Chapter 25
Each word hit with sickening precision.
Memory after memory flooded Nicholas’s mind.
Katherine nodding off while sewing him a winter coat.
Katherine waiting with shining eyes for him to taste a new dish.
Katherine curling weakly into his arms when she was sick and whispering that she felt awful.
Katherine walking away into punishment with the light completely gone from her eyes.
It all crashed together at once.
The habits he thought were ordinary. The concern he thought was duty. The irritation he felt whenever another man got too close to her.
It had always been love.
Love, and blindness.
He had clung to an old obsession from youth and thrown away the woman who had truly loved him—and whom he had long since begun to love in return.
Nicholas bent over, clutching his head, and let out a broken sound that didn’t seem fully human.
“I have to find her,” he said hoarsely. “I have to.”
Adrian watched him for a long moment, then said, “Before that, there’s something else you should know.”
He lowered his voice.
“I’ve heard things about Samantha and her ex-husband. He’s been telling people she cheated on him. That he caught her in bed with someone else.”
Nicholas went still.
“If you really want any chance of finding Katherine,” Adrian said, “you’d better clean up the filth around you first.”
Nicholas moved at once.
He used every connection, every favor, every person he had.
He searched for Katherine.
He investigated Samantha.
The results that came back left him numb.
The more he learned, the colder he felt.