He threw the phone back in its cradle and rushed out of his office without a word of explanation to Kate.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LAYLA grew increasingly anxious the longer Andrew’s society blond wife, Diana Sinclair, stayed gone. Maybe she shouldn’t have introduced herself as an ex-girlfriend of Andrew’s. But if she hadn’t, she ran the risk of Diana finding out later, and it seemed disrespectful to not only show up at the woman’s house out of the blue, but also to lie about who she was—especially if they were having marital problems like Jessica had said.
Diana responded to her introduction with a slightly nonplussed blink and she’d invited Layla in and even offered her a cup of tea.
“You have a lovely home,” Layla said, following her into the receiving room, which was done up in tasteful French country decor, with a butter yellow and dark blue color scheme.
Layla though about Nathan’s loft. The weekend before they’d gone shopping in the nearby Southside Works, and she’d convinced Nathan to buy some bright yellow accent pieces and a few electric blue end-tables to break up all the black and grey going on in his converted warehouse loft. The insertion of a few pops of color had transformed the apartment, and even Nathan admitted it made his home look a lot more welcoming and a lot less industrial. She had been hoping to convince him to paint the kitchen cabinets red before she left, but now she wasn’t even sure Nathan and she would still be talking after the terrible weekend they’d had.
“Thank you,” Diana said. “We inherited the house from Andrew’s parents, but I’ve tried to make it our own over the years. I’ll be right back with that tea.”
Layla had been a little surprised she hadn’t called a servant to bring it to them. The mansion had looked huge from the outside, like the kind of place that took an entire staff to run it. And something told her there should be servants lurking around somewhere. Perhaps it was instinct, or maybe it was even a memory trying to work its way to the surface.
Either way, Layla felt vaguely unsettled as she waited for Diana to return. Was Andrew here? Would she finally get the answers she’d been seeking? Did she even want to know, she wondered. The fact that Nathan had done so much to keep her from finding out what happened back then scared her.
At the opera fundraiser, she’d nearly had to restrain Jessica from going after Nathan herself. “He tricked you into dating him?” she’d said. “He used your lost memory to get you into his bed?!”
“No,” Layla said, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she had dated Andrew and not Nathan. “That’s not exactly how it went down.”
As furious as Layla was with Nathan, she knew a few things Jessica didn’t. First of all, she didn’t hate anybody. She might have deeply disliked Nathan back in the day, but she couldn’t see herself openly hating on anyone. However, when they’d met, his hate for her had seemed real.
New scenarios began to play out in her head: Had Andrew been the man in her window seat dream/possible memory? Maybe Nathan hadn’t approved of their relationship. Was that why he wanted her to leave town, to keep her away from his brother? Maybe his plan had been to get rid of her from the start, but he hadn’t counted on their insane sexual chemistry.
In any case, one point shined bright and clear. She couldn’t trust Nathan at all. If he could keep this much from her, for all she knew, he really was the person who had been threatening her about leaving town. She hadn’t received any more threats since signing the contract with Nathan, so it made sense.
No, she thought. She couldn’t let Jessica go out there and tell Nathan off. She couldn’t even let him know she now knew what he’d hidden from her. What she needed to do now was find Andrew before her two weeks were up, and get the answers for herself. She’d somehow convinced Jessica not to say anything to Nathan.
“I need to talk to Andrew first, and then I’ll have it out with Nathan. I don’t suppose you know where Andrew lives or could get me his address?”
“Yes, same place he lived when you were dating him—at his parents’ house. After his father died, his mother moved to Florida, and now Andrew and his wife live there. Nathan used to live there, too, when we were in college, in the guest house out back. But that was a long time ago, and I’m not remembering the exact address off the top of my head.
“Do you think you can find out? I’d really appreciate it,” Layla said.
“Sure. It’s probably just a matter of making a few phone calls.”
They’d exchanged numbers and Layla, not wanting to tip Nathan off, had faked a migraine.
But Jessica hadn’t called with the address until late Sunday night, which had forced the argument with Nathan.
It was too soon to confront him with what he had done, since she still didn’t know exactly what was going on, and knew he wouldn’t tell her himself. But her emotions were warring inside of her. On one hand, she felt deeply betrayed. Apparently, she hadn’t been good enough for his brother, but she’d do in pinch when it came to warming his bed for two months. On the other hand, she had gotten used to being with him every night. And even though she really, really didn’t like him at that moment, her body still ached for him. She couldn’t let him touch her again until she figured out his true intentions. But she also couldn’t bear to be apart from him.
When he hadn’t budged on her staying at her own apartment, it had almost been a relief to return to his bed, even if they were emotionally miles apart. She thanked the heavens when Jessica finally called with the address Sunday night.
On Monday, she took off from work and drove out to Fox Chapel, a swanky suburb of Pittsburgh proper, dotted by houses that sat on acres of land. She knew she couldn’t just sit around and wait for Nathan to give her answers whenever he saw fit. But still, she felt somewhat guilty about going behind his back to find his brother. It didn’t make any kind of sense to feel this guilt, but she did, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that coming to this place where they’d both lived when she met them for the first time was a bad idea.
And as the time passed, fifteen minutes by her count, she became more and more rattled to the point that she got up and started walking around just to shake off the tension. That’s when she saw it: the long, winding, white marble staircase, sitting just beyond an entrance opposite from the one she’d come in. She walked to the stairs, entranced by their cold beauty, and knew them immediately for what they were: the ones she’d fallen down.