Page 34 of Blacklist

“What do you mean he came back?” I ask softly after a minute.

“After you left for Cambridge,” she confesses. “He was only here for a few days. I didn’t see him.”

“How do you know he came back?”

“Cyrus told me.”

I close my eyes and let myself ask the one question that I’ve tortured myself with for the last four years. “Did he say why?”

“He said he came to get his things before he shipped out. Cyrus said he gave him your letter.”

That didn’t explain anything. It only hurt more. Sterling had returned to Valmont. He had the letter. Cyrus told me he gave it to him, but he failed to mention it was in person. I thought it had been years since Sterling set foot in Tennessee. I was wrong.

“Well, then he didn’t come back for me.” It’s the harsh truth. Because even if I hadn’t been gone, even if he had known where I was—if he read that letter, he should have come after me.

“I promised Cyrus I wouldn’t tell you,” Poppy says, still looking queasy. “I didn’t want to hurt you. You’d moved on—left for London…”

“I did move on,” I lie. It’s so easy to lie about London now that even I’m starting to believe I was happy there.

It isn’t her fault that Sterling came back then—or now. It’s no one’s fault.

“What are you going to do?” Poppy asks.

“Live my life?” I shrug, wishing that idea rolled off my shoulders instead of landing like a lead yoke around them. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Hunt him down,” she says, “and demand he tells you why he ignored your letter.”

“He ignored my letter because he didn’t care.” I need to come to grips with that. I’ve had four years to let go of him. Seeing him successful and indifferent is the final blow.

Poppy clearly doesn’t share this revelation, because she slams a fist on the table. “Okay, hunt him down and cut off his balls.”

The group of older women next to us falls silent at her explosion, casting disapproving looks in our direction before getting up and moving across the café.

“Sorry,” Poppy calls, her British half getting the best of her. Under her breath, she adds, “Nosy old birds.”

“At least, they’ll have something to talk about,” I say dryly.

Some things don’t change. Sterling Ford and I have always been something to talk about.

11

Sterling

Windfall has shed its mourning garb, welcoming life and spring back to its tree-lined drive and manicured gardens. The guard is back on duty at the gate. He steps from the security booth, hitching up his belt with his hands as he scans my car. He can’t be more than a year or two out of high school. He has that wet behind his overly-prominent ears quality. No one’s told him that, though. Maybe it’s the gun in his holster boosting his confidence, but he leans down to the window and waves his hand.

“Can I see your identification?”

I’ve no doubt Malcolm informed the guards of my invitation, but this kid isn’t going to let me go without checking off his entire list. He takes my driver’s license and studies it carefully. “New York, huh?”

“Yes.” Thank God, he can read.

“Old picture. You musta been what? Eighteen?” He says this like there’s a huge gap between my eighteen and his nineteen.

I tilt my Ray-Bans to stare at him. Am I on Magnolia Lane or Memory fucking Lane? “Does that matter?”

“It’s about to expire is all. Have a nice evening.” He waves me through the wrought iron gates and closes them behind my car.

The sky ebbs into dusky purple as I near the house. There are still a handful of gardeners out, using up the last few moments of twilight to finish their work for the day. Adair once told me it took dozens of staff to keep the property looking like a private resort. It’s ironic, really. Angus MacLaine nearly lost everything before he died, but he’d managed to cling to appearances until the very end—a tradition his children have chosen to keep alive, by the looks of it.