“Do me a favor and watch Abigail.” Monica approached Eva while Henry watched them both. “She’s in the living room. It’s been a long day – we just got home from the FBI office.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eva apologized. “I didn’t mean to… he just got it out of me…”
“Please. Abigail.”
It was Eva’s out as much as it was Monica’s chance to be alone with Henry. And Eva took this chance since she was red in the face with embarrassment and likely to make matters worse if she didn’t extract herself from the situation immediately.
“I’ll go get Abby,” Eva said while swallowing some air. “Good luck.”
Monica waited for the sound of the door shutting. She didn’t have much time to collect her thoughts before Henry demanded an explanation.
“How much did she tell you?”
Henry suddenly looked ten years older than he was.When the gray hair comes in, that’s it for us.Monica barely knew how toface a future where her daughter was grown and independent. Yet here was her husband, showing his emotional vitality to her.
“You went there,” he said, evenly. “To his house.”
Monica said the first thing to come to mind. “My old home. I lived there for ten years.”
“A happy homecoming, for sure.”
What a strange way to think of it now.Although it would never be home again, there was a time when Jackson’s mansion in the woods was as comfortable to Monica as Warren Manor in the city was now. “Did she tell you that we went to him because he is personal friends with Jean-Pierre Beaumont?”
“When wereyougoing to tell me that you went tohishouse!”
Monica was nearly bowled over by Henry’s tone.He’s never yelled at me like this before…Rarely did Henry raise his voice at all. For him to reveal this side of himself…
He must have been scared. Terrified.
Henry leaned his hands against his desk. “The thought of you there with him…”
“Eva went with me.”
“I know! How do you think I found out!”
“Howdidyou find out? Something about him calling Eva? Harassing her?”
“Does that sound like something he would do?”
Monica swallowed. “Unfortunately. Especially after…” She stopped.
“What? Especially afterwhat?”
So, Eva hadn’t told him everything. This was Monica’s chance to spare her sister-in-law some humility and redirect Henry’s attention.Lie to him.Lie by omission. Protect whatever they all still had between them after the kind of family-splitting incident befell them.
But lying to Henry would only lead to more misery. At some point, more of the truth would come out. If Monica were to spareherself in the future, she had to come clean now. Henry might be angry, but he would understand. It was for their daughter.
Right?
She recounted the night Henry flew off to France and both she and Eva realized that the answer lay with Jackson Lyle, the last person either of them wanted to see. They went alone, so none of the staff were complicit to their knowledge. Monica met Paisley, Jackson’s latest primary pet. He made calls on their behalf. But if they wanted the information…
Maybe Monica should have left it at that. Their great mistake was looking Jackson in the eye and reminding him that the Warrens existed after all this time.
Yet she saw that look on Henry’s face. He might know what happened, but his sister…
No.Monica would leave that part out. For Eva’s sake, and Henry’s sanity.
“I offered myself to him,” Monica said as Henry rounded the desk, his nostrils flared and his entire demeanor accusing the universe of acting against them. “It was the last chip I had to barter with, and he knew it. The only reason it didn’t happen is because Paisley interfered. She wanted me gone, so she gave me the information she overheard during Jackson’s phone call to Jean-Pierre.” When Henry was still silent, Monica continued. “I remember what it was like to be in her position. I took the opportunity and left with Eva immediately. All I thought about after that was getting to Thailand.”
