They were halfway through dessert and a few minutes from the introduction of the guest speaker when Kell cleared his throat and the rest of the table fell silent. He lifted his glass of champagne, and Zoe realized everyone at their table now had one.
“I have something to say.” Kell cleared his throat again. Zoe gave him her attention, and he seemed to expand to fill her world. They’d been together two years, and it still overwhelmed her whenever she thought of him as hers. His dark hair was slightly rumpled over his blue eyes, but his tux was impeccable. He gave off an energy that compelled people to look at him, but in a way that never cried arrogance or self-centeredness. The words “I love you” welled in her throat, but he was already speaking.
“I really wanted to do this differently,” he began, his eyes on the bubbling liquid in his glass. “I considered and discarded a dozen different plans. I wanted your family here, Zoe.”
She frowned a little. Why would he want that?
“I wanted to be a little more private, and I apologize to those of you who don’t know us.”
The others at the table smiled Mona Lisa or cat-canary smiles, and Zoe began to feel left out of the joke.
“But my parents are about to embark on a three-week business trip to Europe, and Zoe herself is heading for a conference tomorrow. When she returns, I’ll be embroiled in a merger that will take sixteen hours of every day, and frankly, I can’t wait until all of that is over. I can’t wait another minute.” He turned to Zoe. His mother placed her fingers over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes, and suddenly, Zoe knew. She pressed her own lips together so they wouldn’t tremble.
“For two years, you’ve been my light and my foundation. You’ve shown me what it is to love with my entire being, to not only share all of my life, but to want to share it. You make me see the world differently, and that’s a much better thing than I ever would have imagined possible. No one will ever fit me like you do.”
“Kell,” she breathed as he reached into his pocket with his free hand. When he pulled it out, a beautifully proportioned, clear white diamond ring held between his finger and thumb, his hand shook.
“Zoe Ardmore, will you marry me?”
She almost ran.
For a few seconds, she stopped being Zoe Ardmore and reverted to Zoe Smith, kidnap victim. A terrified, lost, angry girl forever trying to escape her past.
A past Kell knew nothing about.
What had she done? How could she be Kell’s foundation when her own had so many holes? His light, when she was full of darkness? She couldn’t marry him without telling him the truth, and that would forever change the way he saw her. The way he saw them.
Bullshit.
She blinked, shocked at her own voice barking at her inside her head.
You earned this. You made it. It’s real and strong and beautiful, and you don’t have to destroy it with pain and sorrow.
Calm seeped into her, creeping down from head to toe. Calm borne of certainty. She’d had no idea he was thinking about this, had barely even considered it herself, so engrossed was she, always, in the now. But it was right. Nothing had to be ruined.
“Kell, please put down your glass.”
She could hear him swallow as he complied. As soon as the glass touched the lace tablecloth, she launched herself into his arms.
“Yes!” It was a whisper and a scream at the same time. Kell’s arms wrapped around her and he buried his face in her neck, his relief palpable. Zoe was dimly aware of the applause around them. A few nearby tables had caught wind of what was happening and joined in. “I love you,” she whispered, and he murmured it back.
“Here.” Kell leaned away a little. “Before I drop it.” He slipped the ring onto her finger, and of course it fit perfectly. “Man, that was the scariest five minutes of my life,” he muttered.
Regret soured in her mouth. That she’d hesitated, and hurt him even for just a few seconds. If you tell him the truth, it will hurt him forever.
She shoved that aside. The soul-searching would wait. “How could you not know I’d say yes?” She laid her hand on his cheek and tilted his head up so she could see his eyes. “I love you so much.” It filled her chest, swelled her throat, made her eyes burn with the sheer intensity of it.
“That’s not always the point,” he answered, and then his parents and Olivia were crowding them, wanting hugs, and the charity spokesperson was at the podium to introduce the evening’s speaker. Zoe had to content herself with sitting close to Kell and holding his hand while they listened, when a million other things crowded her mind.
He’d wanted her parents to be here, but she was so glad they weren’t. She’d deliberately kept them away over the two years she and Kell had been together. He’d met them, of course, but they lived in Kentucky now, and the distance between them and Zoe was further than those nine hundred miles. As independent as she was of her past, they were driven by it.
They’d promised never to mention it to Kell, eagerly on board with whatever they thought would help her. But the possibility of an offhand reference was another good reason for her to tell him about her abduction.
She watched him watching the speaker, a half smile on his clear, open, guileless face. He always treated her as if she were something to cherish, but never something fragile. He’d mentioned more than once how attracted he’d been to her strength of purpose, her determination and sheer will. Would that change? Would he now be awed at what she’d overcome, put her on a pedestal she’d topple off of repeatedly? Or worse, see her as damaged? Something to be fixed.
Two relationships in college had been enough to cure her of baring her soul. It changed everything, in ways it shouldn’t. And the more she’d tried to convince them to stop thinking about it, the more it seemed to matter. No relationship was so strong it couldn’t be broken. But would this break her and Kell?
You’d have to tell him about Grant, too. This time the voice in her head was her younger self. The eighteen-year-old who’d mapped out the rest of her life and was ready to launch it when she’d made the most difficult choice she’d ever faced. Most difficult until this one.
