“It’s a kind of . . . membership . . . card.”
“Membership to what?” she snapped, and Sawyer thought a long time about the answer.
He could have killed her, knocked her to the ground and taken it, left her there with her wanted face and her blank memory, but instead he told her, “A bank.”
“What kind of bank?”
“The Swiss kind.”
The card hadn’t touched the fire, but it felt hot in her hand anyway. “Ooh! Do I have a Swiss bank account?” She felt suddenly excited. “Whoa. Am I superrich? Is that why I’m in Europe? Do I . . .”
He shook his head, and for the first time since she woke up, he looked tired, like this whole thing was a river and he was swimming against a current that was just a little too strong. He ran a hand through his hair; it had dried by the fire and was sticking up and wavy and wild. It made him look younger, but his eyes . . . his eyes looked like he was a million years old. It was like they’d both lived a dozen lives since Paris.
Then a chill that had nothing to do with the cold went down her spine.
Paris.
She remembered falling snow and ice-covered streets, the way she’d stood with all her worldly possessions in her cupped hands and watched him change before her very eyes. He’d said something about the lip balm—about Alex. But the card had been right there—that little golden C glowing beneath the streetlights.
“This was why.” She saw that moment differently. She saw everything differently. “This was why you chased me.”
“Zoe—”
“You were willing to let me swim across an ocean until you saw this! Why?” And she knew. “You don’t think this is mine, do you? You think this is Alex’s.”
“It’s the kind of thing . . . It fits. From what I know about Alex, that fits.”
He nodded toward the card, and Zoe gripped it a little tighter then slid it back into the pocket of the coat . . .
Of Sawyer’s coat.
And, suddenly, the whole world went cold again.
“Why did you have it?” She was practically breathing fire, but he just looked at her like she hadn’t been paying attention.
“Because it’s not trash.” His voice was calm and matter-of-fact, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.
She limped closer and he inched back, like she was the one who could kill him with her bare hands, and in that moment, maybe she was.
“I left this card on the dresser when I emptied my pockets after Paris. So why was it in your pocket last night?” She asked like she didn’t know, like she wasn’t already begging, pleading, praying she was wrong.
And in his defense, he didn’t answer.
But in her defense, he didn’t have to.
She knew. She knew. And it broke her. “Because you were leaving me.”
“No.” Sawyer reached for her but Zoe pulled back.
“You were. You were going to ditch me. Abandon me.”
More than knowing he’d only offered to save her to get his hands on that card . . . More than being lied to and led on . . . More than being strangled and shot at and drowned . . . The thing that hurt her most was simple.
“You were going to leave me . . . on our honeymoon!”
“We aren’t actually married!”
He might have yelled.
She might have gasped.
And the whole world might have tilted on its axis as he shook his head, a softness in his voice she didn’t like at all. “You would have been better off without me.”
Is that what he thought? That she wasn’t in danger? That she didn’t need him? Want him? Did he really not remember . . .
“You killed a man with a negligee!” Zoe shouted, then headed for the door.
Outside, sunlight bounced over the icy landscape, and she had to squint against the glare.
“Zoe, wait!”
She didn’t dare slow down, but she risked a glance over her shoulder. Sawyer was pulling on the backpack and pushing a gun into his waistband at the small of his back, but he was looking at her like she was the most dangerous thing around.
“What’s in the bank box?” she called.
“I don’t know.” He caught up with her, lunging to block her path. “Nothing. Probably.”
And all Zoe could do was stand in the morning light, breathing hard, listening for all the things he wouldn’t say.
Like whether or not he meant it when he called her sweetheart . . . Like why he’d bought the ring . . . Like what was he thinking all those times she’d caught him looking, smirking, smiling at her . . . Like how had she been foolish enough to think she knew him when she didn’t even know herself . . .