Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(2)

Her fingers tapped against the bed.

She concentrated on the noise of the fan blowing cool air around the room. White noise.

Sleep.

If only she had something to wake early for.

Knowing that she had nothing to occupy her time the following day, or week . . . or even year, kept her from being able to rest.

Nothing.

It was nearly four in the afternoon on the West Coast of the United States, dinnertime in Texas, where Trina and Wade resided with their infant daughter, Lilliana.

Sasha opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

The quiet was killing her.

She reached for her cell phone, charging on the nightstand, and dialed Reed.

“What did I do to deserve a call from you today?”

Reed never answered a call from her with hello.

Sasha tried not to smile. “Nothing, I’m certain.”

“Yet here you are. Where are you?”

He always asked.

She never told.

“Nowhere close. Are you a father yet?” Reed’s wife, Lori, was expecting twins sometime in the next month, and with his world preoccupied, perhaps the security firm he worked with could use an extra hand. She wouldn’t ask if Reed needed help, she never did. She simply checked in with him on occasion, and he would volunteer a need if there were one. On rare occasions, he would search her out. She could count on three fingers the times that had happened.

“Not yet. I’m not afraid to say that just the thought of the next year scares the crap out of me.”

Now Sasha did smile. Reed didn’t scare easy, and he most certainly didn’t admit to it. “Sounds like you have everything under control.”

Reed paused. “How are you? You don’t sound like yourself.”

She dropped her smile, lifted her chin. “I’m making sure you haven’t screwed something up since I saw you last.”

“And when was that?” he asked. “I never can tell if you’re watching me from behind a pair of binoculars.”

“Binoculars . . . how very adolescent.” Obviously, everything was fine.

No need for her.

“You know how to contact me,” she said and pulled the phone away from her ear to disconnect the call.

“Wait!”

A spark of hope flared in her chest.

“Yes?”

“We want you to come after the babies are born. Visit. Trina and Wade will be here with Lilly. The holidays are just around the corner.”

Sasha didn’t do social visits. “Perhaps, if I’m available.” She’d be available, but she wouldn’t go.

Reed’s voice told her he knew she wouldn’t. “The invitation is always open.”

Sasha hung up without saying goodbye.

She walked to the window of her room, uncaring if anyone could see her nudity through the glass.

Things needed to change.

Memories of her younger years surfaced. She was only a short distance away from where she spent all of her formative years. A place that had molded her into the restless woman she had become. Perhaps some time there would help her find focus.

Germany . . .

With her mind made up, she lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

The invitation is always open.



On the outside, Richter appeared like any other boarding school dotting the landscapes of Europe. The name alone should have shed light on the kind of education one would expect inside the fortress-thick walls of the main buildings and twelve-foot-tall fence that surrounded the fifty-acre grounds. But instead of the German word for judge making people scratch their heads and ask questions, most believed that a judge had at one time sent their child to the school and offered a large donation for the right to the name.

Richter only took in troubled kids.

Troubled rich kids.

At least that’s what the brochure implied.

Sasha drove her motorcycle up to the locked and guarded gates of Richter and stopped when the stern-faced uniformed “greeter” stepped out of his box.

She lifted the visor of her helmet and met his unsmiling eyes. “Headmistress Lodovica.”

“And you are?”

“Sasha Budanov.”

Placing her visor back over her eyes, she turned toward the gates, expecting them to open. When they did, she gunned her bike and sped through the familiar tree-lined drive to the main entrance of the school.

A splattering of children followed her path with turns of their heads, but they never stopped moving to stare.

Always in motion.

One of the many things Richter had taught her.

She left her helmet dangling off the handlebars and swung one long, leather-clad leg off the back. Her neck stretched as she looked up at the five stories of the main hall. It hadn’t changed. Even the shrubs surrounding the stone building didn’t appear to have grown.

Some people had told her that when they returned to their childhood homes after extended periods away, the houses looked smaller.

So why was it that Richter looked just as imposing now as it did then?

Cutting off her thoughts, Sasha climbed the vast steps to the ten-foot ornately carved wooden doors.

They opened before she could grasp the handle.

Her lips lifted into a rare grin. “Charlie. I can’t believe you’re still here.” Her heart swelled with warm memories of the man standing in front of her.