Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(87)

There was a pause while she hopefully considered the fact that he was being honest, that he’d truly never read the file and never would.

“But at least one of your sisters knows everything in it,” she said.

He closed his eyes. True. And he’d promised not to lie to her. “Yes. But—”

“See, the thing is that secrets don’t work,” she said. “We can’t . . . we can’t do what we were doing with your sister knowing things about me that you don’t.”

“I don’t care about that,” he said.

“But I do,” she said. “Secrets hurt, Caleb. I’m not going to be the reason maybe something happens to your relationship with your family. I told you about the cutting. About how my parents caught onto me when I was fifteen. How they freaked.” She drew a shaky breath. “I told you about me being forced to get help.”

It was the second time she’d used the word forced when she’d talked about that time in her life, and he sat down—again—because he realized she was going to tell him what he was missing, and that he wasn’t going to like it.

“What I didn’t tell you was that I was detained under the 5585 hold,” she said. “It’s a psychiatric hold—”

“For minors,” he said quietly, feeling anything but quiet. A 5585 hold was an involuntary hold for seventy-two hours minimum, and could be done against the minor’s will. For someone who was at risk or in danger from themselves, it was a good thing. But for a teenage girl who hadn’t been suicidal, just mixed up and trying to figure out how to navigate a family who hadn’t understood her, it would have been . . . Jesus. He couldn’t even imagine. Terrifying probably didn’t begin to cover it. “How long did they keep you?” he asked, unable to keep the emotion out of his voice.

“The first seventy-two hours were to evaluate my so-called mental health crisis,” she said. “But because I was”—she let out a mirthless laugh—“stubborn, to say the least, and refused to communicate, I was held for an additional fourteen days before being able to convince my medical professionals that I could be released on my own recognizance and not be a danger to myself.”

Two weeks in a strange place with medical professionals deciding your every move and no say or control over anything. For anyone, it would have been a living nightmare. For a girl like Sadie, who thought and acted outside the box, who’d been misunderstood all her life and felt like she had no one on her side, it would have nearly killed her.

“If I wasn’t certifiable before,” she said, “I was certainly close after.”

Her voice sounded hollow and he felt furious and also devastated for her. And sick that he’d brought it all back to her. “Sadie—”

“I assume that something like that is exactly what your people are supposed to weed out, right?” she asked. “So consider me weeded out, Caleb.”

And then she disconnected.

Christ. He’d done this. Driven a wedge between them, made her feel like she couldn’t trust him. And he had to pay the price for that. He unlocked his office door and opened it. As suspected, Sienne nearly fell inside.

She took one look at his face and closed the door at her back. “What is it?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and drew a deep breath.

“It’s that bad that you’re trying to figure out how to tell me?” Sienne asked.

“No, I’m trying to figure how to kill you and get away with it.”

Sienne made a show of looking at her calendar for the day. “Sorry. I don’t have time to be murdered today. Want to schedule it in for next week?”

“Don’t.”

At his tone, she dropped her playful one and stared at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Mission accomplished.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You did it. You wanted to make sure I was protected, and you did. Because when Sadie found the file you sent me, she dumped my sorry ass.”

“Oh shit.” Sienne moved further into the room and dropped into the chair in front of his desk. “What was she doing in your email?”

“I had my laptop open at my kitchen table.”

“Are you shitting me?” she asked. “We put all these safeguards on you to keep you protected and you do something stupid like leave your laptop open where anyone could get their hands on it? Seriously?”

“It wasn’t just anyone, Sienne. It was Sadie.”

“Okay,” she said. “That was bad, but surely if you explained—”

“—Explain what, exactly? That you ran her life through background checks more regimented than the military, even after I promised her I wouldn’t do that?”

“Well, that was a stupid promise.”

“The file brought up bad memories for her about her past, very bad. As I’m sure you know.”

Sienne’s expression softened. “She told you?”

“She felt she had to. She didn’t want to be a secret between you and me.”

Sienne sighed. “Dammit.” She shook her head. “I like her. I like her a lot.”

“She dumped me.”

“Oh, Caleb. I’m so sorry. Maybe if I called her—”