Chapter 59 ASKING SUSPICIOUS QUESTIONS

Chapter 59 ASKING SUSPICIOUS QUESTIONS
NOVA'S POV

Matthias was already at the table when I walked in, and he stood up before I reached him, pulling my chair out and waiting until I sat before he took his own seat across from me.

"You look beautiful tonight." He reached across the table and poured water into my glass from the carafe on the table, his eyes moving over my face while he did it.

"Thank you." I settled my bag on my lap and picked up the menu, giving myself somewhere to look that wasn't directly at him.

We ordered. He described the wine to the waiter with the kind of ease that came from actually knowing what he was talking about, his elbow resting on the table, completely relaxed.

He asked about my week while the waiter moved away and I told him about the new acquisition deal, keeping everything on the surface, nothing that pointed anywhere useful.

"A new deal already." He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, watching me with that steady attention he always gave me. "Callum works fast."

"He always does." I broke a piece of bread and kept my eyes on my plate.

"And you? Are you keeping up with the pace?" He tilted his head slightly. "It's a lot to absorb for someone who is still relatively new to that world."

"I'm managing fine." I looked up and smiled at him across the table.

He smiled back and reached for his wine and the conversation moved on and I let it go, laughing when something was genuinely funny and asking questions when something needed a question and performing the whole evening with every part of me that wasn't quietly counting.

It was over the main course that he arrived at it.

"Your mother." He cut into his food without looking up, his voice completely casual. "You mentioned she left things in storage. Personal things from years ago." He lifted his eyes to mine. "Have you been through all of it yet?"

I let a small furrow come into my brow, the kind that made the question look like it had caught me slightly off guard. "Most of it. Why?"

"I just thought about you going through that alone, you know." He set his fork down and leaned forward slightly, his elbows coming onto the table edge. "Closure is complicated when someone leaves things behind. I wondered if you found anything that helped you understand her better."

"Some photographs." I picked up my wine glass and turned it slowly. "Old paperwork. Nothing that changed anything dramatically."

He held my gaze for a moment longer than the answer required.

Then he picked his fork back up and the conversation moved somewhere else entirely, smooth and unhurried, like the question had been nothing more than genuine concern.

But he came back to it twice more before the evening ended.

Once when he asked whether her things had been properly stored or whether time had damaged any of it.

Once when he asked whether I planned to keep the unit or clear it out eventually.

Both times wrapped in something that sounded like care.

Both times I gave him nothing that mattered.

He drove me back to the estate just after ten, his hand finding mine across the centre console, his thumb moving in slow circles against my knuckles the whole way without saying anything about it.

At the gate he turned to face me in the dark of the car and his free hand came up to my face, his fingers curling gently against my jaw.

"I want more than dinners, Nova." His voice dropped low. "I want you to actually let me in. All the way."

I looked at him in the dark of the car and kept everything I was thinking completely off my face.

"You are in." I held his gaze without blinking. "More than you know."

He kissed me slowly and I kissed him back and got out of the car and walked through the gate without looking back.

Elias was sitting on the bottom stair when I pushed the front door open, still in his work clothes, his elbows on his knees and his phone face down on the step beside him. He looked up the moment I came in and his eyes went straight to my face.

"Three times." I dropped my bag and sat down beside him on the stair, close enough that our shoulders touched. "He came back to the storage unit three times across the whole evening. Never directly. Always wrapped inside something that sounded like he was worried about me."

Elias turned toward me on the stair, his forearm resting on his knee. "Did he mention the box specifically?"

"No." I looked at my hands in my lap. "He asked if I had found anything that helped me understand her better. He asked if the unit was properly maintained. He asked if I planned to clear it out." I pressed my fingers together. "He is circling it because he still doesn't know exactly what is in there."

Elias was quiet for a moment, his jaw working slightly.

"He is getting desperate." He picked his phone up from the step beside him and turned it over in his hands. "Desperate enough to stop being careful."

"I know." I turned to look at him. "How close are we to the investigator meeting?"

He looked back at me and something shifted in his expression before he answered.

"The investigator called this afternoon." He held my gaze steadily. "He moved the meeting up. He wants us there tomorrow morning, first thing."

"Why?" I searched his face. "What changed?"

Elias pressed his lips together for just a moment.

"Because he has been watching Kane Tower independently for eight months." He kept his eyes on mine. "Three days ago something moved inside his investigation and he said we need to know about it before we take another step.”