Chapter 6 - WHAT MONEY COULDN’T BUY
Adrian hit the floor with Nora beneath him.
Security dragged them behind a workbench.
Another bullet tore through the window.
Then silence.
The sniper escaped.
Adrian’s first concern was not himself.
“Nora.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s glass.”
A shallow cut crossed her cheek.
Adrian touched it with a tenderness so completely at odds with the violence around them that Nora forgot to breathe.
His thumb stopped beside the cut.
Their eyes met.
Neither moved.
Grant’s voice shattered the moment.
“We need to go.”
Back at Vale House, Nora sat on the bathroom counter while Adrian cleaned the cut himself.
“You have doctors.”
“I know.”
“You have staff.”
“I know.”
“You’re terrible at delegating.”
“I know.”
She watched him.
“Why are you doing this?”
His hand stopped.
“You saved my life.”
“So this is gratitude?”
“No.”
One word.
Quiet.
Dangerous in an entirely different way.
Nora looked away first.
Adrian placed the bandage gently.
“Done.”
“Thank you.”
He remained close.
“Why did you push me?”
“There was a rifle aimed at you.”
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
She met his eyes.
“It’s the only one I have.”
Something changed between them.
Not romance exactly.
Recognition.
Two people realizing the other had become important before either had given permission.
Later that night, Nora found him sitting alone beside his mother’s photograph.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I tried.”
He moved aside.
She sat.
After a while Adrian said, “I remember the fire.”
Nora remained quiet.
“I remember smoke. My mother pushing me through a window. Someone carried me across the lawn.”
“Your father?”
“I always thought so.”
He stared at the photograph.
“But the ledger says Richard died protecting the truth. My father died three years after my mother.”
“What happened?”
“Officially? Heart attack.”
“And unofficially?”
“I’m beginning to question every funeral I attended as a child.”
Nora’s heart hurt for him.
Wealth had given Adrian everything except certainty about the people he loved.
“You know what I remember about my father?” she asked.
“What?”
“He sang badly.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Terribly. Every Sunday morning. Motown, usually. He never knew the words, so he invented half of them.”
Adrian smiled.
“I can’t imagine you tolerating that.”
“I threw cereal at him once.”
“There she is.”
“Who?”
“The terrifying criminal.”
Nora laughed.
The sound surprised both of them.
Then Adrian laughed too.
Not the restrained almost-smile she had occasionally extracted.
A real laugh.
Warm.
Young.
For one moment he looked nothing like the man newspapers feared.
Nora understood then why Elena had hidden letters for him.
This was her boy.
Still there.
Buried beneath twenty-seven years of armor.
The following morning brought another problem.
Photographs of Nora and Adrian leaving her mother’s home had appeared online.
The headline was ugly.
MYSTERY MAID CAPTURES MAFIA KING.
Another outlet called her “Vale’s plus-size Cinderella.”
Nora stared at the screen.
Adrian took the phone from her.
“Don’t.”
“I’m accustomed to insults.”
“You shouldn’t have to be.”
“Neither should you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
He looked surprised.
She continued.
“They call you a monster because it sells papers. They call me desperate because apparently a woman who looks like me couldn’t possibly attract a man like you without manipulation.”
Adrian’s face darkened.
“A man like me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
Nora stood.
“Tall. Rich. Powerful. Annoying.”
“Annoying?”
“Deeply.”
He stepped closer.
“You missed handsome.”
“I was being charitable.”
His eyes warmed.
Then his phone rang.
Grant.
The mood vanished.
They had identified the corporation receiving the stolen money.
Its registered director was dead.
But the signature authorizing every transaction belonged to Victor Vale.
Adrian went silent.
“No.”
Grant placed documents on the desk.
“His signature.”
“Could be forged.”
“Possibly.”
“Then prove it.”
Grant hesitated.
“There’s more.”
Security footage showed Victor entering the financial office on nights corresponding to several transfers.
Adrian refused to believe it.
Nora understood why.
Victor had raised him.
Taught him to drive.
Attended graduations.
Sat beside him at his father’s funeral.
Family could be guilty.
Evidence could lie.
Both things were true.
Adrian ordered Victor brought in.
But Victor had disappeared.
His house was empty.
His phones destroyed.
And inside his safe, security found one object.
A photograph of Elena.
On the back:
FORGIVE ME.
Adrian stared at it for a long time.
Then he walked away.
Nora followed him to the terrace.
Rain had begun.
“Adrian.”
“Don’t.”
“Okay.”
She stood beside him anyway.
Minutes passed.
Finally he whispered, “Everybody leaves.”
Nora looked at him.
“My mother. My father. Now Victor.”
“You don’t know that he betrayed you.”
“He ran.”
“People run because they’re guilty. They also run because they’re scared.”
He looked at her.
“You always argue.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“What occupation?”
“Keeping you from making stupid decisions.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth.
The air changed.
Adrian reached up.
He stopped before touching her.
“Nora.”
She knew the question.
She answered by closing the distance.
Their kiss was gentle.
Almost painfully so.
No performance.
No desperation.
Just warmth after too many cold years.
When they separated, Adrian rested his forehead against hers.
Then Nora saw movement reflected in the glass doors.
A figure behind them.
She spun.
Grant stood inside.
He looked stunned.
Not because they had kissed.
Because he was holding a phone.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“We found Victor.”
Adrian stepped inside.
“Where?”
Grant swallowed.
“St. Matthew’s Cemetery.”
Nora’s stomach tightened.
“At your mother’s grave?”
“No.”
Grant turned the screen toward them.
Victor was kneeling beside Thomas Bennett’s grave.
May you like
And beside him stood Nora’s mother.
Diane.
