Chapter 15: A Locked Door

“Tamsin,” Zola whispered, picking her croissant up off the floor. “The woman with the cheekbones, from the office?”

“She said my sweater made a strong statement,” I said, and my hands went cold.

“Brandt, hold her at the building, do not let her leave, and do not say a word,” Kade said into the phone.

“Yes, sir,” Brandt said, and the line went dead.

Kade picked up his keys, and his hand was not steady.

“I am coming with you,” I said.

“No, you are not, it is going to be ugly,” Kade said.

“She sold my face to a newspaper, Kade, I have a right to be in the room,” I said.

He looked at me for a long moment, and then he held out his hand. “Stay behind me, and if you want to leave, squeeze my fingers, and I will end it.”

“I am coming too,” Zola said, grabbing her bag.

“Absolutely not, you will set something on fire,” Kade said.

“That is a very reasonable concern, I will wait with the guards and a croissant,” Zola said, and she hugged me and whispered, “Be loud.”

In the car Kade stared out the window and said nothing for six blocks.

“You are thinking something, say it,” I said.

“I am thinking that I never saw it, four years, she handed me coffee every morning, she knew my schedule, my mother’s number, the code to my safe, and I never saw it,” Kade said.

“People hide things well when they need to,” I said.

“You did not hide anything from me, you were just scared,” Kade said, and his voice cracked.

“Kade, I have to ask, and you have to answer honestly, were you and Tamsin,” I said, and I could not finish.

“Yes,” Kade said quietly. “For two years, nothing serious, nothing with a name, I told her from the beginning that I did not do forever, and I ended it last Monday, three days before the pharmacy, because I could not stop thinking about a girl in a red dress.”

I looked out at the city, and it blurred. “Okay,” I said.

“Okay is not a good word, tell me what you feel,” Kade said.

“I feel stupid, I sat in your office and she looked at my sweater like I was a stain, and I thought she was just rude, I did not know she had slept in your bed,” I said.

“You are not stupid, and you are not a stain, and I should have told you, I am sorry,” Kade said.

“I am not angry about the past, I am angry that she looked at me like that and I believed her,” I said.

“Mina,” Kade said, and he took my hand and held it so tightly it almost hurt. “Believe me instead.”

Brandt stood outside Kade’s office door like a mountain with a gray beard, and he stepped aside without a word.

Tamsin sat in the chair across from Kade’s desk with her ankles crossed and her black dress perfect, and she looked up and smiled at me, and the smile did not reach her eyes.

“Kade, what a surprise, and you brought the sweater,” Tamsin said.

“Pharmacy, photograph, and a photographer who says you paid him in cash,” Kade said, standing very still in the doorway.

Tamsin’s smile did not move, but her fingers tightened around her pen. “I do not know what you mean.”

“Do not lie to me, Tamsin, not today, I have had a very long morning,” Kade said.

For a few seconds nobody breathed, and then Tamsin laughed, a short, hard laugh that rang off the glass walls.

“Four years,” she said. “I have been in every meeting, every dinner, every hotel in Europe, and you looked at me like furniture.”

“Tamsin,” Kade said.

“Two years in your bed, and you could not remember my birthday, you told me it was over on Monday as if you were canceling a lunch, and by Friday you had a pregnant bride,” Tamsin said, and her voice shook.

“I told you the truth, I never promised you anything,” Kade said.

“You were honest the way a locked door is honest, Kade, I never stood a chance,” Tamsin said.

I stepped forward before Kade could stop me. “You could have told him how you felt, you could have quit, you could have screamed at him, you did not have to put my face in a gossip column.”

“Do not talk to me about feelings, you walked in here in your little sweater with a baby, and you won in one night what I could not win in two years,” Tamsin said.

“I did not win anything, he left me before sunrise, and I did not know his name,” I said, and my voice shook.

“He left you, and you are still the one who gets the ring,” Tamsin said, looking at Nana Rose’s ring, and her eyes filled, and she turned her face away.

The room went quiet, and I understood, with a sudden hurt in my chest, that she was in pain, that her cruelty was only love turned inside out.

“I am sorry that he hurt you,” I said.

“Do not,” Tamsin said. “Do not be kind to me, I cannot stand it.”

“Who gave you the photograph, Tamsin?” Kade asked. “You were not at that pharmacy, you were in my office all day.”

Tamsin blinked, and the anger slipped, and something like confusion crossed her face.

“Nobody gave me the photograph, I mean, somebody did, but I did not ask who,” Tamsin said.

“Explain,” Kade said.

Tamsin slid her phone across the desk with a hand that trembled. “It came on Tuesday night, a message from a number I did not know, a picture of her outside the pharmacy, your name, and a line that said, he is going to marry her, do you want to stop it?”

Kade picked up the phone, and I leaned over his arm and read the number, and my stomach dropped.

It was the same number that had texted me, the one with no name, the one that said five tests, Mina.

“That is the number that has been sending me messages for two weeks,” I said.

“Then it was not Dean, and it was not me, I was only a pair of hands,” Tamsin said slowly, and her face went white.

“Did they tell you why?” Kade asked.

“They said I would be doing you a favor, they said she did not belong in your world, that I was the one who understood you,” Tamsin said, and a tear slid down her face. “I wanted to believe it, God help me, I wanted to.”

Kade put the phone down very carefully. “Brandt, take her out, escort her to her apartment, she is suspended, she is not to speak to Dean, my mother, or anyone in this building.”

“Kade, please,” Tamsin said, standing, and her mask came off all at once, the tall, sharp woman gone, and a girl with smeared mascara left. “I loved you, you know that, I really did.”

“I know,” Kade said, and his voice was so tired. “And I am sorry that I did not see it, but I will not let you hurt her, or the baby, ever.”

Brandt put a gentle hand on her elbow, and Tamsin walked out with her head high and her shoulders shaking.

The door closed, and Kade sat on the edge of his desk and put his face in his hands.

I crossed the room and stood between his knees and put my arms around his head, and he held on to my waist like a drowning man.

“Four years, I did not see it,” Kade said into my sweater.

“You saw me, and that is enough for today,” I whispered, stroking his hair.

“Rule three,” Kade said, and his shoulders shook with something that was half a laugh and half something else.

“We can break it later, you are having a bad morning,” I said.

My phone buzzed against my hip, and I pulled it out with one hand, still holding him with the other.

The unknown number again.

Tamsin was only the first. Do you want to know who else in his house is lying to you?

I looked at the screen, and then at Kade’s bowed head, and then I slowly turned my phone face down against his shoulder, because for the first time I was afraid to tell him something, and I did not know why.