Page 74 of Jump on Three

Me: I did not like leaving you like that last night.

Me: Come on, Evelyn. It is not fair for you to leave me in the dark this way.

Me: I’m going to contact Delilah if I don’t hear from you.

It was evening, the day after I’d found Evelyn at Lyot. She had not been in the dining hall for any meals. She’d missed swim practice. I’d looked for her in the library, and she hadn’t been there.

I figured she was hiding from me after the intensity of last night, but she owed me a response. It was the decent thing to do. Yet my texts had gone unanswered all day.

I was worried about her. Something had happened, something I’d never seen before. It was like she was there in body but not in mind.

Now, I had to go back to Lyot to complete the work I hadn’t last night, and Evelyn was stonewalling me. Delilah would take care of her if she needed taking care of. I didn’t doubt that. But I needed to hear from Evelyn herself that she had recovered.

She would not like me going to Delilah, but she had left me with no choice.

I got up from my desk to take the walk to their suite when my phone vibrated in my pocket.

Angel: I’m sorry. I wasn’t ignoring you. I’ve been resting. I’m okay. Thank you, Ivan.

I waited for something else to come through. For her to explain what that was last night. I only got a blank screen and more questions.

If I didn’t have to be at the club, I would have pressed the issue, but my father tracked my movements. He would find out I missed work and demand to know why. There was no way on this earth I would ever tell him anything about Evelyn. As far as I could tell, he’d been born without compassion and empathy. Me missing work to care for someone would not be acceptable to him anyway.

By necessity, I was letting this go for tonight, but not for good.

I had to see with my own eyes Evelyn was well. If she hid from me, I would hunt her down.

Marco grinned at me when I walked into the office. “There you are. I was wondering if you were going to bail on me again.”

“Nope. I’m here.” I took a seat on the couch, exactly where Evelyn had been the night before, and cracked open my laptop. “Is there anything I need to know about?”

Coming around his desk, he perched on the front of it, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. He might have appeared relaxed, but since I had met this man, I had never seen him when he wasn’t fully alert.

“Your girl okay? I saw you carrying her out of here.”

I looked at him over my laptop and scoffed. “Of course you did.”

He spread his hands out. “What can I say? When I have a kingdom, I’m going to rule it.”

One day last year, my dad told me I was moving to California to help a guy named Marco Rider run a club. Since then, I hadn’t learned a lot about him. I did know Marco resented my presence. He didn’t like being connected to my father or having me look over his shoulder like a spy. For those reasons, I had concluded he was at least of sound mind. Anyone who more than tolerated my father had to be a lunatic or just as bad as he was.

When I did little more than nod, Marco pressed me. “Nice girl, that one. She reminded me a lot of one of my cousins, Jenessa.”

I raised a brow. “Yeah? I’ve never known anyone like her.”

“Hmmm.” He rubbed his chin, taking his time speaking. “She’s on the spectrum, right?”

“Why do you ask?”

After months of watching, listening, sometimes obsessing, I had surmised this, but no one had confirmed it. Marco had spent an hour with her and he knew? I really doubted she’d told him. Evelyn played her cards very close to her vest.

He shrugged. “Like I said, she reminds me of Jen. She’s my favorite cousin. Funny as hell and smarter than all of us combined, but I have no idea if she likes me or not. I’m always trying to get on her good side, but it’s not easy.” He chuckled like this made him happy, not bitter. “Your girl is a lot like that. I bet she keeps you guessing.”

“She does. I don’t know if she likes me either.”

He hummed again. “If she didn’t like you, do you honestly think she’d show up here looking for you?”

“That’s the thing. When it comes to Evelyn, I do not know how to answer that.”