There’s also the matter of finances, which you asked me specifically to look into.”

“Right.” Abagail cleared her throat and the trail of thoughts she’d just taken. She needed to keep herself grounded. “She’s broke.”

“More than broke,” Grace confirmed. “She’s destitute.”

“What?” Abagail looked at her directly. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It is. The rehabilitation facility that Alanna is at isn’t cheap, and insurance only goes so far, as does the money from the accident.

Well, that money is gone—what they received of it.

Alanna is on disability but it doesn’t cover nearly half the things that it should.

She probably needs an experienced lawyer to help her sort those issues out to get Alanna exactly what she needs.

Those issues are difficult to navigate for someone who understands the system. ”

“Wait. Hold on. If she’s destitute?—”

“She has nothing, Ms. Kerrbox. Nothing at all.” Grace slid her palms against her thighs, uncomfortable at having to share this information.

“She doesn’t even own the car that she’s driving, not that it’s worth anything.

She’s upside down on that loan. She owes the rehabilitation facility close to six figures and she makes payments when she can, but they are filing suit against her. ”

This was all too much. Abagail’s brain spun with the information and she hadn’t even dug into it deeply.

Nicola never indicated… she had to stop thinking that way.

There had been signs, if Abagail looked at them the right way, with this lens in mind.

Nicola jumped at the chance for Abagail to pay her for sex.

She’d never once peeped about the fact that Abagail had forced her hand to get the car fixed.

She’d never objected when Abagail had given her a card to buy some clothes.

How had she missed it before now?

Abagail knew the answer to that, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to dig too deep into the whys.

She hadn’t looked for it. She’d been selfish in how she’d found Nicola and how she’d kept Nicola within her grasp.

And she hadn’t looked for anything that might indicate a deeper relationship—not just for her sake but for Nicola’s.

In turn, Nicola had kept all of this from her.

“Thank you,” Abagail finally said, her voice cracking on the word. “Is there anything else?”

“Your nephew, Warren.” Grace stopped there, looking into Abagail’s eyes for the indication that she wanted Grace to continue.

At Abagail’s nod, Grace said, “He’d been cheating on Nicola fairly consistently throughout their relationship.

From what I could glean, Nicola was unaware of his infidelity until Chaya. ”

Well, that did at least give Abagail some solace. Nicola wasn’t someone who would keep going back to a cheater. “And what ended that relationship?”

“Warren did.” Grace folded her hands across her belly. “Nicola couldn’t afford to be the one to break it off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Warren was funding a lot of her lifestyle—actually all of it. She was completely dependent on him, and any money she earned from working went straight to her sister. It was never enough, but it was what she had. So Warren is the one who ended it because Nicola couldn’t.”

“She was trapped.” The words escaped Abagail’s lips before she could stop them.

“In essence, yes.” Grace’s lips pursed into a pout. “I can’t imagine the decisions she’d had to make in her short life. Certainly not something anyone of her age should have to deal with.”

Abagail wasn’t going to give into those extra comments.

What she wanted now were even more answers to the questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask.

She had all the information in the folder that she’d been given, and she would take her time going through it as soon as Grace left her office. Right now, she needed to digest.

“Thank you for this thorough report. I’ll contact you if I need anything else.

” Abagail stood up, making her way around the desk to shake Grace’s hand.

She couldn’t bring herself to have Grace dig any deeper than she already had.

She needed to figure this out on her own, and she really needed to decide how she was going to deal with the information that she’d been given.

As soon as Grace was out of her office, Abagail pulled open the folder and started her deep dive.

She spent the next three hours reading every single line of the papers that Grace had given her, and her stomach churned with unsettled pain and anguish.

Nicola should have never gone through any of this, and the fact that she’d come out the other side so happy and normal was a testament to who she was as a person.

Without thinking, Abagail called her banker and the rehabilitation facility. It didn’t take her longer than thirty minutes to wipe out the outstanding debt and put everything to rights. But something still didn’t feel right in her chest. She made a fist and rubbed her hand over her ribs.

