Undeniably Infatuated (Boston's Irresistible Billionaires Book 3), page 28
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” my mother admits honestly. She places her hand on my arm as pain flashes across her pretty features. “We haven’t said anything. We’ve stayed out of it because ignorance didn’t mean lying, and that meant we were able to tell Forest the truth so far as we knew it. But you look happy, Stone. You look so happy, and I saw it in your eyes last night.”
“Did this all just happen between the two of you?”
I look at my father and shake my head. “No. She was with me on Benthesicyme,” I concede woefully and explain the story to them.
“God, Stone. All this time.” My mother’s fingers press over her lips.
“Is she worth it?” my father asks, and I stare down at the tattoo he has on his forearm just visible beneath his pushed-up sleeves. A stone in the forest. My brother and I are named after my father’s college best friend and my mom’s stepbrother. It’s how my parents knew each other long before they got together. His name was Forest Stone, and he died when my mom was only a teenager. But growing up, my father would always tell us that we were one unit. That brothers look out for and take care of each other.
And I haven’t done that lately. If anything, I’ve done the opposite.
Still, I can’t lie. “Yes, she’s worth it. She’s worth everything. I didn’t steal her, and I tried to stay away. What started as an undeniable infatuation grew into a love neither of us can deny. I’d never want to hurt Forest. I’m just not sure what else to do or what other outcome there will be.”
My mother’s hand squeezes my arm. “Then I suppose you have to follow your heart and hope it all turns out as it should in the end.” She leans in and kisses my cheek. “For what it’s worth, we’re very happy for you. We love Tinsley as you know and have always thought of her as part of our family.”
“Let’s hope she is one day, but for now, if you can, I’d like you to keep that to yourselves. I will have a conversation with Forest when the time is right, but I’m not sure where this all goes. Tinsley and I have a lot to work out. There is a lot of uncertainty. I hate lying and hiding this from him, but right now, I’m not sure what else there is to do.”
By the time we make it back to our building, our stomachs are stuffed, and my head is full. It’s been a wild, whirlwind weekend with far too many revelations and truth bombs. We duck inside, keeping our heads down. Something that has become a ritual, almost automatic now. I suppose being Mr. Tinsley Monroe comes with this. I’ve had press, and I’ve had photos taken of me that end up in various places on the internet, but this is a totally different league.
“Dr. Fritz, Miss Monroe.” The doorman stops us before we can get on the elevator. “I’m so sorry to hold you up, but something was delivered overnight for you, and I wanted to make sure you got it.”
He scurries behind his desk only to return a moment later.
“A man came by and delivered this.” He holds up a red envelope. “He handed it to Isaac, who was on last night. He told him it was for Miss Monroe and asked us to make sure she got it this morning. He seemed pretty sketchy, and Isaac couldn’t see his face because it was completely covered. He asked him to leave immediately.”
Tinsley hisses out a curse and takes a step back toward the elevator, but the moment I reach out to take it, she shoots forward. “No. Don’t touch it.”
I look at her. “It’s too late. There are already several sets of prints on it.” I turn back to him and take the proffered envelope.
“Is everything all right, miss? Was I not supposed to—”
“No, we appreciate you passing this along. You said it was hand-delivered overnight?”
“Yes, sir,” he replies, looking nervous and unsure, especially with Tinsley’s reaction.
“Thank you. Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course, sir. Anything.”
“Can you get me Isaac’s personal cell phone? He’s not in any trouble or anything. I’d just like to ask him a few questions about the person who dropped this off.”
He nods. “Right away. I’ll text it to you.”
“Thank you.” I pull out my wallet and hand him a hundred. “I appreciate you keeping this to yourself.”
He pockets the cash and promises not to say anything, and I guide a shaking Tinsley onto the elevator. The moment the doors close, I wrap one arm protectively around her and start shooting off texts like grenades. We reach our floor, and Mason comes flying out of his door, his hair wet and all over the place, wearing nothing but a fluffy white bathrobe and slippers.
