Chapter 37
Nolan POV
“Why was Ellie at the racetrack?” Lance asked.
I was speaking to him from my office phone. The sounds of music and laughter were clear in the background and I didn’t even have to ask to know that he was on that damned boat of his.
I was irritated by his question, leaning back in my chair and glaring at the phone.
“Is there some reason she shouldn’t be there?” I asked sharply.
“No, I guess not,” Lance replied, “except that she’s never come to one of my races before.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t there for you. It’s probably just something Rae was interested in,” I replied coldly.
“Yeah, I guess,” Lance replied, although he didn’t sound convinced.
“Are you honestly calling me to talk about why Ellie was at your race today?” I demanded.
“No,” Lance said sharply. “I’m calling because she’s acting weird and it’s…” he paused as if searching for the right words.
“Unsettling.” I sighed. I felt the same way about her behavior lately.
“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “So what are you doing about it?”
“Is that a joke?” I ask, my tone icy.
“No.” Lance pauses for a moment. “I’m not trying to be a dick here, I’m honestly trying to understand what’s happening. Are you sure that her memory loss is faked? She’s like a completely different person. I have a hard time believing that she’s acting.”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “It doesn’t matter either way. This is the kind of drama she stirs up no matter what.”
The conversation with Lance sent me deeper down the spiral of my concerns about Ellie, but at least it did clear one thing up. The two of them weren’t conspiring to embarrass me together.
Lance was never much of a liar and even through a phone call I could tell that he was genuinely confused by Ellie’s behavior.
Ellie didn’t return home until the late afternoon. By that point, I was more than irritated.
I couldn’t stop spinning over her behavior, trying to find some logical explanation for it, when there doesn’t seem to be any, and it was infuriating.
“Certainly took your time coming home, didn’t you?” I said as she walked through the door.
Ellie looked at me, and immediately the smile fell from her face. Everything about her body language shifted into
annoyance.
“Do I have a curfew that I don’t know about?” she demandel.
“What are you doing with my brother?” I fired back.
“What am I doing with your brother? What a stupid question. I’m not doing anything with him. Rae wanted to go see the race today, and he happened to be there, because he has spoiled rich boy hobbies like racing expensive cars and crashing them into walls,” Ellie shot back angrily.
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Chapter 37
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I couldn’t even argue with her rant about Lance, she was right. But that only fueled my anger more.
“If he’s so awful, then why did you decide to spend your day with him?” I asked.
“I didn’t spend my day with him,” she scoffed. “I spent my day with Rae. Lance just happened to be there for a few minutes.”
“You interfered with the race results.” It came out sounding more like an accusation than I meant it to.
“That’s such an exaggeration.” She laughed. “Who told you that?”
Before I could respond, the door opened and Felicity walked in. I watched as the expression on Ellie’s face changed, her irritation hardening into something sharper.
She took a step toward me, her voice dropping so only I could hear:
“Maybe you should worry more about your own public image, since you’re the one who’s running around with your mistress.”
I stared at her, unable to respond, as she brushed past me and went upstairs.
“What did she just say?” Felicity asked. “You know what, never mind. It doesn’t even matter.”
I didn’t look at Felicity. Ellie’s comment had gotten under my skin.
It didn’t help that I was still dealing with the fallout from her little meltdown at the dinner party, especially when
it came to the alpha of the Moonstone pack. He was in an absolute uproar over it.
He insisted that Ellie was right, that the food must have been tampered with.
It didn’t matter to him that I’d had it tested and everything came back normal.
It was weird how much interest they had taken in Ellie, both him and his son, Cassian. It bothered me. Made me suspicious.
So, I’d used some of my contacts to start looking into them trying to discover if there was some reason they were so interested in her. Maybe it was as simple as Cassian having a little crush, but I suspected it was more.
After all, they looked at Ellie with so much familiarity. And then there was the way they reacted when they heard Felicity insult her.
Of course, it was completely out of line for Felicity to call an alpha’s wife a bitch, especially in front of the alpha of another pack, but their reaction seemed… personal.
It was as if they had history with her.
But that seemed absurd. Then again, if Ellie wasn’t lying about having lost her memory as a child, just as she claimed to have lost it now, there was no telling what kind of connection she might have… or with who,
I had to get to the bottom of this. There was something more going on here. And the alliance with the Moonstone pack was too important for me to risk it on Ellie’s unpredicability.
I needed to have as much information as possible to make sure this deal went off without a hitch.
“Hello? Nolan? I’m talking to you,” Felicity said, drawing my attention back to the moment.
“What did you say?”
Felicity’s smile was tight as she looked at me. I knew she hated to be ignored, and I could only imagine that being ignored for Ellie didn’t feel great, but at the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
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