Page 74 of Crimson Heart

32

Charlotte hadn’t had a chance to speak to Jude over breakfast, since he and his team had already started working early to shore up security at the estate. After Steve’s intrusion the previous day, she was glad that everybody was taking action to prevent another security breach. When she’d heard Jude’s voice coming from his office, she’d cracked the door open to see if she could interrupt him, when she’d overheard him claiming that Byron was stabbing them in the back. She’d been too stunned, and for a few seconds she’d just stood there, digesting Jude’s accusation, when she’d heard that he wanted to keep something from her. At that point, she hadn’t been able to keep silent any longer.

“Tell me, Jude!”

She noticed him and Francisco exchanging a look.

“Why are you saying that Byron is stabbing you in the back? After everything he did yesterday? That’s pretty shitty of you…”

Jude hesitated visibly. “I’m sorry, Charlotte, but you shouldn’t have heard that. Francisco and I are handling it.”

“Handling it? Or did you mean handling me?”

“It’s not like that, believe me.”

“Then what’s it like?” she asked, more insistent now. “You think I’m too weak for whatever you think you have to keep from me?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“That’s not how this works. I want to hear the truth. Why do you think that Byron is stabbing you in the back?”

She braced her hands at her hips and tipped her chin up to challenge him.

“Fine.” Jude let out a long breath, then looked at Francisco. “I’ll take it from here. Leave the tablet with me.”

Francisco turned around and left the room without another word. When the door fell shut behind him, a few seconds of silence spread between her and her brother.

“There’s a surveillance video that captured Byron and Flora in a private conversation. We would have never been alerted to it, had Flora not tried to delete it and gotten caught by Francisco.”

What could be so bad in a conversation between Byron and his aunt? Instead of making a comment, she simply waited until Jude continued.

He reached for a tablet on his desk and tapped on it to wake up the screen.

“Listen, before you watch this, you should know that Byron was very upset the night this recording was made. I think he spoke in anger, and I know Byron well enough by now to know that he flares up quickly, but then calms down just as quickly.”

“You’re stalling,” she interrupted and stretched out her hand to demand the tablet.

He handed it to her, then tapped on the video file. It began playing. At first, it was exactly the way Jude had described it: Byron had been upset about being ordered around by Jude. She looked at her brother, shrugging.

“So?”

“Keep watching,” he said calmly.

That’s when she heard the rest of the conversation. Blood as cold as ice started running through her veins, chilling her from the inside. Byron had planned all this? Planned to make her fall in love with him, so he could dump her and break her heart?

She shook her head. “No. It can’t be. Maybe this is a fake. Maybe somebody changed the audio on it. There is software out there where you can clone a voice…”

Jude put his hand on her forearm. “The video is real. If not, there wouldn’t be a reason for Flora to want to delete it.” He sighed. “But given what I’ve seen from Byron since that night, the way he looks at you, the way he saved Danielle, I don’t believe that he’s guilty of this, of betraying you like that.”

“But you don’t trust him. Otherwise, you wouldn’t claim that Byron is stabbing you in the back.”

“I said it was a possibility, and had you not come into my office without knocking, I would have confronted Byron myself to figure out whether he really wanted to go through with his plan.”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault, because I didn’t knock.”

“No, sis, I didn’t mean that. I simply wanted to spare you the heartache.”

“By keeping it from me?”