“I suspected it. After seeing them together. Anna—”
“I need to get out of this sun. I have a headache,” I said, cutting him off.
He caught my hand as I started for the door that led to the kitchen. “Maybe I should take you to the doctor.” He seemed to read the alarm on my face. His forehead furrowed. “Because of your head,” he explained rapidly. “Because you hit your head, and now this headache—”
“It’s not from hitting my head. It’s a migraine. I don’t get them as often as I used to, but I definitely recognize one. Stress can trigger them.”
Stress also can trigger hallucinations and other forms of madness, can’t it?
I forced the vision of the woman in the red Ferrari out of my head with effort.
“Do you still want to leave today?” Evan asked me.
The feeling of his large, dry, warm hand enfolding mine distracted me, making it difficult to gather my thoughts. The truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted at that moment.
“I do. I think.”
He nodded. “I’d like to take you.” He noticed my frown. “I know you need time. I’m not going to crowd you. But let me take you away from here. You need time to think. To process. I realize how much I’ve hurt you. But please don’t send me away from you. I want to be there for you, to answer any questions you might have. To do whatever you need. I’ll do anything to make this right, Anna.”
I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. I sensed his honesty.
But I didn’t trust it.
The pain behind my right eye throbbed. I pressed my fingertips against it.
“I don’t know. Right now, I just need to be alone.”
“Of course. I left the aspirin on the bedside table. Lie down and get some rest.”
I distinctly felt the edges of the letter pressing against my thigh. I nodded and tugged on my hand, needing to get away from him at that moment.
But at the same time, I hated the feeling of my fingers sliding from his grasp.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Once I was in the safety of the bedroom suite we’d slept in last night, I left the curtains drawn. I hurriedly swallowed a couple aspirin, then went over to the seating area and turned a lamp onto its dimmest setting.
I looked first at the bold signature at the bottom of the second page.
Noah Madaster.
A surreal feeling went through me.
I thought of Wes’s report of Madaster’s recent heart attack. This script was not the writing of a frail man. Instead, the large, bold scrawl, screamed vitality and strength… along with something else. Blazing confidence. It reminded me of the sumptuous, unflinching writing in the detailed Madaster family history I’d discovered in the great room. That had been written by Theodore Madaster, Noah’s father. Could the appearance of handwriting be passed on through the genes? Could a confidence so great that it looked like self-righteousness and narcissism be coded in DNA?
My fingers felt chilled as I clutched the pages.
Anna,
My name is Noah Madaster. Knowing my one-time son-in-law as well as I do, I have no doubt that by this time, when you read my name, you will equate it with the devil himself: horns, hooves, pitchfork and all.
I have not had the pleasure yet of meeting you. But I get the impression from my observances that you are not a foolish woman. Nor are you an untalented one. Evan Halifax may try to paint me with his typical slashing, black and white strokes.
But I’ve seen your paintings. I was quite moved by them. I believe that you are more subtle and complex in your rendering of reality than your husband can ever fully comprehend.
I am aware of how Evan has wronged you, leading you to believe that he is in love with you, marrying you under false pretenses, and bringing you to this place in order to exact his revenge on me. I can’t begin to tell you how much this angers me on your part. I’m not sure how much of the truth he has told you at this point. But I can tell you this: Whatever he’s told you is not the truth in its entirety.
Evan has made a terrible misjudgment, Anna. One that even he, sitting in his self-erected throne of judgment, doesn’t understand.