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Alanna’s outraged expression makes me laugh, earning me a look of wonder and astonishment. “I’ve never seen you laugh before.”
She raises her hand to her chest, making me wonder if her heart skips a beat around me, the way mine does when she smiles.
“You’d better enjoy it,” I tell her. “It’s a rare sight.”
She turns to me and rests her cheek against the car’s headrest. “How so?”
“For the longest time, there wasn’t much in my life to smile about, let alone laugh. For years, I’ve felt like the most important part of me was missing.”Until now.
Alanna nods. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I know how that feels.”
I glance at her and smile. I’m going to have to make it my mission to make her laugh now. One way or another, I want her to feel the happiness she brought back into my life.
“Oh, please stop here, Silas.”
I frown. Why would I stop a block away from the office?
“Please, Silas.”
I sigh and pull up to the curb. “Why am I stopping here?”
She undoes her seatbelt and smiles nervously. “If we’re seen arriving together, everyone will be asking me questions about it and I won’t know what to say. When Ryan came to our department, I was teased about it for days on end, including by people I don’t even know. I just want to focus on work and not invite more rumors.”
I run a hand through my hair in annoyance. If it were up to me, I’d be shouting from the fucking rooftops that she’s living with me, but I don’t seem to have a say in this matter. “Fine.”
Alanna smiles at me before rushing out of the car, and I shake my head as I watch her for a moment. How long is it going to take to truly make her mine once more? I’m already running out of patience.
ChapterForty
Silas
Amy’s tense expression instantly puts me on edge, and I straighten in my seat. She grimaces as she closes the door behind her, taking a moment before turning toward me, almost as though she’s bracing herself.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice soft. “Just tell me.”
She nods and clutches her tablet tightly. “I found out where Alanna’s scholarship money came from.” She walks up to me and puts her tablet down before turning it my way and sliding it over. “You won’t believe this, but I triple checked my sources and even asked Aria Callahan to assist me with this, and it’s correct. The money came from the man who was convicted for Alanna’s father’s death.”
I pick the tablet up and go through the files, struggling to believe what I’m reading. It looks like he was paid a hundred grand to assist Alanna’s father with his insurance fraud.
“He never expected to be caught. They’d planned the hit in detail, but they were caught by an eyewitness. He may not have realized that him confessing in return for a more lenient sentence also meant Alanna didn’t get any of the insurance money she would have gotten, and I suppose he felt some remorse. He knew what her father was doing it for, after all. When she lost her memory, he thought a fresh start would be good for her, so he had his family make the arrangements and used some of her father’s money on her.”
The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions. I understand the sentiment behind the decision that was made, but I’m not sure it was what was best for Alanna. I suppose she got a better education than she would have been able to afford here, but I also lost her in the process.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
Amy smiles at me and shakes her head. “Once we learned she’d been in London, it became a lot easier to track down more details. I’m sorry it took so long to find her, but the way she came back definitely seems like fate to me. Her applying to join Sinclair Security when we’d so desperately been trying to find her? I know you don’t like to hear these types of things, but maybe it’s a matter of it finally being the right place and the right time.”
I chuckle and lean back into my seat. “You really are a hopeless romantic, aren’t you?”
Amy shrugs. “Your story is the stuff of legends. Do you have any idea how exciting it is for me to watch it unfold in real life? Someday, someone is going to write a book about you two.”
I shake my head at her, but before I can even retort, my door opens and Ryan storms in. Amy and I both tense, and she crosses her arms in annoyance.
“Silas,” he says, his tone aggrieved. “Why are you doing this to me?”
I frown in confusion and sit up. “What, exactly?”
“I told you that Alanna and I had an argument, and not only did you refuse to let me join her department, you also revoked my access to this floor, so I can’t even come see her. I had to wait for someone to take the elevator up to this floor just so I could ride up with them.”
