Chapter 3
Through the door I could hear a manager telling him to stop, that security would be called. Miles shouted over the man.
I had just watched him go from shouting to violence in one night. I wasn't going to open my room so he could prove I was alone.
"My girlfriend's in there with another man!" he bellowed. "Nora! Open the door. Is Adrian hiding in your room?"
I stayed where I was and called the police.
When they arrived, I opened the door and stood behind an officer.
"He keeps coming after me," I said. "I don't want him here."
Miles shoved past the officer and stormed inside. "Adrian! Come out!"
He pulled open the bathroom door. He checked behind the curtains. No one else was there.
Instead of apologizing, he seized my collar and demanded to know where I'd hidden Adrian.
The closet stood open. My bag lay by the bed; an empty coffee cup sat on the table. He looked at all of it and still searched my face for a confession.
The officers pulled him off me. Pain pulsed through my head. I sank down, trying to steady myself, and lost consciousness.
When I woke, my father was standing over Miles with his hand still raised.
"You put my daughter back in the hospital. What else do you plan to do to her?"
"Mr. Bell, I—"
"Dad," I called from under the covers. "Please make him leave. I want Adrian."
"She's confused," Miles said. "She's been confused since the accident."
"She's not confused," my father said. "She's afraid of you. Those aren't the same thing."
"Dad—"
"You want me to believe you love her? Then tell me why my daughter, who can't swim, was in the water at her own birthday party."
Miles didn't answer.
My mother took his arm and walked him toward the door. "You should go. Now."
"I only pushed her." His voice carried. "She's fine. Everyone can see she's fine."
My mother didn't stop walking him out.
At the door, his phone lit up in his hand.
I saw it from the bed — Lila's name on the screen.
His face changed before he'd finished reading it. He looked gentler than he had looked at me all night.
"Tell Nora she can call me when she's calmer," he said to my mother, as if I couldn't hear him.
Then he was gone.
I sank into the pillows. For the first time that day, the room was quiet.
There was no triumph in it. I was only putting my parents through this again.
My head still hurt, and I couldn't stop hearing him at my door. All I wanted was a few hours in which I didn't have to listen for him.
Later, something cool touched my cheek.
I opened my eyes ready to push Miles away, and found Adrian standing beside the bed.
"You came," I said, sitting up. "I thought you might be angry with me about last night."
He steadied me with a hand at my shoulder.
My parents came in a moment later and stopped short.
Adrian came from old money and held a senior post at the Vale Group. In three years he had taken control of the Hart Group. The company still ran on my father's investment, but even Graham Hart had to make an appointment to see him.
My father greeted him with careful respect.
"I was here to visit someone else," Adrian offered. "I saw that Nora had been admitted."
He had brought roses and food, still warm in stacked cartons.
When my mother asked about them, he said we'd gone to college together. He sounded less certain than he did in a boardroom.
"Classmates?" I said, flat. "You're my boyfriend."
Before he could object, I put my arms around his neck, kissed his cheek, and took a picture of us.
"I'm posting this," I told him. "Otherwise you might disappear on me."
Adrian stared at my phone. I opened the cartons.
Inside was the food I had loved in college, before Miles, before any of it: chowder, crab cakes, and a lemon tart from the bakery near campus.
I paused over it, then reached for my spoon.
I had never told him what I liked. I wanted to ask how he knew.
My parents were watching me eat for the first time in days, so I let it go.
My mother thanked him and drew him toward the door. I heard her voice drop and his answer come back without hesitation.
"It's all right," he told her. Then he took a call from the office soon after and left.
By the next morning, the photograph was everywhere in Boston.
Someone told me Miles had seen it before he ever left his hotel room. He'd thrown his phone at the wall. I hoped it broke.
I was outside with my parents when Miles arrived. Adrian had come by as well.
A lipstick mark showed on Miles's collar as he marched up to us. He caught Adrian by the lapels.
"You know she's my girlfriend. What are you doing here?"
He smelled of another woman's perfume. His hand was still on Adrian's collar when he demanded to know why I had kissed anyone else.
I pushed his hands away. "Don't touch him."
Miles looked from me to Adrian.
I had once thrown myself between Miles and a blow meant for him. Now I stood between the two of them, shielding someone else.
"Nora," he said, "I'm the one you're supposed to be with."
"Mr. Hart, leave us alone."
"I'm your boyfriend. We're getting married."
I looked at him. "I love Adrian. I want to be with him, not you."
