The Wife He Rejected Became His Aunt

Chapter Ten:Watched

I stared at the photograph for a long time.

It was a clear picture. Whoever had taken it had been close enough to get my face properly but far enough that I had not noticed them. I was holding my coffee cup in the picture. I remembered buying it. I remembered standing outside for a moment because the sun had come out and it felt good after days of grey.

I had not noticed anyone watching me.

That was what sat most heavily. Not the threat in the message. Not even the photograph itself. But the fact that someone had been standing close enough to take that picture and I had felt nothing. No instinct. No unease. Nothing.

I had been completely unaware.

I forwarded the message to Ethan immediately.

His response came in less than two minutes.

Do not leave the office alone today. I am sending someone.

I typed back. I do not need a bodyguard.

He replied. It is not a bodyguard. It is a driver. There is a difference. Do not argue with me about this one.

I put my phone down and looked across the office. Everything was the same as it had been ten minutes ago. Mrs. Eze was on the phone at her desk. Two of my colleagues were bent over a floor plan arguing quietly about measurements. The office smelled like printer ink and the candle Mrs. Eze kept burning on her windowsill.

Everything looked normal.

Nothing felt normal.

I pulled up the photograph again and looked at the background. I was trying to place exactly where it had been taken from. Across the street maybe. Or from a car. The angle suggested elevation. Someone in a vehicle or standing on a step.

I was not going to figure it out by staring at it.

I put my phone away and tried to return to my fabric samples but the forest green and the gold and the cream all blurred together and I gave up after a few minutes. I made myself a cup of tea instead and stood by the window and looked down at the street below.

People walking. A delivery van. A woman trying to fold a pushchair with one hand while holding a baby with the other. All of it ordinary.

Anyone down there could be watching.

That thought was new and I did not like it.

At six o clock a black car was waiting outside the building.

The driver was a quiet man named Joseph who introduced himself briefly and opened the door and said nothing else for the entire journey. He drove smoothly and checked his mirrors more than most drivers do and took two turns that were not the most direct route to Sade's apartment.

I noticed.

I did not comment.

When we pulled up outside Sade's building Joseph said he would be outside at seven thirty the following morning and that Mr. Kingston had asked him to give me his direct number in case I needed to reach the car quickly.

I took the number.

I thanked him.

I went inside and stood in Sade's hallway for a moment with my back against the closed door.

She came out of the kitchen and took one look at me.

"Sit down," she said. "I am making food."

I sat at her kitchen table and watched her cook and I told her everything. This time properly. Not just the hotel and the anniversary. All of it. The land. My mother. Daniel Kingston. Ethan. The photograph.

Sade listened without interrupting.

She was quiet for a long time after I finished. She stirred whatever was in the pot and stared at it and I could see her processing everything the way she always did. Sade was not a person who reacted immediately. She thought first. It was one of the things I valued most about her.

"So your mother knew all of this," she said finally.

"She knew most of it," I said. "I think she tried to protect me from it."

"And this man Ethan." She looked at me sideways. "What is he like."

"Serious," I said. "Careful with his words. He does not say anything he does not mean."

"That is not what I asked," she said.

I looked at her.

She raised an eyebrow and turned back to the pot.

"He is my ex-husband's uncle Sade," I said.

"I am aware," she said. "I asked what he is like. Not what his family position is."

I did not answer that.

She did not push it.

But later that night lying in her spare room I found myself thinking about the question anyway. What was Ethan Kingston like. He was steady in a way that Marcus had never been. There was no performance in him. No charm that switched on for audiences. He was the same in the office as he had been in the coffee shop. A person who took up exactly the space he needed and no more.

I turned onto my side.

Those were not thoughts I needed to be having.

I had a divorce in progress and a land claim to fight and someone sending me photographs of myself on the street. I had more than enough to occupy my mind without adding anything else.

I closed my eyes and told myself to sleep.

It took a long time.

Friday passed without incident.

No messages from Daniel. Nothing from the unknown number. Marcus sent one text saying his lawyer would be in touch about the house valuation and I forwarded it to Mrs. Cole without responding directly.

Ethan called once in the afternoon.

"Everything is arranged for Saturday," he said. "Hargreaves is expecting us at ten. The drive is about two hours so we leave at seven as planned."

"Alright," I said.

"How are you doing," he said.

The question caught me slightly off guard. Not because it was inappropriate. Just because it was direct and genuine and I had not expected it from him in that moment.

"I am managing," I said.

"That is not what I asked," he said.

I almost smiled at that. It was almost exactly what Sade had said to me two nights ago.

"I am tired," I said. "And I do not like knowing someone was watching me without my knowledge. It makes everything feel less solid."

A pause.

"That feeling will pass," he said. "Once you understand the boundaries of what they are willing to do it becomes less frightening. Right now it is the not knowing that is the worst part."

"Is that from experience," I said.

"Yes," he said simply.

I wanted to ask more. About what his experience was. About the falling out with his brother and what it had cost him. About why a man with his resources and his distance from family had agreed to carry my mother's secret for six years.

But I had learned that Ethan gave information in layers.

I would get more on Saturday.

"Get some rest tonight," he said.

"You sound like someone's father," I said.

A beat of silence.

Then something that was unmistakably a quiet laugh. Low and brief. Gone almost as fast as it came.

"Goodnight Lena," he said.

"Goodnight," I said.

I held the phone after the call ended and looked at it for a moment.

Then Sade appeared in the doorway of the sitting room with two cups of tea and an expression on her face that told me she had heard at least part of that conversation.

"He laughed," she said. "You made him laugh."

"Sade," I said.

"I am just observing," she said. She handed me a cup and sat down beside me. "I am allowed to observe."

I took the cup and looked at the television.

"He is my ex-husband's uncle," I said again.

"You keep saying that," she said.

"Because it keeps being true," I said.

She sipped her tea.

"A lot of things that are true still change," she said quietly.

I did not answer her.

But I did not forget what she said either.