“The fuck you wearing, brother?”
He glances down at himself and then back up at me and shrugs. “I was taking a bath. It helps keep my muscles loose, and I have Monday Night Football tomorrow. You fucking judging?”
I shake my head. “Never. Can you do me a solid and stay with my girl while I go in and inspect my place?”
“No,” he replies instantly. “Don’t fucking move.”
In a half-minute, he’s back, still in his bathrobe and slippers with the biggest butcher knife I’ve ever seen.
Despite herself, Tinsley laughs. “This isn’t Scream.”
“Thank God for that.” Mason shudders. “If anything, I’m the star like Drew Barrymore was, and I’d hate to be disemboweled. Let’s go.”
I snicker, but it falls flat. I have no humor at this moment, but thank God for Mason.
Tinsley is chewing on her lip, staring at Mason’s thriller knife. “All I can say is thank God I’m not blonde. Those bitches always get it.”
“Will both of you stop making me laugh?” I bark. “I want to get in there and make sure everything is okay so we can figure this all out.”
Tinsley’s expression sobers. “Right. Sorry.”
“I’ll go in first,” Mason declares. “You stay out here with Tins, or better yet, go into my place.”
“I don’t think anyone is in my place because the doorman was downstairs and how would they even get up here? It’s precautionary but you’re extra backup.”
“I’m definitely extra,” he agrees. “But I’m also not going in there unarmed, and guns aren’t my thing.”
“You have your phone?” I ask her.
“Yes, but this is ridiculous. They dropped off the damn letter. That was all. Mason, you lead the charge with your slasher knife, but I’m not standing out here in the hallway, and I’m not cowering in Mason’s apartment like a scared little girl.”
I start to argue with her when she gives me a withering glare that would shrink a lesser man’s balls. So naturally, I relent. “Fine. Just stay behind us.”
With that, we walk into my apartment that’s exactly how we left it. Within minutes we’re calling the all-clear right as Vander comes in with his laptop bag on his shoulder. He spots Mason and starts cracking up, doubling over in laughter.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck you too,” Mason gripes. “I’m going to get dressed.”
“Don’t change on my account,” Vander wheezes, holding his side. “We love you just as you are, little rabbit. Can I pet you? Is that robe as soft as it looks?”
Mason flips him off. “I’ll be back in a few, but I’m telling security not to let you into the game tomorrow night,” he warns Vander.
“Uh-huh. And yet somehow, magically, I’ll be back on the list.”
Mason rolls his eyes, and then he’s gone, the door shutting behind him only to immediately reopen with Wren and Loomis.
I have a feeling it’s going to be like that again. A revolving door of people.
“All right,” Vander states, setting up at my dining room table. “Let’s see this letter.”
34
“Iwatch you all day and night. No matter how hard you fight. You thought you could get rid of me. I’ll ruin you, just wait and see.” I finish reading, and for a few long seconds, I can’t do anything other than take in the basic block script letter by letter.
“Not exactly Dickens, but at least the chap rhymes.” Loomis sighs. “I think this calls for some champagne, don’t you?”
I turn my head and narrow my eyes at him. “Champagne?”
“Never let him win, luv. He can send you cut-rate poetry, but he’s not going to steal your fire or your spirit again. Fuck him.”
Hard to argue with that. “Fuck him. Champagne it is.”
“It’s in the wine fridge,” Stone tells him. Take any glasses you want, but the good ones are on the glass shelves in my bar.”
Loomis excuses himself to tend to the champagne, and I take a step back, no longer wanting to see it. This isn’t why I got into music or acting. I’m a bit over the psychos.
Vander is typing away on his laptop thing. I’m not even sure if that’s what it is. It’s weird-looking, but he seems to know what he’s doing.
“I think I need a minute,” I declare.
