No in Between (Inside Out #4)(30)

I pull my knees to my bare chest. “Not all of them. She wrote a lot about her nightmares and her death.”

“Wait. She wrote about her death? Why haven’t I heard about this before now?”

“They were just nightmares. It didn’t feel important.”

“They were a by-product of her life, so my question is what brought them on? Was she afraid of someone?”

“No. They weren’t about a person. She was always drowning in the Bay. They were more about control, I think. About her feeling like something in her life was spiraling out of control and she couldn’t stop it.”

“Was there anyone else in the nightmares?”

“Her dead mother.”

He tilts his head, giving me a keen inspection. “Let me get this straight. Rebecca had control issues, an absent father, a love for art, and was messed up over her mother.”

There is a tight knot in my chest, rapidly getting tighter. “And she loved a man she feared she could never truly have. Yes. We were alike. That’s why I connected to her writing.”

“Sara, where did that come from?”

“I’m sorry. It’s not about now. It’s about the past, when I was reading her journals, and you left me. I understood her and I didn’t even know her.”

“I see my instincts to lock those damn journals away were right.”

“At the time I locked them away, it was,” I grudgingly admit. “But her words were also what gave me the courage to seek out a dream that led us to each other. She changed my life, Chris, and she haunts me beyond those journals. I can’t explain it, but I feel like I was always supposed to find her justice.” I look upward a moment and shake my head. “I sound like a crazy person.”

“No.” He wraps his arm around my calves, just below mine. “You sound like someone who cares, and there are too few people who do.”

“Like you do,” I say. “You help people, Chris, and I love that about you. You’re helping Mark even though he doesn’t deserve it from you.”

“I’ve found that in life, the times we need help are often the times we deserve it the least.”

“Sometimes people like Rebecca deserve it and they never have it.”

His phone beeps on the nightstand and he releases me to reach for it. “That reminds me,” I say. “Did David ever call?”

“This is from him,” he says, indicating his phone, and reading: “Client emergency last night and this morning. Tied up all morning. Update you later. Just don’t say anything I wouldn’t say today, and you’ll be fine.”

I laugh. “Seriously? Don’t say anything he wouldn’t say? No one says the things that man says. Sugar.”

Chris grins. “The next time we go to dinner with him, I’m ordering a pitcher of beer.”

Smiling, I shake my head. “I so would enjoy that.” It hits me that I forgot something else last night. “You never told me what happened when you met with Mark.”

“Not much. He’s a cracked brick wall, trying to pretend he’s steel. And his normal outlet for maintaining that fa?ade is gone. Tiger made him sign the club over.”

“To who?”

“His head of security.”

“I’m shocked. That’s a major part of who he is.”

“It might be the best thing that ever happened to him. It’s going to force him to deal with life, not hide from it.”

“I’m not sure if I agree or disagree. Mark’s hard to understand.”

“And to help.”

“Did he decline my offer to help at the gallery?”

“No, he’s not a fool. He wants to be close to his mother right now, and that means Allure isn’t a priority.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“You’re right—and his mother deserves her son next to her when she fights this monster. We’ll help that happen.” He glances at his cell phone. “It’s eight now. Mark agreed to hire security, and Jacob is meeting us at the gallery at nine.”

“Jacob? What about his job here?”

“Blake worked a deal with the building management to have Jacob at the gallery today. Walker Security’s working on a plan to carry the gallery through the trial.” He motions to the bathroom. “Care to save water with me?”

“Not if you want to be there on time.”

He leans in and kisses my neck. “Good point, because I could definitely make you my breakfast and forgo the shower.” He throws off the blanket and starts walking toward the bathroom, gloriously, wonderfully naked. My God, the man has a great ass. I drop back on the bed and sigh blissfully as his scent whispers all around me. Things might be bad but they are really darn good, too.

Rolling onto my stomach, I grab the remote from the nightstand and turn on the news, then reach into my drawer and pull out my new journal. Sitting up and resting against the headboard, I stare at the image of the Eiffel Tower on the cover, not overly eager to open it. After the meeting with the police, and seeing how Rebecca’s words have become such public fodder, I’m not so sure I want mine documented. Still, I open to a blank page and remove the pen clipped inside, and find myself re-creating the very first entry in Rebecca’s journal that I’d ever read.