As soon as he hit the street, I turned back to Autumn. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little shook up. He didn’t do anything, just caught me off guard because I’d been on the phone, and suddenly he was standing a few feet away in the dark. He asked me if I wanted to party, and I told him I thought it was best if he left.”

I rubbed my neck and blew out a jagged breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“I was only out here a few minutes.”

I shook my head. “That’s a few minutes too long.”

It took until we’d gotten in the car and driven six or eight blocks before my heart started to slow down. Autumn just kept staring at the window, her arms wrapped tightly around her body.

“I’m sorry, Autumn.”

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault, and nothing happened.”

“It is my fault, and you don’t look fine.”

She frowned and turned back to stare out the window some more. Bud’s house wasn’t too far, so a few minutes later, we pulled up outside. I put the car in park. I was never going to be able to relax just letting her drive away. “Would you mind if I followed you home?” I asked. “Or better yet, you can leave your car here, and I’ll drop you?”

She looked down for a minute before nodding. “You can follow me. But come inside when we get there. I want to talk to you anyway.”

CHAPTER 24

* * *

Donovan

Autumn was quiet as we settled into her apartment.

“Do you want a glass of wine?” she asked.

“Sure, if you’re having some.”

She smiled halfheartedly. “I am definitely having some. Why don’t you get comfortable on the couch, and I’ll grab us two glasses.”

“Thanks.”

Autumn came back a few minutes later. She’d poured the wine and also tied her hair into a messy bun on top of her head and changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt.

She saw me checking her out. “Sorry. I needed to be comfortable.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I actually love your hair tied up like that.”

She sipped her wine and smiled. “You do? And here I wasted a half hour blowing it out earlier so I’d look nice. All I had to do was not brush it and twist it up into a knot?”

My eyes roamed over her beautiful face. “Your hair is like that in the picture I took of you during the weekend we spent together. After you ghosted me, I looked at it a lot. I’d tell you how often, but it might scare you away again, and I think I’ve fucked up enough for one day.”

Autumn set her wine on the table and laid her hand gently on my knee. “You didn’t fuck up anything today. In fact, you did just the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll get to that, but first, what picture did you take of me?”

I smiled. “You were standing at the stove in my kitchen. Your hair was all tied up like it is now, and you had on my T-shirt from the day before.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even remember that.”

I dug my cell from my pants pocket, opened the photo app, and scrolled to the folder I kept it in before turning the phone to show her.

Autumn took the cell from my hand and studied it. “I look like a mess.”

“You look beautiful.”

She kept staring. Eventually she sighed. “I don’t agree, but I will say I look happy.”

I took my phone back and glanced at the photo one more time. “I thought you were. I know that weekend I was the happiest I’d been in a long time.”

Autumn’s eyes moved back and forth between mine. I could see something was troubling her. After a while, she took a deep breath, reached for her wine, chugged the entire remainder of the glass, and lifted one knee up onto the couch to face me directly.

“Summer of my senior year in high school, I met Braden. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’d met him a few times over the years, but I didn’t really know him. His dad worked for my dad before they became partners. I thought Braden was cute, but he was a few years older, so he never looked my way other than to say hello until that summer when I was eighteen.”

Autumn stared down into her empty wine glass. I knew from the very first sentence that this story was not going to have a happy ending. But I also knew I needed to hear it, because it was going to fill in a lot of the missing pieces on the Autumn Wilde puzzle I’d been trying to work out for a long time.

I took her empty glass and swapped it with my three-quarters-full one.

She smiled sadly and took another deep breath before continuing. “Braden was in his first semester of law school and was nothing like the boys I’d gone out with in high school. I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and he was so driven and mature, and he was attracted to me for some reason.” She turned her head and stared off for a minute. “When I look back at that first summer, I still don’t see the red flags I missed.” She frowned. “I think that haunts me almost as much as anything else.”

“What happened?”

“Braden and I dated for four and a half years. Things didn’t go bad overnight. We grew really close that first summer. I’d dated before, but it was my first serious relationship. Then I went away to college. I only went to Boston, so it was just a few hours’ drive. I’d come home often, and sometimes Braden would visit me. Once in a while he’d even surprise me and not tell me he was coming. But sometimes I felt more like he was checking up on me, rather than really wanting to see me.”

I definitely didn’t like the direction this was heading. It felt like the ominous music of a horror movie had started playing.

“Anyway…” Autumn wrung her hands together. “Over the years, there was never enough to make an alarm go off—not one single thing anyway.” She shook her head. “Maybe there was, and I was in denial. I don’t know. I’d notice small things—like I’d think his car was following me, but then it would be gone. Sometimes I’d ask him about things I noticed, but his answers were so believable that I just kept chalking it up to my own paranoia. He actually made me feel crazy for thinking he’d have the time or inclination to follow me. Plus, and I know this sounds horrible, but it was an easy relationship. Our fathers were business partners and the best of friends, and I’d made the decision to go to law school, so Braden was able to demystify that entire process.” She shrugged. “I just… I was very trusting and naïve back then. Too trusting.”

I wasn’t sure what to say or do. It felt like she needed to get something out by taking the long way, rather than cutting to the chase, but damn, my heart was in agony waiting for that other shoe to drop. Still, I stayed quiet.

Autumn finished off the wine in my glass.

“You want some more?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t. I just needed to take the edge off. I promise I’m getting to the end of this story soon.”

I took her hand in mine and squeezed. “Take all the time you need. There’s no hurry.”

She nodded and stared down for a minute again before continuing. “After I was done with college and back home again, more things started to raise red flags. I’d think he was following me, and then I’d catch him in a lie about being at work. He had this way of turning things around and convincing me I felt guilty because I’d been growing distant. I was in law school and meeting new people and wanted some freedom, so he wasn’t wrong. We had been growing apart. But he’d waited four long years for me to move back home. So I felt bad even considering breaking things off, especially because while we were together, he was so good to me. Though once I’d caught him in a few lies, I found it hard to believe anything he said. One day I’d noticed some of my emails marked as read, even though I was positive I’d never opened them. Things started to feel really unhealthy, so eventually I told Braden I needed a break.”