married to my killer

chapter 4

NAOMI POV

I had been married to Julian Voss again for three days. I still hadn't told anyone not Julian, not my own family that I remembered a version of this year where his family let me die. I was trying to find out why, before it could happen again.

On that third morning, Julian's father, Edmund, asked me to breakfast. Just the two of us. No assistant hovering nearby, no Julian in the room to soften things between us the way he usually did.

This was new. It hadn't happened this way the first time I lived through this year.

I remembered that clearly. The first time, Edmund and I had barely spoken alone until six months into the marriage. This time, only three days in, he was already sitting across from me at a table set for two, buttering toast like it was nothing unusual at all.

I sat down anyway. Saying no would have looked strange.

"I wanted to apologize," he said, "if the wedding felt like a performance. Occasions like that always do, a little."

I didn't remember him ever apologizing for anything, in the entire year I remembered living with this family.

"It didn't," I said, which was mostly true. "It felt like mine."

"Good." Something shifted in his face, something private and pleased. "Julian's mother would've liked you, you know."

"I've heard a little about her. Not much."

"No, you wouldn't have." He paused for a beat too long, and I watched him decide not to say more. "Anyway. She had very little patience for people who performed things instead of meaning them."

Then he changed the subject. "I understand you're something of a numbers person. Julian mentioned your coursework. Business, wasn't it?"

"Something like that," I said.

That wasn't entirely true. I'd never actually finished that degree. Money had run out the same year my father's company collapsed, and I'd taught myself the rest of the library books instead. Somehow, in whatever version of my life Edmund had been told, that had gotten smoothed into something that sounded more impressive. I didn't correct him. It felt like handing over information I might need to keep for myself later.

"I have very little patience for people who can't read a balance sheet," Edmund continued, "and even less for people who pretend they can when they can't. It's refreshing, honestly. Julian's never been much for numbers."

"No?"

"Takes after his mother that way. All instinct, no arithmetic." He said it fondly, like a flaw he'd made peace with a long time ago. "You'll be good for him."

After a moment, he studied me over his coffee. "You're quiet."

"Just tired. It's been a lot of new faces this week."

"It has." He let a silence sit for a beat too long before breaking it himself. "You'll get used to how this family does things. We're not complicated people. We just prefer to handle our own business quietly, instead of airing it for an audience."

"I appreciate that," I said.

I didn't know yet whether that sentence Handling our own business quietly was meant as simple advice, or as a warning. The first time, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Now I understood that "quietly" was a word this family used the way other families used locks.

He smiled and moved on, mentioning the merger that was closing in the spring, something I already knew about, though I pretended to be hearing it for the first time.

"Actually," he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "since you have the background for it I've got some old acquisition files that need a second set of eyes before the merger closes. Logistics sector, mostly. Nothing glamorous."

Logistics sector. That word again.

"I'd be happy to help," I said. My voice stayed steady, which was the only thing about the next few seconds I felt good about.

"Wonderful. Julian has no patience for that kind of thing, and I'd rather keep it in the family than hand it to an outside auditor." He stood up and buttoned his jacket. "I'll have Carla put the files in the east wing office. No rush sometime this week is fine."

Those were the same files I'd already found, three days earlier, in that same office. I'd already gone through them once, carefully, and put everything back exactly where it had been.

Edmund didn't know that. At least, I had to believe he didn't because the alternative was that this was a test. That he already knew I'd been looking, and was handing me the same paperwork on purpose, just to watch what I did with it next. That wasn't a thought I could afford to finish while I was still sitting in his dining room.

"Logistics," I said, keeping my voice casual. "Any particular company?"

"Does it matter?" He was already turning toward the door. "A failed one. Aren't they all, eventually."

He said it lightly, the way people say things that are supposed to sound like nothing.

Walking back to our room afterward, I didn't believe for a second that it was nothing.