Chapter 1 - THE REASON HE WAS WATCHING ME
The first warning came disguised as concern.
The second came with a gunshot.
I was walking back from the greenhouse just after four in the afternoon when one of Ethan’s guards suddenly stepped in front of me.
“Inside, Mrs. Carter.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Now.”
Before I could argue, a crack split the air.
Glass shattered somewhere behind me.
The guard grabbed my arm and shoved me behind a stone wall as two more men rushed toward the garden.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“What was that?”
Nobody answered.
Another shot.
Then silence.
I crouched behind the wall, gripping the fabric of my dress with both hands.
I had grown up around dangerous men.
I knew what gunfire sounded like.
I also knew when it was meant as a warning.
Three minutes later, Brian appeared.
His usually calm face had changed.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He looked me over anyway.
Then Ethan came through the garden doors.
He moved faster than I had ever seen him move.
His jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled up, and his expression was so cold that every guard around him immediately stopped talking.
He looked at me.
“Jane.”
One word.
But the fear beneath it stunned me.
“I’m fine.”
He reached me and put both hands against my face.
Not gently.
Not roughly.
As if he needed proof that I was standing there.
“You’re bleeding.”
I touched my cheek.
A tiny shard of glass had cut me.
“It’s nothing.”
His jaw clenched.
He turned toward Brian.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“Find out.”
Then he looked toward the shattered greenhouse window.
The bullet had gone through the glass exactly where my head had been seconds earlier.
I realized the truth before anyone said it.
That shot had not been aimed near me.
It had been aimed at me.
Ethan ordered the entire estate locked down.
No staff left.
No cars moved.
Every camera feed was pulled.
For the first time in three months, he personally walked me back to my room.
At the door, I stopped.
“Why would someone shoot at me?”
He said nothing.
“Ethan.”
His eyes met mine.
Something passed through them.
Guilt.
Not surprise.
Guilt.
“You knew this could happen.”
He looked away.
That was all the answer I needed.
“What did you discover?”
He hesitated.
Then said quietly:
“Your father may have lied to both of us.”
And before I could ask what that meant, Brian came running down the hall holding a photograph.
May you like
It showed me leaving a charity luncheon two days earlier.
Someone had drawn a red circle around my face.
