<b>Chapter </b><b>168 </b>
-HUNTER-
I was positioned at a corner table in a coffee shop across the street, my Yankees cap pulled low and dressed in the most generic clothes owned–dark jeans, a in gray t–shirt, and sneakers that had seen better days.
Vincent would haveughed himself sick seeing me try to blend in like some amateur spy.
But nothing was funny about the way Celine looked as she came out of the café,
Pale. <fn6134> Latest content published on find?novel</fn6134>
That was my first thought.
She walked carefully, as if she had been hurt. Her steps were slow, and it seemed like she wasn’t sure if the ground would support her.
I was out of my chair and across the street before I’d consciously decided to move.
“Celine.” I caught her arm gently, and she startled like I’d shouted her name. “What’s wrong?”
She looked up at me, and for a moment, her eyes werepletely nk. Like she was looking through me instead of at me.
“I…” She blinked, and some awareness returned to her expression. “I just want to go home.”
Every instinct I had was screaming at me to march into that café and demand answers from Margaret Torres. The woman had done something……said something….that had left Celine looking like a ghost of herself.
“What did she tell you?” I started to turn toward the café entrance. “I’m going to…..”
“No.” Her hand shot out, gripping my arm with surprising strength. “Please, Hunter. Just… please take me home.”
The desperation in her voice stopped me cold. Whatever had happened in there, pushing for answers right now would only make it worse.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Okay, we’ll go home.”
The drive back to <i>the </i>penthouse was torture.
Celine sat pressed against the passenger door, staring out the window like she was memorizing every building we passed. Her hands were
folded tightly in herp, and I could see the white bandage on her palm from this morning’s ident.
This morning felt like a lifetime ago.
I wanted to fill the silence, to say something that would bring her back to me, but every time I opened my mouth, the words died in my
throat.
She looked so fragile, like the wrong word might shatter herpletely.
“Hunter?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Can you stop at Romano’s Pastry? The one on Fifth?”
i nced at her, surprised. It wasn’t what I’d expected her to say. “Of course”
Romano’s was a small, family owned shop with disy cases full of cannoli, tiramisu, and garnished cakes that belonged in art museums.
The smell of vani and espresso should have beenforting, but watching Celine move through the space like a sleepwalker made my chest tight with worry.
She drifted from case to case, her movements too careful, too controlled. Everything about her bodynguage screamed that she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.
“These look good,” she said, pointing to a tray of chocte–dipped strawberries. Her <i>voice </i>was bright, almost cheerful, but it didn’t reach <b>her </b>
eyes.
The youngdy behind the counter smiled warmly. “Those are fresh this morning. Very popr.<b>” </b>
“I will take six, please.” Celine looked at me, and for a moment, I saw her true feelings. There was something desperate and broken in <b>her </b>
eyes before she quickly looked away.
“Hunter, do you want anything?”
I wanted to know what Margaret Torres had said to put that look in her eyes. I wanted to turn around and go back to that café and get answers, even if I had to shake them out of the woman.
Instead, I smiled and moved to stand beside Celine. “What would you rmend?”
She turned to the sales girl,unching into a lively discussion about the values of cannoli versus sfogliatelle, but I could see the tremor in her
hands as she gestured.
Whatever was happening inside her head, she was working overtime to keep it hidden.
I pulled out my phone while she was distracted, typing a quick message to Derek: ‘Need you to find out what Margaret Torres discussed with Celine today. Pay her if you have to. I need to know what she said.‘
“Hunter?” Celine was looking at me expectantly, a white pastry box in her hands.
“Sorry, just checking messages.” I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
“Ready to go?”
Back at the penthouse, Celine kicked off her shoes and padded into the living room like nothing had happened.
Like she hadn’t just had a meeting that left her looking like someone had told her the world was ending.
“Caesar’s out with ra until dinner,” she said, settling onto the couch with the pastry box. “And Caroline’s engagement party is tomorrow.” She looked up at me with that same too–bright smile.
“How about we watch a movie? Something mindless and fun.”
I stared at her.
She was suggesting a movie night. After whatever bomb Margaret Torres had just dropped on her, she wanted to watch Netflix and eat pastries.
