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Chapter Fifteen

E den sat on the edge of her double bed in Troyden’s house, her eyes on her pretty, just-painted-today toes.

Earlier, she’d needed to choose between fight or flight, and she’d rocketed away.

There was no avoiding the obvious: at some point, sometime soon, she was going to have to come clean to the family that she’d worked for the Bancrofts and that she was responsible for the abrupt changes to their lives and lifestyle.

They’d hate her. And she’d lose them. The Bancrofts were a part of their history, family friends, and the last living link to Troyden’s wife and Jed’s mother.

Who was she? Just a girl who had a tenuous blood relation to Troyden though her father, a half-brother her uncle never much liked.

She was, in the grand scheme of things, nobody.

And maybe that was why she felt a connection– totally platonic– to Henry.

She sensed that, despite his wealth and title, he was lonely.

People, she’d recently learned, needed people; they needed the connection and the trials and joys that came with loving, laughing and talking to others.

Humans were social animals and weren’t designed to be on their own.

Well, except for people like her mother, people for whom a relationship with God was enough.

But when faced with conflict, people always chose the familiar over the new, the devil they’d met before.

They liked the comfort of familiarity and made decisions based on personal history.

If she told the Castle gang the Bancrofts were thieves, it would be natural for them to push back, to accuse her of lying.

Their experience of them, the need for familiarity, would make her out to be a liar and a troublemaker.

And if they were forced to choose between them, Eden knew who would win the vote. Her father had chosen to run away; her mum had chosen God over her. If her mother couldn’t choose her, then what hope did she have of Jed and the family believing and accepting her? None. And God, it broke her heart.

Eden flopped back on her bed and wished the police would bloody arrest Tara and Vince and drop the axe.

Living in this state of suspended animation, waiting for the world to shift, was driving her mad.

And to make matters infinitely worse, she’d fallen in love with Tara’s best friend’s son.

The one thing she’d absolutely, unequivocally forbidden herself to do.

Eden crossed her arms over her face, completely overwhelmed.

Maybe she should just throw her clothes in a suitcase and leave.

But running away from their kindness without an explanation, not that she could give one, given her police gag order, was a slap in the face.

And there was the polo tournament next weekend, and if she left now, she would place the event in jeopardy and would throw the day into chaos.

No, she owed it to Hope Harbour. If nothing happened by the end of the weekend, she would call Detective Gosling and ask how much she could disclose.

If he said nothing, she’d figure something out.

It was just a week. She could hang on for seven days. Right?

Eden heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and winced. Even Jed’s footsteps sounded angry. She’d run away, taken his precious car without permission and was acting like a lunatic. Why did he keep coming back for more?

Jed knocked once, more an alert than seeking a permission to enter, and stepped into the room. It took an incredible amount of effort to sit up, straighten and look at him. She sucked in a breath as she clocked the worry on his face.

‘Are you okay?’ he demanded, dropping to his knees and balancing on his toes in front of her.

‘Did you have an attack? Why didn’t you come find me?

I could’ve driven you home…’ He turned her hands over, looked at her arms, and then her neck.

Fury replaced anger in his eyes, and he was white under his tan.

‘You didn’t have a reaction,’ he calmly stated.

He pushed up to his feet and slipped out of his jacket, bunching it in a ball before throwing it onto the bed.

Needing to do something with her hands, Eden stood, picked up his jacket and smoothed it out.

It was gorgeous, definitely designer, and deserved to be treated with care.

She walked into the all-but-empty walk-in closet– her own clothes didn’t take up much room– reached for a hanger and slipped the suit jacket onto it.

Jed appeared in the doorway. ‘Stop playing housewife and give me an explanation. Why did you run from an important party you were looking forward to, a party for the charity you are helping?’

What if the police hadn’t made any moves yet? What if she said something and he told the Bancrofts and they left the country? What if… No, she couldn’t. Not just yet. ‘Your car is okay, I didn’t scratch it or anything.’

‘I don’t care about the car,’ Jed shouted, his loud words bouncing off the walls. ‘I care about you!’

