in his exhausted expression.
I turn to look at Adeline where she sits on the piano bench, her face angled to the floor, her hands wringing in her lap.
“He really just had you scheduling dinner parties and shopping the entire time you were married, didn’t he?”
Her shoulders slouch forward, and I realize we just made her feel like utter shit for the amount of control she’d given her husband over her life.
“That and I had to meet with his sister for lunch every day,” she answers bitterly, her voice as crushed as her spirit.
I never appreciated the full scope of how much he’d changed her in so short a time. This wasn’t the girl I knew. Adeline may have been out of control, but she wasn’t weak.
Unable to hide my anger, I ask, “Why would you let him do that to you? What could possibly have motivated you to give him everything without demanding anything in return?”
She shoots me a look, and I instantly regret the question. “Our situation is different.”
Adeline rolls her eyes.
“I was broke for the most part. I mean, that’s not the only reason I married him. But I was flailing, like you said. I thought Grant would balance me. Teach me to be more like him. He was responsible and successful and had his shit together when I felt like all I was doing was digging my hole deeper.”
“Being inexperienced doesn’t mean you need to give up on yourself, kid.” Lincoln stares over at her with sympathy behind his eyes.
A weak shrug of her shoulders. “My father always took care of my mother. I assumed that’s how it worked. It’s not exactly like I had either of them around to ask questions.”
And now I feel like even more of an ass for being the cause of that problem. At the mention of her father, I know we need to change subjects pronto.
Shifting my position on the couch, I run a hand through my hair before stretching my arm over the backrest and tapping my fingers on the leather.
“Well, that explains why you looked dead inside in all your photos online a few months into the marriage.”
Adeline’s head snaps up, her eyes narrowing to glare at me.
Before she can bitch, I say, “Stalker, remember? I know everything. Moving on.”
Lips pulling into a thin line, she looks away, goes back to twiddling her fingers.
All three of us fall into an uncomfortable silence, but then Lincoln breaks it with a thought I’d already considered and shot down several times.
“Maybe we should use Adeline to draw him out.”
“No,” I say immediately. “Absolutely not. I’m not risking her life for this.”
Adeline dances her gaze between both of us, not following the train of thought that can go careening off the side of a cliff for as much as it’s not happening.
“Hear me out, Ari. Her life is already at risk unless you plan on keeping her in your penthouse for the rest of her life.”
I’d considered it. It wasn’t a bad plan. Sure she might get bored every so often, but I could pack her in the car, drive her around town, let her see the sights, maybe allow her to crack the window just a bit so she gets some fresh air.
Lincoln must have intuited what I was thinking. “Give it up, Ari. It’s not a good plan, and you know it.”
Silence falls again, my jaw ticking like a fucking bomb. “What’s your idea?”
“She goes to the cops. Creates a big media storm about it, given how everybody in this city knows of her abduction. Adeline can tell them her husband nearly beat her to death and she ran away for her own safety. It’ll piss off Grant, make him want to shut her up, but it will also back off anybody looking to take him up on the offer to kill her. At least for a couple months. Nobody will want to touch that while she’s in the public eye. You know it, and I know it. Three million isn’t enough for that high a risk.”
Pursuing my lips, I hate to think he’s right. If I were hired to do the job, I’d wait until the media frenzy died down, take her out quietly and stage it as something else.
“Grant won’t be able to handle it,” I say. “He’ll want something done to her immediately.”
Lincoln nods. “Which means he’ll try to do it himself.”
“Bringing him to a place where he’ll want to be alone,” I finish for him. “Fuck. This