He never said a word. He just made sure I saw him. So, I went to a hotel downtown, paid cash, used a different name, and the next day, the front desk gave me a message. Mr. Cole is asking whether you're enjoying your stay.
She shook her head slowly. He's got people everywhere, Marcus. My drivers, my assistants, he's paying them or he's threatening them. I don't know which, but every place I run, he finds me in a day. Two at the most.
"So, why here? " Marcus asked. "Why me? " And this this was the part that landed like a punch. "Because you're the only person in my whole life," Victoria said quietly. "That Adrien would never ever think to look for. " Marcus went very still. "He knows my world," she went on.
"He knows my friends, my board, my clubs, my restaurants, my hotels, my drivers. He mapped all of it. But you. " She looked around the small warm kitchen, at the crayon drawings held to the refrigerator by magnets shaped like fruit, at the work boots by the back door, at the man across the table with sawdust still in the creases of his hands. "You're just the renovation guy to him. You're beneath noticing.
And I hate that I'm saying it out loud. And I hate that it's the reason I'm alive right now, but it's the truth. The one place Adrien will never think to look for a billionaire is inside the house of a man he thinks is nobody. " The kitchen was quiet. Somewhere outside, a car passed slow on the wet street, and both of them turned to watch the headlights slide across the window and disappear. Marcus let out a long breath.
"You can sleep here tonight," he said finally. "Tonight? You take the bedroom, I take the couch, and in the morning we figure out something real. A lawyer, a friend I trust, something because I've got a 9-year-old daughter coming home Sunday. Victoria, and I need you to hear me.
There is nothing on this earth more important to me than keeping her out of whatever this is. Nothing. Do you understand me? "I understand," Victoria said. "I'd never let anything touch her.
I'd leave first. " "Then we understand each other. " He stood, rinsed his mug in the sink, and as he was drying his hands on the dish towel, Victoria said something he wasn't ready for. "Thank you," she said. "You're the first person in 9 days who let me finish a sentence. " Marcus paused with the towel in his hands. He didn't turn around. He wasn't sure his face could be trusted.
"Get some sleep," he said. He didn't sleep. He lay on the couch in the dark with his boots still on and stared at the ceiling and did the math of his life. Marcus Ellis was 42 years old. He'd been a widower for five of those years.
His wife Renee had died in a hospital bed on a Tuesday afternoon while he held her hand and lied to her and told her the doctor said she was going to be fine. She wasn't going to be fine. He'd known it and she'd known it. And they'd sat there and lied to each other. Because sometimes love is just two people agreeing not to say the true thing out loud.
After Renee died, Marcus made himself small on purpose. He built a wall brick by brick, and he built it high, not because he was angry, because he was tired. Grief had come at him like a wave, and when it finally pulled back, it took a lot of him with it. And what was left, he poured into exactly two things, his daughter and his work. Ava got all his heart.
The houses got all his hands and there was nothing left over for anybody and that was fine. That was safe. That was the whole point. He'd told himself he'd made peace with being alone. And then a broken woman had climbed into his bed and whispered, "Let me stay. " And something in his chest he thought was dead had rolled over in its sleep.
He hated that. He hated it because he knew exactly where it led. He'd walked that road before. You let somebody in you, let them matter. And then one Tuesday afternoon, they're gone.
And you're the one left holding the empty hand. Not again, he thought. Not for anybody. Especially not for her. She's a client.
She's a headache. She's a rich woman's problem that landed in a poor man's house. And the second the sun comes up, I'm handing her off to a lawyer and getting my life back. He believed that for almost 4 hours. Then a little after 4:00 in the morning, he heard it.
A car door softly down the street. The kind of soft that a person makes when they don't want to be heard. Marcus was off the couch and at the front window before he decided to move. He pulled the curtain back one inch. A black SUV sat parked four houses down on the far side of the street.
Engine off, lights off. Rain streaked the glass and through the windshield just barely. Marcus could see the orange dot of a cigarette glowing in the dark. Somebody was sitting in that truck watching the street. Marcus's mouth went dry.
He let the curtain fall closed and stood in the dark of his own living room with his heart pounding. And for the first time, he understood all the way down in his gut that Victoria hadn't been exaggerating a single word. This wasn't a scared woman's imagination. This wasn't hotel drama. There was a man in a truck outside his house at 4:00 in the morning and he was watching.
He woke Victoria before dawn. "Get up," he said quietly. Don't turn on any lights. She came awake fast the way people do when they've spent a week being afraid. "What is it?
What's wrong? " "There's an SUV parked down the street. Been there since 4:00. Somebody's inside it. " Victoria went white. "Black? Is it black? " "Yeah, that's them. " She was already up, already reaching for her shoes, already in that flat, calm voice that scared him more than screaming would have.
That's Adrien's. He uses a service. Two men. They don't do anything. They just they just watch.
So, I know they're there. So, I feel it. So, I break. Marcus, I'm so sorry I brought this to your door. I never should have.
"Stop. " He caught her arm. "Stop. Look at me. " She stopped. "Are they allowed to be on my street? " Marcus asked. Victoria blinked.
"What? " "It's a public street," he said. It's my neighborhood. I've lived here 11 years. I know every house on this block and everybody in them. So, I'm asking you a real question.
"Is that man in that truck breaking any law by sitting there? " "No," Victoria said slowly. That's the whole point. He never breaks the law. He just "Then here's what we're going to do," Marcus said. And something in his voice had changed.