“Celine…..”
“I found this romanticedy that looked cute,” she continued, already reaching for the remote. “Or we could watch an action movie if you
prefer. I’m not picky.”
The forced cheerfulness in her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. This wasn’t my Celine this was someone wearing her face and trying too hard to convince me everything was normal.
But pushing wouldn’t help. Not yet.
“Comedy sounds perfect,” I said, settling beside her on the couch.
For two hours, I watched Celineugh at all the wrong moments and miss every actual funny scene.
She sat stiff beside me, her attention focused on the screen with an intensity that suggested she was memorizing every frame.
She opened the pastry box and methodically ate a cannoli without seeming to taste it.
When I reached for one of the chocte strawberries, she immediately offered to get me something to drink, jumping up like she was grateful
for any excuse to move.
Every instinct I had was screaming that something was desperately wrong, but she deflected every gentle attempt I made to talk about it.
“This actor is so funny,” she said during a particrly unfunny scene, herugh just a little too loud. “Don’t you think he’s funny?”
“Hrious,” I agreed, watching her instead of the screen.
When the credits rolled, she immediately suggested another movie. Then another. Like if she kept moving, kept talking, kept performing normalcy, whatever was eating her alive couldn’t catch up.
It was almost midnight when she finally ran out of steam.
“I should shower,” she said, standing abruptly. “It’s been a long day.”
“Celine.” Icaught her hand as she passed the couch. “Are you okay?”
For just a moment, her carefully built mask wavered. I saw pain sh across her features, raw and devastating, before she pulled it back into ce.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her voice cracked slightly on the words. “Just tired.”
She disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the shower turn on. Then, a few minutester, I heard something that made my blood run
cold.
Crying. Deep, wrenching sobs that sounded like they were being torn from somewhere deep in her chest.
I stood outside the bathroom door, my hand raised to knock, torn between respecting her privacy and my desperate need tofort her.
The soundsing from behind that door weren’t just tears–they were the sound of someone’s world falling apart.
Twenty minutester, the shower turned off. I moved to sit on the edge of the bed, my heart pounding as I waited.
When the bathroom door opened, Celine stood in the doorway wearing one of my old t–shirts, her face blotchy and her eyes swollen from crying.
She looked smaller somehow, like whatever she’d been carrying all day had finally broken her down.
<b>3/4 </b>
“Hunter,” she whispered, and her voice was so broken it made my chest ache.
I didn’t say anything. I just opened my arms.
She crossed the room like her legs might give out, falling into my embrace with a sob that seemed toe from the very core of her being.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight against my chest as she shatteredpletely.
“I don’t know who I am,” she cried into my shirt, her words muffled but clear enough to break my heart. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
I stroked her hair, feeling utterly helpless. “You’re Celine. You’re the woman I love. You’re Caesar’s mother. You’re the strongest person i know.<b>” </b>
“But what if I’m not?” She pulled back to look at me, her eyes red and desperate. “What if everything I thought I knew about myself was <b>a </b>lie?”
Margaret Torres. What that woman told Celine changed something important in her life. It took away a part of her identity that she had built her sense of self on.
“Tell me,” I said quietly. “Whatever she said, tell me.”
Celine shook her head, fresh tears spilling over. “I can’t. Not yet. I just… I need you to hold me. Please.”
So I did.
I held her while she cried until there were no tears left.
I held her while she trembled against me like she was trying to absorb my warmth, my strength, my certainty in who she was even when hers had been shaken.
And I held her as she finally drifted off to sleep in my arms, exhausted from carrying whatever terrible secret Margaret Torres had burdened
her with.
Just before she lost consciousnesspletely, she whispered something against my chest–words so quiet I almost missed them.
“She said I’m not really a Brown.”
My blood ran cold. Not really a Brown. What the hell did that mean?
As Celine’s breathing finally evened out in sleep, I made a mental note to call Derek first thing in the morning.
Whatever game Margaret Torres was ying, whatever lies she was spreading, I was going to put a stop to it.
But first, I was going to find out exactly what truth–or lie–had broken the woman I loved into pieces.