But experience told her that he didn’t, not yet and not enough to choose her when the time came to pick sides.

Because, as childish as that sounded, that was what was going to happen.

Eden pushed her hand into her hair, felt resistance and started angrily yanking pins out.

She wanted to get out of this stupid dress and wash her face, pull her hair up into a messy ponytail and lose herself in Hospital Playlist or Descendants of the Sun . Reality sucked .

Jed batted her hands away and looked around her head, his big fingers finding bobby pins and pulling them out of her hair. He dropped them onto the closet’s credenza. She couldn’t look at him and kept her eyes firmly on the open vee of tanned skin at his neck.

‘What aren’t you telling me, Eden?’ he softly asked.

Anger had left his voice, but curiosity remained. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, then wished she hadn’t. There was no point in discussing any of this, her past, where she worked and her crazy flight from the party, because she couldn’t explain. Not yet.

‘I’ve always felt like you’re hiding something,’ Jed said, picking up a strand of hair and wrapping it around his index finger, his eyes not leaving her face. ‘You don’t talk about yourself much, and if you do, you talk about your distant past or your current present.’

She hated having to lie to him, but she didn’t have a choice. ‘There’s nothing to tell, Jed.’ She forced out a laugh that sounded like it belonged in a bad slasher movie.

‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Eden. I’d far prefer it if you just told me to mind my own business.’

‘Mind your own business,’ she replied, trying to keep her tone light.

His intense gaze didn’t waver. His body posture didn’t change. And she was, damn her, unable to move her feet. ‘But you have become my business, Eden. I want to know what you’re dealing with, what keeps you up at night. I’d like to protect you.’

She wanted to scoff, to tell him that she was a modern woman who didn’t need a man’s protection, but she couldn’t form the words.

Yes, he might want to do that. Protecting the people he cared for was baked into his DNA, but if he had to choose, he’d protect the Bancrofts first. Jed was a loyal guy– it was his defining trait– and his loyalty did not lie with her.

How could a couple of months stack up against decades?

And no amount of wishing could make it so.

God, it hurt.

He saw something on her face– yearning or need?

– because he gently pulled her into him, his strong arm wrapping around her waist and his other hand cupping the back of her head.

He rested his lips on her temple and his breath tingled across her skin as he spoke.

‘Can’t you trust me, Eden? Just a little? ’

She rested her forehead on his collarbone, explanations on her tongue, ready to spill. She bit the inside of her cheek too hard and tasted blood. ‘I want to,’ she admitted.

‘Then do it.’ He rubbed circles on her back with his big hand. ‘I won’t let you down, sweetheart, I promise.’

But she believed in her heart of hearts, deep down in her soul, that he would. Because he’d have to choose and she wouldn’t be his first choice. And it would eviscerate her.

‘Jed,’ she pleaded. What she most needed from him was time. ‘I can’t . Not yet. Please don’t push me on this.’

‘How can I not?’ he demanded, his fingers on her jaw lifting his head. ‘How can I, as a man crazy for a woman, not want to offer her help, or at the very least, understanding? How can I be me if I don’t offer to stand between you and whatever is hurting you? I can help you, Eden.’

Sure, because that’s how the world worked. Disappointment and anger sliced through her. She slapped his hand away and stepped back. ‘You think you can, but it doesn’t work like that! You can’t change a situation. You can’t undo the choices others made, the choices I had to make.’

He frowned. ‘No, but I can try and understand them. Help you work through them.’

‘God, you make me sound like such a loser,’ she snapped, angry at the situation, angry at him for being so completely wonderful, everything she wanted in a man.

Furious because the police had boxed her into a corner and silenced her, robbing her of her chance to explain.

But if and when she did, the radioactive shit would hit the fan.

‘It’s not like you are Mr Chatty about what you are feeling either, Jed! ’

He folded his arms and widened his feet. ‘Are you talking about Henry?’ he asked. ‘Because we are going to try and come to an understanding next week.’

That was a little bit of good news. But sadly, it changed nothing between them.

‘I think we are making progress,’ his expression darkened. ‘But I can’t say the same for you.’