“Of course. I’ll make sure that gets done sir.”

“And since I’m staying home tomorrow, could you get the newest pictures from Corey for me? I know she’s on vacation this week, but I didn’t get anything from last week.”

“I already have them.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small manila envelope. “Corey wasn’t sure if he should give these to you so he gave them to me.”

“What? Why?” And since when do they talk behind my back?

“He doesn’t think you can handle it. Quite frankly, neither do I.”

“Greg,” I said as I took another sip of my drink, “give them to me. I don’t know why you and Corey are suddenly best friends, but I think I’m more than capable of—”

“Miss Gracen is dating someone else.”

WHAT! My blood heated. “What did you just say?”

“She’s dating someone else.”

I tried not to sound appalled. “Who is he?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does. Give me the damn envelope.” I slammed my glass down on the table.

He sighed. He walked over to me like he was going to place it in my hands, but then he stepped past me and tossed it into the flames.

Before I could react, he held his hand up. “I’ll make sure that Miss Gracen is safe at all times whenever she runs on the Golden Gate Bridge and whenever she goes to the beach alone.” He cleared his throat. “But I won’t keep doing this to you, sir. With all due respect, it’s not helping. The security team has stopped tracking photos for you as of today and I’ve changed all the access codes to their offices. They’ll no longer be pursuing this project.”

“Under what orders? Are you trying to get fired?”

“Are you trying to lose your most loyal employee?”

“I have plenty of loyal employees and they know how to do exactly what they’re told. If you value your job, you will go back to corporate right now and have those photos reprinted before—”

“You fire me?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you testing me, Greg? I will fire you. You are not irreplaceable.”

He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow.

I stared at him long and hard, biting down on my tongue until it bled because I couldn’t fix my mouth to say, “You’re fired.”

If he was a regular security guard or driver, I would have fired him on the spot—no questions asked, but Greg was much more than that. He’d been there for me since the beginning and he was my silent confidante. My right hand man. And he and I both knew that I couldn’t afford to lose him. Ever.

“Fine.”

“Good. Hayley sends her regards. Her Scrabble team is on a flight to Italy as we speak. When she returns to the states, she would like for you to send her an early edition of the sPhone red. The hackers who attempted to break into your company’s firewall last week have all been charged and no harm was done to the internal system according to Corey. Those are the updates you weren’t paying attention to earlier today. Do you need anything else from me tonight?”

“No.”

“Very well then. Have a good night, Mr. Statham.”

I sat in the parlor room until midnight. I tried drinking my pain away, but I could only get through one glass. All I could think about was Claire—her kissing someone else, being held by someone else, having sex with someone else.

Each bitter thought made me want to drive to her house and demand to know who the hell this new man was, to put a stop to it immediately.

How can she move on so soon? How is that possible?

After replaying some of our old memories, I decided to walk around my house until I was too tired to think anymore. I started outside, walking through the gardens and the pool deck—trying not to envision the times that Claire and I had made love under the trees.

I came back inside and circled through the hallways, trying to ignore any place that I’d been with her, but it was no use. We’d been everywhere.

I dragged myself into the living room and sighed. I placed another blanket over Stacy, kissing her on the forehead.

“Hey...” Her eyes fluttered open. “You okay?”

“No.”

She moved over on the couch and motioned for me to lie down. “What’s wrong? Why do you look like someone just died?”

“She’s dating someone else.”

“What?”

“Claire...She’s dating someone else.”

“Oh...” She frowned. “Well, it’s probably not that serious. It’s—”

“The fact that she’s even able to date someone else that quickly is—”

“It’s been three months, Jonathan...”

That’s all? I felt like it’d been at least a year.

She wrapped her arms around me and sighed. “You really love her, huh?”

I didn’t answer. I just shut my eyes and tried to ignore the horrible pangs that were assaulting my chest. I didn’t understand how it’d gotten to this point—still couldn’t wrap my mind around why she didn’t tell me about my mother, why she thought us being apart was the solution for that.

It didn’t make any sense because she loved me—I knew she did. I could see it in her eyes whenever we made love, whenever I showed up to her house and spent time with her and her family, whenever we spent all night exchanging sarcastic comebacks.

Or maybe she didn’t...Maybe it was just me...

Just as I was about to surrender to my heavy eyelids, I heard my phone ringing in the parlor room.

It wasn’t the special ringtone I had for Greg, Claire, or anyone else important, so I let it ring. But then it kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

I rolled off the couch and walked into the other room, looking at the number. It was a San Fran number, but it didn’t look familiar. I was tempted to silence it, but this person had already ruined my chance at sleep.

“This better be fucking important.” I growled.

“Jonathan?” It was a young girl’s voice. “Is this Jonathan?”

“Who is this?”

“Ashley...” She started crying.

Claire’s Ashley?

“What’s going on?” I softened my tone. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to—”

“I...I need your help, please...”

“What happened?” I grabbed my jacket and slipped into my shoes.

“I can’t....I really need your help...”

“Where are you?” I rushed to my garage.

“I’m on...on Tim Street...At Haven Foods...And I’m—”

“Are you hurt?”

“No... But I...” She said something in between sobs. “Can you come get me?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” I revved up my car. “Stay right there.”

“Please don’t call my mom,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Please...”

“I won’t.” I wouldn’t know what to say anyway.

I sped over to the grocery store—racing into parking lot, slowing down once I saw what the problem was.

Jesus...

I stepped out and looked at the mangled metal mess that was once Claire’s Audi Q7: The front of the car was wrapped around a pole and the windshield was shattered. The front right tire had been flung across the lot and the driver’s door was smashed in so deep that it looked like the car had run into the guard rail before crashing into the pole.

From the way it looked, it was a miracle that Ashley had made it out alive. I looked over at her and noticed that she was trembling.

I took off my jacket and put it over her shoulders. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”

She sniffled. “Are you going to tell my mom about this?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s going to find out somehow...”

“I know you two aren’t together anymore, and I’m sorry for calling so late, but I didn’t know who else to call...My mom isn’t the best option, if you know what I mean...”

“Tell me what happened...”

She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Me and Caroline wanted to go out tonight, but she wanted to hang out with that guy—Jake, remember? He finally asked her out after texting her every day.” She shrugged. “It’s her weekend to take our car, but I wanted to go on another date with Chris...I didn’t want to have to rely on him for a ride because the  last time we went out, he drove and I barely made curfew so...”