Stone’s head snaps in my direction, and I place a kiss on his cheek, letting him know that I’m okay, but sometimes a girl just needs a minute.
“Do you want company?” Wren asks, and I shrug.
“Sure. But we’re not talking about Joe Stalker. That’s my rule.”
In the great room, a loud pop sounds, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch Loomis pouring three large flutes.
“Hey.” Stone grabs my hand and pulls me back to him, not caring in the slightest about our audience as his hand meets my waist and his forehead meets mine. “We’ll figure this out, okay? We have cameras and doormen who stopped him, and he never got near our apartment.”
“I know. I’m fine. Sort of. I think I just need to process this a bit.”
His lips press to mine, and he gives me a kiss before he takes my hand and twirls me away as if he’s spinning me on a dance floor.
“Grab the bottle,” I tell Loomis as both Wren and I snag our glasses and head for my old bedroom. I don’t want to take them into Stone’s. That feels too intimate, and right now, I want to lie down.
The three of us plop down on my old bed, glasses in hand. I take a sip but before I can swallow, the door bursts open, and Vander is standing there.
“The poems aren’t online,” he announces.
“What?” I sit up a little straighter.
“You had said that many of the letters were leaked or used as evidence and were public information, but they’re not. The threatening letters he sent you are. Those became evidence, but love letters sent to celebrities of a non-threatening nature are not considered criminal, and they weren’t part of the case against Terrance Howard.”
“Um. Okay. I’m not sure I’m understanding.”
Vander steps into the room, grabs my glass from my hand, and gulps down all of my champagne. Before I can get a protest out, he refills it and hands it back to me. “Whoever wrote you these new letters knew that the fucker wrote you poems and that not all of the letters were threats. You said so yourself. That’s how they started out and then became threatening later.”
“Like this one is,” Wren states. “But this one is still a poem.”
“Yes. This one is threatening as was the last one, and technically, if needed, you could make an argument that the first one was as well, but I looked at the available letters online. None of them are like the ones we received last time or today. The ones online were more desperate as well as angry and violent, and they were not rhyming or poetic in any way.”
“So whoever wrote these saw the first notes?” Loomis surmises.
“Seems that way,” Vander concludes.
I stare up at him, my mind whirling, and my voice a soft, shaky whisper. “Not that many people saw the early letters.”
“I’m going to go through all the video footage I can now, as well as any we have of you coming or going from the building and anything public. If this guy is watching you as he claims to be, we might get lucky and find the asshole. But this was a fuck up, Tinsley. A huge one. The pool of people who knew of these letters written in that format is limited. If you could think of each person and write them down, I can dig into them one by one. We’ll find them. I promise.”
He gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and leaves, shutting the door behind him.
I’m too flabbergasted to speak as I think through all the people who were around me at the time and who saw or knew of the letters. “I need to think. This is all too much. And Stone doesn’t have freaking paper here.” I learned that the hard way.
“I’ll write them down on my phone,” Loomis offers, polishing off his glass of champagne and setting the empty down on the side table so he can pull out his phone.
“I’m sorry.” Wren holds up her hand. “I won’t lie and say he hasn’t been at the top of my list, so I’m going to ask the hard question. The one we’ve all sort of had in the back of our minds but haven’t asked yet.”
I know what Wren’s about to ask. And that alone makes my chest hurt and my body shake, because yes, I’ve thought of it too, and I hate myself for that.
“Could it be Forest?” she continues.
“He’s in LA,” I answer, only my voice isn’t selling it. “No chance he can hand-deliver them.”
“Okay,” Loomis picks up. “And I’m not saying it’s him, but couldn’t he hire someone to do that bit for him?”
I gulp down my freshly refilled glass, set the empty on the bedside Loomis’s, and flop back onto the bed. “Yes,” I answer reluctantly. “It could be him. He was mad about the hickey he saw on my neck and how he thought I was lying to him about you”—I point at Loomis—“and hasn’t been shy about how unhappy he is that we’re no longer together. Last night Stone and I looked like a very happy couple in all those pictures, and I’m positive he saw them. He also knew about all the letters. All of them. He could easily pay someone to hand-deliver them to throw us off his trail.”
