chapter 19
I believed that she hadn’t intended a death.
I also believed intention did not resurrect the dead.
My voice came out flat. “So Ethan spent ten years avenging a woman who was alive.”
“He found me once,” she said, tears slipping free now. “Three years after. I made him swear not to tell anyone. I told him the truth about the plane. I told him it had all gone wrong. And after that…” Her throat moved. “After that he changed.”
I thought of my dream. She lied to me.
Not about being alive.
About something else.
“What truth?” I asked.
Rose closed her eyes.
“The night at the coast. The hotel. The drugging scandal everyone said was an accident.” Her lashes lifted. “It wasn’t.”
My skin went cold.
“He meant it for you,” she said. “I knew that already. I switched the glasses because I wanted him to ruin himself in front of you. But Gideon walked in instead.” A bitter laugh left her. “I thought I was playing a clever game between powerful men. Afterward, Ethan found out what I’d done. He scared me so badly I said the first thing I could think of.”
“What?”
“That you had told me to do it.”
I stared at her.
The café lights hummed overhead. Somewhere near the counter, a spoon hit ceramic.
Ten years of pain rearranged themselves in one silent, monstrous click.