Page 72 of The House Guest

“Vanderbilt.”

Her eyes widened.

“What?”

“I could swear I heard thatexactname recently. Dorian Vanderbilt. I shit you not. I just can’t remember where.”

A surge of adrenaline rushed through me. Hopefully, she was just imagining this. Dorian Vanderbilt wasn’t exactly a common name, though. If she thought she’d heard it, maybe she had.

Lucy rubbed her temples. “It’s gonna drive me nuts until I figure it out.”

As the minutes passed, I tried to calm myself. This probably meant nothing. People confused names all the time.

Rosie and I stayed another hour at Lucy’s before I had to round my daughter up so we could get home to prepare dinner. Just as I was gathering our things, Lucy snapped her fingers. “I know where I heard that name.”

I froze. “Where?”

“It was someone who rented a car recently.”

Lucy worked part time at the car rental place at the airport. Blood pounded in my ears.

Then she laughed. “But you know what? I get client names wrong all the time. I remember thinking what a strong name that was, but for all I know, it could’ve been Damien or Darren Vanderbilt.” She shook her head. “Maybe it was Van der Beek.”

The tension in my neck relaxed a bit. I could totally see Lucy screwing up the name. She likely ran across all kinds of similar-sounding names with the volume of business at that car rental place. I laughed it off. “Well, thanks a lot for the scare, but I’m gonna choose to ignore it.”

“As you should with my scatterbrain.” She chuckled.

We said goodbye, and I vowed to let it go. Just wasn’t sure that I could.

***

Later that evening, I wished my guardian angel would drop something on my head to knock some sense into me. I knew I’d regret what I was about to do. And yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

After both Casey and Rosie were asleep, I snuck out of bed into the living room with my laptop.

Rather than freeing me, my obsession with Dorian had grown worse after recounting my story to Lucy earlier. It made me wonder if the reason I hadn’t been able to let go of him was because I was still hanging on to the Dorian of the past. It was easy to do that when I hadn’t googled him to see who he was now, what sort of life he was living. If I could see with my own eyes that he was married or was still playing the field, maybe that would help me to move on.

Otherwise, it was as if Dorian, or at least the memory of him, had been frozen in time—as if the Dorian I knew was still out there somewhere, regretting his decision to hurt me. My mind kept giving me conflicting messages, one second warning me against searching his name, the next encouraging me to get it over with.

What are you doing?

This is a mistake.

Just do it!

My pulse raced as my fingers hovered over the keys. A minute later, I typed his name.

D-O-R-I-A-N V-A-N-D-E-R-B-I-L-T.

After I hit the search button, I closed my eyes. I didn’t really want to know. A wave of nausea came over me as I forced my eyes open. Then the title of the news article I saw rocked me to my core.

Orion Coast Tech Mogul Dorian Vanderbilt Missing at Sea

I’d been through a lot of shocking moments in my life—the day Christina died, the moment Dorian broke up with me, the day I’d learned I was pregnant—but never in my life had I felt the weight of something so heavy, so profoundly soul-crushing.

I’d prepared myself for a number of potentially upsetting scenarios: finding out he was married, finding out he had a child, confirming that he looked more beautiful and happier than ever. But never had I considered a scenario like this.

Gulping, I clicked on the article.