Tires squealed. Winnie screamed. Metal collided with metal.
Silence.
• • •
THE RINGING OF her phone jerked her awake. Damn. Did she fall asleep? What time was it?
She reached for her phone and squinted at the screen. Lennox.
“Hey,” she said.
“Are you okay? Did I wake you?” he asked.
“No, I wasn’t sleeping, and yes, I’m okay.” She didn’t want to tell him she’d been napping. He’d probably send her to the doctor or worse, bring a doctor to her. “Just didn’t have my phone with me.”
“That’s not safe, Marie. You know better.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spare me the lecture.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “You sound a bit off.”
How did he always manage to know her so well? That he could tell just by her voice that something was off?
All she had to do was go back to that night and she knew the truth. It had been so obvious then, how well they fit together, how they completed each other.
“There is something I want you to see. Can you come by?” she asked.
“Sure, give me about fifteen minutes, I need to wrap something up here.”
She nodded before realizing he couldn’t see. “Sounds great.” But he had called her. “Was there something you needed to talk to me about?”
“No, I was just calling to check on you.”
He did that every few days. Called her out of the blue, just to see how she was doing. She’d like to think it meant something, but deep inside, she knew what it was. He felt guilty because of the accident, and since he felt like it was his fault, he would call to check on her to ease his conscience.
That was it. Nothing more.
But she really wanted it to be more.
While she waited for his arrival, she straightened the papers and notebooks, putting the journal at the bottom of the pile. She stopped by the bathroom, briefly, to make sure she looked decent, and chided herself the entire time, telling herself she was being silly. This was only Lennox. She’d known him forever.
Yes, her inner voice whispered, but it wasn’t that long ago when you knelt before him and offered your whole self to him.
He showed up at her door looking devastatingly handsome moments later. Even with the slight frown he wore on his face.
“What?”
“I just wanted to put my eyes on you. Make sure you were okay.”
“Damn,” she said, as they made their way to the living room. “Do I look that bad?” She’d just checked herself in the bathroom.
“It’s not so much how you look. There’s something about you, I can’t put my finger on it.”
Crazy talk, she decided, but didn’t tell him that because deep down, she had a feeling he was right.
He sat down on her couch and nodded toward the box. “You aren’t moving, are you?”
“No. Fulton brought that by earlier. It’s actually what I wanted to show you.”
He looked at the box with considerably more interest, but didn’t make a move toward it. He was waiting for her, she realized. For her to say something else.
“The workmen found it in one of the cottage’s downstairs closets.” When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “It had mostly papers, I threw some of them away and kept a few for you to look through. There were also several sketchbooks.”
He sucked in a breath. “That were used?”
“Yes, I laid those aside for you.” She knew how proud he’d always been of Winnie and her work. “And there’s a journal.”
“She kept a journal?”
“It appears so,” Mariela said, and she rushed to add, “I flipped through it and read about two pages, but I had to stop because it felt invasive to me.”
Mariela picked up the journal from the table beside her and passed it to Lennox. He took it hesitatingly, as if it would bite him.
“I had no idea she kept a journal,” he said, flipping it over and running his fingers over the leather. “I don’t know if I want to read it either.”
“Why?”
“Not sure I want to read what she really thought about me.”
His answer didn’t make any sense. Whenever he and Winnie had been together, they seemed like the most perfect couple. But his words when paired with the snippets she’d read in the journal left her thinking there were a lot of things she didn’t know about the two people who were so important to her.
She leveled her gaze at him. “What exactly happened that day?” She knew they’d argued about something, that Winnie had gotten in her car and driven away. Minutes later, Winnie called her and lost control of her car, which ultimately led to her death.
He stood up and walked to a window. “I don’t like to talk about it and I don’t very often. But in light of everything, I think you should know and, afterward, you can decide if you want to read the journal or not.”
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked. He certainly looked as if he needed something.
“Yes, I actually would, but I think I should do this sober.” Turning from the window, he looked relieved, for lack of a better word. “And maybe in telling you what happened with Winnie and me, you can see why I feel the way I do about you and me.”
Of course, she knew those two things would be related in his mind. Suddenly, though, she wasn’t sure she was ready for the truth.
You are, the air around her seemed to whisper.
She didn’t believe that tiny voice, but regardless, it didn’t appear to matter to Lennox one way or the other. He was ready to share his story, and if he was strong enough to tell it, she was strong enough to listen.
And maybe, just maybe, he was right, and understanding what happened with him and Winnie would shed light on their own relationship. Deep inside, she knew that was what she wanted. To move forward with Lennox. And if that meant listening to him talk about Winnie’s last days or reading the journal? Hell, Lennox could talk all night and she’d read every last page in that leather book.
She nodded and he took a seat beside her. She hadn’t been expecting that; she’d thought he’d keep his distance. Instead, he was so close, she felt the heat from his body. Had her couch shrunk?
“You know, of course, that when we met, she had no experience with BDSM. She never hid that fact. But she told me she knew about the lifestyle because her best friend lived it. And she convinced me it was what she wanted. Looking back, I should have known something was up.” He closed his eyes as if remembering. “The signs were there, but I was either too blinded by her or too sure of myself to question anything. So, after we went out a few times, I agreed to train her to be my submissive.”
So far, he hadn’t said anything she didn’t know. She remembered having conversations with Winnie around that same time. Mariela had actually been the one to encourage her to talk to Lennox about being trained. It had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but both of them looked so happy together. Had she been wrong in pushing Winnie?
“We were fine for a time. She showed no signs of disliking being my submissive. I’ve searched my mind so often since her death, to see if I missed something. A significant look. Anything. I can’t find anything.”
Her eyes widened as he spoke. It seemed to mesh with what Winnie had written in her journal. Had her friend not been a submissive, or was it Lennox she had a problem with?
“But little by little, the cracks started to form in our relationship. She spent hours in her studio and would stay up late, into the early hours of the morning. I felt her slipping further and further away from me, and I was clueless as to how to get her back.”
Mariela clenched her fists. Why hadn’t Winnie told her anything about this? Winnie was closer than a sister to her. She didn’t think they had any secrets from each other. And yet, to hear Lennox tell it, their problems had started not too long into their relationship. Had Mariela been that blind?
Suddenly, she remembered
bits and pieces from a dream she had in the hospital. Or at least she thought it was a dream. She frowned. Had it really been Winnie?