Chapter 12
The Lights Cut Out
The yacht footage made no sound.
That was the worst part. Elena watched a silent version of herself walk down a corridor she had never seen, wearing her gray coat, hair pinned at the nape the way Elena pinned it when she needed both hands free.
"Pause," she said.
Mara froze the frame.
Adrian stood behind Elena's chair, close enough that she felt him there before she heard him. He had chosen not to sit. He did that when pain made him angry.
"That's not me."
"I know," he said.
Elena looked up.
"You know?"
"You don't walk like that."
The answer was too immediate. Too intimate for a man who had known her less than a week and had been conscious for less than four days of it.
"How do I walk?"
Mara made a sound that might have been a cough and stepped out to take a call.
Adrian did not move back. "Like you are counting exits."
Elena's pulse changed.
On the screen, the woman in Elena's coat opened a service door. The camera angle caught only her cheek, jaw, the edge of a pearl earring.
"Celeste wears pearls," Elena said.
"So do half the women in this family."
"Do they all know my father's access code?"
Adrian leaned closer to study the frame. His hand came down on the back of Elena's chair, not touching her shoulder, but close enough that warmth moved through the space.
Elena turned her head.
For one suspended second, his face was inches from hers. Rain tapped the archive windows. His gaze dropped to her mouth and returned to her eyes with visible effort.
Neither of them spoke.
Then every light in the archive went out.
Adrian's hand found the chair in the dark.
Elena reached up and caught his wrist before he could move.