Unforgiven: The Billionaire's Amnesiac Ex-Wife novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Ninety-Two

At three in the morning Stefan checks her pulse, tells her he made the settlement bigger because she earned it, and a private investigator calls her to meet in secret; Lydia uses Stefan's own answer on him.

I woke at three in the morning with a headache behind my left eye and the certainty that I was late for something.

The room was dark, and the lamp I knew from the hospital wasn't there.

It took me a full minute to remember why.

I got up and padded down the hall in a borrowed t-shirt of Jessamine's.

The kitchen light was on.

Stefan sat at the island in a grey undershirt, with a laptop open and a glass of water he wasn't drinking.

He looked up when I came in, and his eyes went over me once and back to the screen.

"You're supposed to be asleep."

"You're supposed to be my ex-husband," I said. "I don't see a lot of difference."

His mouth moved at one corner and stopped.

"Headache?"

"The doctor said to tell someone if it gets worse."

"Is it worse?"

"It's the same, but now I'm dizzy."

I took a step toward the counter and the floor tilted.

I caught the edge of the granite with both hands.

He was off the stool before I'd finished the sentence.

And then he stopped, a foot away, with his hands open at his sides.

"Rule two," he said.

I stared at him.

His breathing was fast and uneven.

"You're about to fall over and you're quoting my rule at me?"

"You made it."

"Check my pulse."

"Lydia."

"The nurse said somebody has to check it if I get dizzy. That's the job. It's you, you took the job, so do it."

I held out my wrist.

He took it carefully.

His thumb found the pulse and held there, and his other hand came up and stopped an inch from my elbow.

His fingers were rough at the tips, which I hadn't expected from a man with a penthouse.

"Ninety-two," he said. "Fast."

"I've had a day."

"Sit down."

I sat on a stool, and he let go of my wrist so slowly I felt each finger leave.

I looked at the pulse in his own throat.

It was going faster than mine.

He's been up for hours, I told myself. He drinks too much coffee.

He pushed the glass of water to me and sat across the island.

"Ask," he said. "You've got a list. I can see it."

"What did the papers say I did?"

"You walked out five months ago, a week after my father's funeral. You didn't take your phone or your key. You signed the papers two months ago and took the twelve million."

"Took it."

"I wrote the check."

"Why?"

"The lawyers asked for a number, and I made it bigger."

"Why would you do that for a woman who left you and made you the joke of the whole city?"

He looked at his hands.

"Because you earned it."

I waited, but that was all he'd give me.

"Did I cheat on you?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"You don't know."

"I never asked you. The picture of you with a man on a bench was in the paper a week after you left."

"But you saw it. And you didn't ask."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I wasn't sure I'd like the answer," he said, "and I wasn't sure I had the right to."

That sounded like an honest answer, and it made me angrier than a lie would have.

"I don't know what to do with you," I said.

"Most people don't."

"I don't know whether to hit you or hug you."

"Rule two," he said, very softly, and this time the corner of his mouth did stay up.

It was the first time I'd seen it.

It changed his entire face, and I had to look at the counter.

My phone buzzed against the granite.

An unknown number lit the screen at 3:41 in the morning.

Stefan's eyes went to it, and so did mine.

"Don't," he said.

"It's my phone."

I answered it and put it to my ear.

"Ms. Garrick?" A man's voice, low, with gravel in it. "Are you alone?"

"I'm alone," I said, and Stefan raised an eyebrow across the island.

"Good. I've been trying to reach you for nine days. I'm the man from the photo, the one on the bench. I'm not your boyfriend, God help me. I'm Roscoe Dunne, and you hired me two years ago."

"Hired you for what?"

"You really don't remember."

"I really don't."

He was silent for a second.

"Then I'll make this quick. I have what you asked me to find. I'll give it to you in person, Thursday, seven a.m., the diner on Larkin Street. Come alone."

"Why alone?"

"Don't bring your husband."

"I don't have a husband," I said.

"Ex," Stefan said from across the island, quietly, and I heard the line go dead.

I lowered the phone.

Stefan hadn't moved.

His face was calm and his knuckles were white on the edge of the counter.

"Who was that?"

I looked at him for a long moment.

"I won't answer," I said.

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