She wasn’t going to tell Nicola what she’d done.

That wouldn’t be a fun conversation for anyone, and did it really matter? She’d at least given Nicola a chance to get ahead of the game. Hopefully, she’d take the opportunity.

Abagail stared at her cell phone, her heart hammering.

She picked it up and called without second-guessing.

She couldn’t be the one to hold back now.

They were working so hard on making progress together, and surely a conversation that was reminiscent of times before Abagail had screwed up their friendship would help to bolster everything they were doing now for the future.

“It’s early,” Elia said as soon as she answered. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you have time?” Abagail asked, flicking her fingers together as she stared across the hallway to Ivy still working away at her desk.

It was close to time for them to all be heading home for the day.

Elia would already be done with the bulk of her work, which was why Abagail had known she could call.

“I have a few hours. Why?”

“I need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?” There was instant concern in Elia’s tone, and Abagail couldn’t have been more grateful for it. Perhaps they were closer to being back to where they were than she thought.

“Do you remember Warren’s fiancée? Nicola?”

“Yes.” Elia’s tone was clipped now, but she typically was when she was giving straight forward answers. “Did something happen?”

“They broke up a few weeks ago.” Well, it was probably longer than that but Nicola had clung on for dear life—literally. “I found out that Nicola had substantial debt and I paid it off.”

That was mostly the truth. But Abagail wasn’t ready to explain to Elia the extent of her relationship with Nicola—not yet anyway.

She still needed some time to digest what was happening and figure out whether or not her arrangement with Nicola was going to continue.

Although she hadn’t come home last night, so Abagail figured that was a stark no.

“You paid off her debt?” Elia repeated the words, doubt in her voice.

Was it really that odd a thing for her to do? Even as Abagail thought that question, she knew it was.

“She’s not just Warren’s ex-fiancée. What’s going on?” Elia asked again.

Abagail cringed. She hadn’t wanted to talk about that yet.

She still wasn’t ready to explain to anyone what she’d willingly done, and how much shit she had actually stepped in.

And for some reason, for this particular moment in time, Abagail wanted to keep her relationship with Nicola only to herself. No one else needed to know.

“She stayed with me a few days because she didn’t have a place.

But I found out that she can’t afford an apartment because she’s paying for her sister’s medical bills.

” That was close enough to the truth. She’d found out through back channels instead of from Nicola herself.

And she knew that she’d implied she and Nicola were closer than they already were.

And why weren’t they?

Why hadn’t Nicola felt comfortable enough to tell Abagail about what was going on? About why her account was frozen?

“Are you in a relationship with her?”

Abagail’s stomach plummeted. “No.”

“Do you want to be?”

“You’re the one who said I was aromantic,” Abagail fired back. She wasn’t sure where to go with this, and she hadn’t even had a second to breathe and contemplate what Elia had dropped on her the last time they’d spoken.

“I did say that, but it doesn’t mean you can’t ever be in a relationship of some sort with someone else. Look at us.”

Abagail frowned. She still wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Elia hummed, but she didn’t say anything for a long time. Abagail held the phone close to her ear, waiting for Elia to say something else, to guide the conversation, because she was more lost now than when she’d called.

“I think… I feel bad for her.”

“It’s more than that. You feel bad for a lot of people and you don’t go wiping out their debt because of your guilt.”

“You’re right.” Abagail rubbed her fingers together before closing her eyes. “This is different.”

“Do you feel a sense of duty to her? Because of Warren?”

“Maybe that’s all it is.” But even as the words left her lips, Abagail knew it wasn’t that. There was something else. Something more.

“Just don’t you end up getting married without telling me.” Elia laughed lightly. “Oh, I’ve got a student. Sorry to cut this short.”

“No problem. We’ll catch up soon.” And this time when Abagail said that, she genuinely meant it. She missed Elia. And they needed to finish resolving their problems so they could get back to what they were before.

Now she just had to really find the time to analyze everything that Elia had told her. And since Nicola was out of the house, she should have plenty of it to spare.