Her eyes stung. She leaned over and whispered, “I’ll be right back.” Kell nodded and kissed her hand as she grabbed her purse and wove between tables, making her way to the blessedly empty restroom.
She closed herself in a stall and pressed her palms to the cold metal, inhaling deeply to stave off the memories. It was inevitable, she supposed, that nostalgia would encroach. Almost nothing about that night ten years ago was like this one. Grant had proposed to her outside. They’d been wearing cutoff shorts, and the most enduring detail was the smell of fish bait.
Well, not the most enduring detail.
Go away.
She wouldn’t let the past affect this night any more than she’d let it affect any other important event. If it took her over now, even for a moment, how could she stop it from encroaching on everything else? That was not how she wanted her marriage to be.
Her stupid phone buzzed again. Grumbling, she snapped open the clutch and yanked it out, scowling at the screen. The unknown number again. From Ohio. There had been five calls while they’d dined, all from the same number. No voice mail messages had been left.
She swept her thumb over the first listing, deleting it, then each one more fiercely than the last. “Stupid telemarketers,” she muttered before flinging the phone back into her bag and slamming out of the stall. They called and called and it didn’t matter if the number obviously didn’t belong to their target. Jerks. Wasting people’s time and causing unnecessary tension. She hated Ohio.
When she returned to the ballroom, the speaker was making his closing remarks. A small band began playing, and Kell met her halfway to draw her onto the dance floor. She nestled into his arms and sighed. His broad chest was strong under her cheek, and she smoothed her hand down the satin of his lapel. Drakkar Noir—common, maybe, even cliché, but her favorite of his colognes—banished the memory of f
ish and everything else. She closed her eyes and sank into the moment, the now, as she’d become so expert at doing. Her body slowly relaxed as they swayed.
Kell’s voice rumbled through his chest, breaking the spell. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up in surprise. “For what?”
“This didn’t work out like I’d imagined. I timed it wrong. It was rushed, and you were pressured—”
Zoe released his hand to press her fingers over his mouth. “It was perfect.”
Tension lines on his face eased. “You’re just saying that.”
His lips rubbing against her fingers sent a zing to her core. She tried to keep her smile from becoming a grin. “My only regret is that I can’t”—she leaned closer and tilted her mouth toward his ear—“strip you out of that tux and show you just how damned happy you’ve made me.”
Kell chuckled, capturing her hand again and pulling her tight against his body while he whirled her around the floor.
Later, after accepting toast after toast from Kell’s parents and sister, their friends, and various groups of acquaintances who wanted to wish them well, Zoe and Kell went back to their apartment, and she did show him just how happy she was.
She was moments from sleep, wrapped in his arms, everything she ever wanted just inches from her grasp, when the phone in her purse, abandoned on the floor, buzzed. And she had to fight the feeling that she was about to lose it all.
* * *
“Congratulations, Zoe!”
“Thanks, Sherry.” Zoe swung through the half door next to the reception desk and smiled at the admin assistant as she went by. “Sorry I’m late. My flight got delayed.” This was the first day she’d been in the office since Kell proposed. She’d left the next morning for a three-day conference in California and taken the red-eye back, even though Kell was already at work when she got in and she still had to wait until tonight to see him. She smiled at the ring on her hand, its weight unfamiliar yet already reassuring, and headed for the coffee pot behind the reception desk.
“Ms. Ardmore?”
The unfamiliar voice froze Zoe mid-step. Sherry, twenty-two and dressed like it, nervously smoothed her micro-mini and tilted her head at the dark-suited man who’d just risen in the guest area. Zoe didn’t know him, but he was still familiar. Her body seemed to vibrate with denial, and she zeroed in on three vases of flowers on the polished wood counter. She opened her mouth to ask Sherry where they’d come from, but that was a stall tactic. A defense mechanism against the sheer terror that began screaming in her brain as soon as she spotted the FBI agent.
“Yes. I’m Zoe Ardmore,” she added, since half a minute had gone by. “You are?”
“Special Agent Henricksen. May I have a minute of your time, please?”
Absolutely not. “Certainly.” She led Henricksen down the brick-walled hallway and let curses fly through her brain. Everything had been fine while she was on her trip. No more momentary senses of doom or phone calls from unknown numbers in any state, including Ohio. She’d decided not to tell Kell about the abduction. Why mess with things when they were so perfect?
And now this.
Maybe it has nothing to do with you. The FBI could be investigating some other thing. Maybe he wanted her cooperation in gathering information on one of her clients. Or they’d inadvertently been connected to someone running a porn site, though she worked very hard to make sure that didn’t happen. There were dozens of reasons the FBI could have sent an agent to her office.
But Zoe had learned a long time ago about the futility of denial. She was an expert at facing reality, and it was about to hit her in the face. Hard, since that was the only way reality hit.
“This is a cool office,” Henricksen complimented as they passed through the main area.
