Chapter 14

Amelia's POV.

I stayed on the bench a little longer after Marcus went back inside.

The garden was quiet, just the wind moving through the hedge and somewhere far off the sound of a car passing on the road.

 I sat with my hands in my lap and stared at nothing and tried to figure out what I was actually feeling.

That was the problem. I didn't know.

Mateo had been watching over me long before I ever knew his name. Before the hotel room, before the contract, before the signature I put on papers I hadn't bothered to read properly. 

He had been there the whole time, quietly moving things out of my way that I didn't even know were in my path.

I thought finding that out would settle something in me. 

I thought it would give me a reason to stop second guessing everything and just accept that maybe, for once in my life, someone was looking out for me without wanting something terrible in return.

But it didn't sit that way.

Because there was a kind of care that asked first, that showed itself and said I see you, I want to help, and then waited for you to decide. 

And then there was the kind that moved around you in the dark, making decisions about your life without ever letting you in on it.

I didn't know yet which one this was.

I sat until the wind picked up and then I got up and went back inside.

Later that evening I was lying on my bed with a book open on my chest. 

I was not reading it, just staring at the ceiling, when Vale knocked and walked in before I could answer because that was just how Vale operated.

"Someone at the door for you," she said flatly.

I looked over at her, "Who is it?"

She gave me the look she reserved for questions she felt were beneath her and left without answering.

I put the book down and went downstairs.

I came around the corner and stopped.

Lucy was standing in the entrance hall.

She looked different. 

That was the first thing I noticed as soon as my eyes landed on her. 

 She was dressed simply, none of the usual loud, attention grabbing things she normally wore. 

Her hair was down and she looked quieter somehow, smaller, like someone had dialled everything about her back.

 The sharpness that usually lived on her face wasn't there tonight.

She looked at me and didn't say anything straight away.

I came the rest of the way down and looked at her for a moment then turned and walked toward the sitting room. She followed without being told.

We sat across from each other and neither of us spoke first.

I wasn't going to make it easy for her. I had nothing against silence and she knew that about me better than most.

Lucy looked down at her hands then back up at my face, "I'm sorry," she said.

There was no build up, no long speech leading into it, just those two words. 

I didn't say anything.

"I know it doesn't fix a single thing," she continued, her voice lower than I was used to hearing it, "I know that. But I am sorry. Raymond used me the same way he used everyone else and I let him because I was jealous and stupid and I handed him exactly what he needed."

 She stopped and pressed her lips together for a second, "I've been jealous of you since we were kids Amelia. Everything about you, even the hard things, even the things that weren't easy at all, I still wanted them because they were yours. I know how ugly that sounds."

I looked at her face carefully, searching for the thing underneath the words, the angle, the reason they were really there.

I didn't find one. She just looked worn out.

"Why tonight?" I asked her, "Why come here tonight specifically?”

She met my eyes, "Because I found something out and I couldn't just sit on it."

"Tell me then."

She shifted slightly in her seat and for a second I thought she was going to change her mind. 

Then she said, "Raymond was using you as collateral. In his business dealings, way before any of this, before the hotel room. He was putting your name against debts he owed people. Using you as something he could hand over when things went wrong for him." Her voice stayed even but her hands tightened slightly in her lap, "You were never just his girlfriend. You were a card he kept in his back pocket the whole time."

The sitting room was very quiet.

I had suspected something like it before. 

In the part of my mind I usually kept the door closed on because opening it meant sitting with things I wasn't ready to sit with. 

But suspecting something and hearing it said out loud in plain, simple words were two very different things.

I felt shock settle over me. 

"There's something else," Lucy said, dropping her voice just slightly.

I looked at her and waited.

"Mateo knew," she said, "He knew what Raymond was doing and he let it carry on."

The clock on the wall ticked. Somewhere deeper in the house a door closed.

I kept my face very still, "How long?"

"I don't know exactly," she said, "But it wasn't recent."

I nodded slowly and didn't speak for a moment. I just let it sit there in the room between us and breathed through it steadily because falling apart in front of Lucy was not something I was willing to do.

Then I stood up.

"Thank you for coming," I said in a not too cold tone and I meant it. 

Lucy stood too and hesitated, like she had more she wanted to add, "Amelia I didn't come here to cause more trouble, I just thought you deserved to –"

"I know," I said, quietly cutting her off, "I heard everything you said."

I walked her to the door myself. She stopped just outside and turned back to look at me once like she was checking something. 

Then, she pulled her jacket around herself and walked away down the path without another word.

I watched her go for just a second before I closed the door.

The hallway was still around me.

I stood there with my back to the door and thought about everything she'd said. 

Worse than finding out that I'd been collateral for Raymond was learning that Mateo had known and he'd let it continue while he quietly cleaned up around me and stocked a wardrobe with my exact size and put my tea on his kitchen shelf.

He knew what was being done to me and he made no move to stop it, not until it suited him.

I stepped away from the door.

Then I went straight to find Mateo.