My eyes close. I don’t want to think it’s Forest. He was there for me night and day when all of this was happening the first time. I loved him. He was my childhood sweetheart, and some of my best memories are memories that include him.
“There were other people too. Not just him. How do I accuse him? How do I write his name down? He’s Stone’s brother.”
“You don’t think Stone has thought of this?” Loomis says. “My bet is he has.”
My cell phone rings in my pocket, and I slip it out, laughing mirthlessly. “Are his ears burning? Maybe I’ll just ask him and see how he responds.”
“We’ll give you a few minutes.” Loomis climbs off the bed and takes Wren with him.
My finger slides across the screen to answer. “Hey, Forest.”
“Hey,” he responds. “Where did I catch you?” He sounds agitated. Off.
“At Stone’s.”
“Oh. Is he with you?” His voice is sharp, and he’s speaking fast. Almost like he has a point he wants to reach and can’t stand the back and forth.
“No. He’s in the other room. How are you?”
“I saw the pictures from last night, Tinsley. Can we not pretend I didn’t? How do you think I am after seeing that?”
“You sound upset.”
He laughs mirthlessly. “Yes, I’m fucking upset. He’s my brother. You’re living with him, looking happy and cozy on his arm, and wearing his motherfucking ring on your goddamn finger. How am I supposed to respond to that?”
“I got another letter today,” I say instead of addressing any of that.
“You did? Shit, Tins, I’m sorry. What did it say?” His voice instantly goes from infuriated to alarmed.
“I watch you all day and night. No matter how hard you fight. You thought you could get rid of me. I’ll ruin you, just wait and see.”
He’s silent for a minute, and I hear him scream, “Fuck!” and what sounds like something shattering in the background.
“What was that?”
“I threw a glass. Jesus Christ. What the fuck does that mean that he’ll ruin you and that he’s watching you day and night?!”
“I don’t know,” I cry, getting upset. Tears begin to leak from my eyes, coasting down my temples and into my hair. I don’t know if it’s from the letter or his reaction to it. “Exactly what it sounds like, I assume. He’s watching me and he wants to ruin me.”
He blows out a torrent of air into the phone. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to get so upset and make you upset. How can they not find this asshole?” Another breath. “I hate you there. I hate you being in Boston when I’m in LA. I hate that you’re with Stone and not with me. I hate that some psycho is stalking you and making threats. I can’t stand this, Tinsley. Any of it. It’s driving me crazy.”
I can’t ask him. I can’t ask if it’s him. I don’t think he’d react this way if it were. Right? He wouldn’t. This doesn’t seem like an act, but—
The door bursts open. “We’ve got him.” Loomis comes racing over to me and grabs my hand. “Vander’s got him. Get off the phone. We need you.”
“You’ve got him?” Forest barks.
I stare into Loomis’s gray eyes as I say, “I’ll call you back, Forest.”
“Fine. Go. But please call me back.”
He disconnects the call, and I follow after Loomis. “Tell me it’s not Forest.”
Loomis gives my hand a squeeze. “It’s not Forest.”
I hiccup out a sob and my face falls against Loomis’s shoulder as I start to shake.
“Hey, no, none of that.”
“I hate that I thought it was him.”
“My darling, just because he’s not outwardly stalking you with red paper and poetry doesn’t mean he’s not disrupting your life in a very toxic way.”
I nod against him. “I know.” I sniff and wipe my face. I blow out a calming breath and settle myself down. “I need to do something about that.”
“Yes. You and Stone both because this concerns both of you. It’s okay to care about him, but the way he cares about you isn’t right. Your heart is big, and you never want to hurt anyone, and I love you for that, but his reach over you needs to come to an end.”