“Thank you.” Instead of cubicles, she’d let her design staff separate their work areas in any way they wanted. The converted warehouse, with its polished hardwood floors and high ceilings, echoed wildly when too many people were talking. Throw rugs, curtains hanging from rods suspended from the ceiling a story above, and thick screens divided the spaces. She’d had acoustic panels hung, which helped muffle the noise, and the art on the walls had all been created by her staff.
When she launched her web design and hosting company several years ago, it had been a typical home-based enterprise. She’d built it at a steady pace from herself and one freelance designer to a million-dollar company with fourteen employees. They created websites and e-commerce portals for businesses all over the world. The thought that whatever had brought Agent Henricksen here could jeopardize what she’d built made her want to throw her body over the whole thing and protect it with her life.
She unlocked her office door, a tall panel of maple set between glass walls, and ushered the agent inside. He stood patiently in front of her desk while she stowed her briefcase and jacket. She almost offered him coffee, but that was another delaying tactic. When she motioned for him to sit, he waited until she’d done so before sinking tensely into the well-padded guest chair in front of her desk.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware of the reason for my visit,” Henricksen started.
“How would I be?” she asked.
“A notice would have been sent to you.”
Her gaze landed on the three-day pile of mail on the corner of her desk. It wasn’t large, as Sherry would have sorted out the junk. Sure enough, when Zoe flipped through it, she found a thin envelope with an official-looking seal in the corner. She fingered the edge but didn’t move to open it.
“I guess you should start at the beginning,” she told the agent. Her heartbeat slowed, her breath taking longer to drag in and push out.
“Of course,” he said graciously.
His voice sounded deeper, stretched. She knew what was coming. Not the details, but the essence. And she really, really didn’t want to hear it.
“Patron Rhomney and Fredricka Thomashunis have been granted parole.”
Everything rushed back toward her, a rage of noise and color and light. Heels tapped on the floor as they passed her door. One of the designers laughed. A phone rang. The red snapdragons and orange lilies in the flower arrangement on her desk tore at her eyes. And her voice, when she managed to work it up through the despair closing her throat, sounded weak and groggy.
“Would you close the door, please? And the blinds,” she added. No one was looking through the windows, but she couldn’t take the movement out there. Nor did she want to have to explain to anyone later what had happened. She was sure her devastation showed on her face.
“Ms. Ardmore?” Henricksen returned to the desk and hovered uncertainly. “Are you all right?”
“Give me a moment.” She managed a deep inhale, and the bombardment receded somewhat. “I’m sorry. I should have been expecting it.”
“It’s understandable.” He waited while she breathed a few more times, trying to keep memory and emotion at bay. Finally, he must have deemed her composed enough, because he went on.
“Mr. Rhomney and Ms. Thomashunis underwent their sixth parole hearings last month. The parole board found no reason to deny either one. Rhomney has obtained employment in Delaware County, north of Columbus, Ohio, while Thomashunis is in a halfway house in Marion.”
Zoe nodded. She unfortunately knew that area well, despite having moved away so many years ago.
“They are far away from Boston,” he assured her, “and the terms of their parole require them to remain in Ohio and check in with their respective parole officers once a week, in person.”
“Yet here you are, notifying me of what is no doubt already in this letter.” Zoe held the envelope a few inches off the desk and dropped it. But she couldn’t look away from it. Henricksen remained still and silent while she fought a rush of rage and despair, forced herself to remain in the present, that off-white rectangle a bizarre center point holding her in place.
She wasn’t as divorced from her past as she’d believed. It wasn’t going to stay
where it belonged.
And she’d been getting phone calls from Ohio.
She straightened and looked at Henricksen. “So why are you here? What’s happened? The FBI doesn’t do courtesy calls and hand-holding.”
“No. Nothing has happened that anyone is concerned about.” For the first time, he shifted in his chair and looked uncomfortable. “I was a junior agent at the time of your abduction. You haven’t left my mind since.”
She noticed that he referred to her, not her case. That warmed her, but she didn’t understand. “The bad guys were caught. I was fine. It’s not like the unsolved case that haunts a career. So why…”
“You were brave and fierce, and your escape gave me hope that I could actually make a difference in this job. But that’s rare. Most cases do the opposite.” He cleared his throat and tugged his suit jacket forward. “I’ve kept tabs on Rhomney and Thomashunis and knew you’d be getting a notification letter.” He eyed the envelope. “It’s a pretty cold way to learn something like this.”
Zoe didn’t tell him that might be a good thing. Acting like something was a big deal sometimes made it one. “Is there reason to believe I’m in any danger?” She was pleased with the steadiness of her voice, but swiveled her engagement ring into her palm and clenched her fist around it. A reminder that she was an adult, not a powerless child.
Henricksen didn’t sigh, but he might as well have. “Not officially, no. Reports indicate your abductors had no apparent contact during their incarceration, and those who followed them but escaped prosecution have dispersed.”
Zoe felt her mouth twist and consciously relaxed it. It wasn’t Henricksen’s fault that prosecutors had let so many of Pat and Freddie’s people go for lack of evidence. Most of them hadn’t done anything bad to Zoe. Some had even been kind. But they knew she didn’t belong there, and they did nothing.
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