Why?
I was tugging on a pair of sweatpants over my worn leggings in order to stay warm in the twenty-degree weather when a soft knock rattled my door.
I paused, sweatpants sitting at my hips, and debated. Three people knew where I lived. Hell, I barely knew more than three people and considering Angie wouldn’t show up announced, that left Hudson or Samaya.
Why?
Perhaps the time had come for me to get my answers. My balloon burst when I peeked through the peephole. Instead of a tall and muscled and handsome, scowling man I couldn’t stop thinking of, stood a pretty little, slightly crazy brunette who gave no shits about what anyone thought of her, and had treated me like a friend from the moment we met.
I unlocked the security chain and undid the deadbolt.
Jenna, dressed like she came straight from work at her law firm in a black suit and bright red silky shirt beneath, tapped her matching red heels to the floor.
“Hey. How are you?”
My brows climbed my forehead and I leaned against the doorframe. “You came all the way here to ask me that?”
“Sue me for caring.” She shrugged and tipped her head to the side. “They don’t know I’m here, talking to you. Well, that’s not true.” She held up an envelope. “I was supposed to drop this off, but they don’t know I came to talk to you… can we? Talk?”
In a way, it didn’t surprise me she was here. She wasn’t yet a Valentine. She hadn’t crafted a lie that took months to set in motion. She, for all purposes, was harmless and less threatening even if she’d gone along with it. She had to have known, though. Jenna and Brandon might not be married yet, but she was a part of their family. She would have known when photos started going missing when I showed up. Perhaps she knew my name.
And yet from that first day—she’d acted like someone I could have been friends with the moment she pulled me into a hug and was bickering with her fiancé, Brandon, over the correct garlic salt amounts.
“Did you know?” I asked, already stepping back and holding open the door for her to enter.
“Not as much as Brandon, which was still much less than David or Hudson. He mentioned your name once, before Melissa passed, and then I didn’t give it thought until Hudson and David said you were coming for dinner when I asked where her pictures were.”
The pictures. The secrets. I knew they’d hidden them.
She scanned my apartment, a soft grin lifting her lips. “This is really nice.”
“You can let Hudson know. It’s his building. But you already knew that, too, I assume?” I flinched from the rudeness in my voice. It couldn’t be helped. I needed to lash out at someone and she was in front of me.
Before I could summon an apology, she shrugged and gave another scan of my place. “I’ve never been inside, though. And it’s still nice. Suits you, with all the hard, brick walls.”
Anger spiked and climbed up my spine. “Do I not have a reason for them?”
She sighed then, like she had to expel the weight of the world in a breath. “I’m not saying you don’t. I’m just saying you have them, but really, I didn’t come to argue. I am sorry for going along with everything. Truly. And I really do like you.”
Her eyes looked like they belonged on a sad puppy. And while I appreciated what I hoped was honesty, it was hard to swallow. On the other hand, she wasn’t family. It wasn’t her job to tell me what was going on.
Exhausted from all my mental jumps and questioning, I headed toward the kitchen.
“Would you like something to drink? I don’t have much, some Coke or water, really.”
“No thanks. I won’t stay long.” She clasped her hands together and kicked off her heels before walking to the window where the lights of the city danced and shone as far as the eye could see. “Brandon and I have been together since our freshman year of college. Did you know that?”
I shook my head, curious where there this was going.
“I was with him two years before he told me how he was raised, and even now, I know I don’t everything.”
If she was trying to make a connection between being lied to and someone taking their time opening up, I wasn’t taking the bait.
“This situation is vastly different, and I know about his mom. Or at least how he came to the Valentines. Hudson told me.”
“To protect Brandon so he doesn’t have to explain.” She said it with a bite to her tone that made my hackles rise.
My lips twisted. I didn’t need the reminder of how saintly he was. Not from her. Not now.
“Listen—”
“I know.” She lifted her hands in apology and dropped them. “That wasn’t right to say, and I wasn’t trying to compare. I was just… I think, in a way, I understand why you’re guarded and don’t trust easily. And I know how all of this has shaken that already.” That time, she nailed it.
Hudson knew I didn’t trust. He knew why. I’d told him not to take advantage of my trust and he kept doing it.
Jenna sighed heavily. “I know that for Brandon, sometimes, he gets this far-off look in his eyes and he goes silent, like he’s in a different world. Usually, it happens when we’ve been around kids, out in public or wherever, but it hits him, how bad he had it, I think, and then how much changed for him. Sometimes, I think there is so much darkness, at least in him, it comes out in pieces and I sit around, waiting for crumbs. It’s not easy, I know. I mean, hell, we’ve been together for almost ten years and are just now getting married. Trust me, a man that damaged doesn’t commit or trust easily, I can guarantee that, and I see that in you. Without judgment,” she quickly added.
I stayed silent. I also tried to stay pissed but Jenna was making it hard to stay mad at her.
She stepped from the window and came to me, fluffing her hair in a nervous gesture so unlike her confident self my heart skipped a beat.
“Melissa made Hudson promise to help you. She said it was her dying wish. He refused, and I think stubbornly, he believed if he didn’t promise her, she’d live. Instead, he feels that guilt of denying his sister the only thing she asked for.”
I closed my eyes as the force of that rippled over me and I shivered. She’d asked for me. A lovely woman on her deathbed had pled for me. I couldn’t look Jenna in the eye after that and she gave me a moment to gather myself.
Melissa had begged them to help me. Did that make me feel better or worse than if I was some random girl David ran into at Judith’s?
But that was laughable. Because they knew. I didn’t doubt it now that somehow, David knew exactly where to find me when he wanted to.
My jaw tightened to stave off any more tears. I’d cried enough in the last twenty-four hours to fill a stadium. “It’s not so easy as that.”
Her look, full of compassion but not pity, softened. She held up a small white envelope, the kind invitations or thank you notes came in. “I know. Which is why I told David I’d stop by and slide this under your door. I wasn’t supposed to talk to you, but well, I don’t listen that well.” She shrugged, that same what are you going to do shrug she gave the first time I met her when she didn’t care one iota she was terrifying and overwhelming me. She flipped the envelope to the table. “Anyway. Here. Read it, or don’t. Meet him or don’t. Your call, but know I miss you. I really did enjoy getting to know you.”