CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning, I lay in the guest room staring at the ceiling. My laptop sat on the bed next to me, warm from hours of use. It was the first night I slept in the guest room, supposing you could call drifting in and out of a light doze every twenty minutes sleeping. Each time I closed my eyes, everything I learned pummeled me, coming at me like a hurricane from all four sides.
Finding out the details of Cristiano’s past was easier than I thought it would be. Really, I was surprised I didn’t put it all together sooner. All it took was breaking into a filing cabinet and some lengthy digging on the internet. What I’d unearthed made a lot of sense, given the information a young Cristiano provided at the orphanage.
And if what I suspected was true... Cristiano’s real name was Aydan Erul, and he’d been born the son of a Cyprus politician. The date Aydan’s father was assassinated by unknown terrorists fell two months before the date Cristiano got dropped off at Hampton Road. According to articles from that year, Andreas Erul’s wife and four-year-old son disappeared two days after his murder. Add this to Cristiano’s testimony about living on a big island and having to sneak away in the middle of the night, and it all just made too much sense for me to ignore.
I rubbed my tired eyes and sat up. At the corner of the bed, my cell phone glimmered in the morning sun, daring me to lift it up and make the call.
I picked up the phone and slowly scrolled through my contacts. Before hitting the call button, I hesitated... then dropped the phone.
“No,” I said out loud.
There was a list of things I needed to do and in a particular order. First I needed to tell Cristiano what I’d discovered, and I needed to do it in person. Then I needed to lure whoever was following me in.
The second part of my plan made me gulp, but I knew I had to do it. Knowing I was being followed made me terrified but realizing Cristiano might be the real target made me furious. It felt more personal in a way, to have someone I had come to care for so passionately and desperately targeted than to have myself targeted.
I didn’t know much about Mediterranean politics, but I knew how the whole power game went. If Cristiano really was Aydan Erul, then there could still be people out there looking for him. People who wanted to use him for their own political means. One of the easiest things to put together on Google was the Erul family tree. There were several known branches of it, including a few wealthy members living in and around Cyprus and Turkey. Certainly, such a family held some kind of political and social sway. The list of reasons people might want Cristiano went on and on.
I ran my hands up through my hair line and sighed. What I didn’t get was why the mystery stalker hadn’t yet made some kind of move. And why were they following me?
A noise sounded near the front of the apartment. My head whipped in the direction of the front door, and I sat up straighter.
“Blaire?” came Cristiano’s voice.
My shoulders relaxed. Of course, it was Cristiano. I’d been keeping the door locked, and the noises coming from it weren’t those of someone attempting to break a deadbolt. I was just on pins and needles, not only shaken from everything happening but sleep deprived as well.
“I’m in here,” I called, getting off the bed.
We met in the living room. There were slight bags under Cristiano’s eyes, but everything else about him looked as good as it always did. He set his briefcase down against the side of a couch and came towards me.
“Hi.” His husky tones wafted over me, wrapping me up and pulling me close two seconds before his arms did.
“Hi,” I whispered back.
He stepped back to look at me. “You look...”
“Tired, I know. You can say it.”
“You haven’t been sleeping well?”
I avoided his eyes. “Not, uh, not last night... no.”
His face became steely. “Did you see that car again?”
“No, but some other things have happened. And I have a feeling the craziness isn’t over with.”
Cristiano cocked his head. “Blaire? What are you talking about?”
“Can we sit down?” I asked, half because it seemed like the appropriate thing to do when dropping some heavy news, and half because I felt exhausted.
Cristiano put his hand on my arm and led me over to the couch, where we sat down and angled our bodies towards each other.
I took a long inhale. “I don’t know quite how to start this story... but here goes. I found out some information about your past, and I’m wondering if maybe the man following me is connected to it all.”
“Okay,” he slowly said.
“At the orphanage, there are some notes... in your file. Things you said... clues you provided about your life before you came to the orphanage.”
“You saw my file?”
“Yes,” I answered, steeling myself for rage. He didn’t show any though. Instead, he just looked passive and slightly confused.
“I’ve never heard anything about this.”
“You’ve seen your file?”
He hesitated. “No... no, I haven’t. But I’ve asked Teresa a thousand times to tell me anything she knew.”
My chest burned. So this was why Teresa seemed closed off in the kitchen.
“Maybe she wanted to protect you,” I whispered.
Cristiano scoffed. “Protect me from what?”
My throat seemed to be closing up, but I continued anyway. “From the same thing I found out. If I was able to connect the dots so easily, she might have done the same thing.”
“Found out what?”
“About who you are.” I shifted my weight forward and took his hands in mine. “Cristiano, I think you were born in Cyprus, and you were the son of a politician there, Andreas Erul. The clues and the dates match up. He was... he was assassinated, and then his wife and son vanished. I think that was you.”
Cristiano stared at me, his expression blank. A few seconds ticked by. When he didn’t speak, a shiver ran down the length of my back.
“Blaire,” he finally said, his voice heavy. He tucked his chin and looked directly into my eyes. “I can tell you haven’t been sleeping well, and you’re still recovering from what happened—”
“You don’t believe me?”
He licked his lips. “Um...”
I pursed my lips in exasperation, frustration rippling through me. “It’s true!”
Don’t shout, I reminded myself. If you get too emotional, it’ll just make it easier for him to write you off.
“Blaire.”
I took a shaky breath. I could feel my chin quivering, but I kept the tears back, determined to stay strong and get through to him. “They’re coming for you. Whoever these people are, I think they’re coming for you.”
He sat up straighter, his whole body taking on a defensive air. “Then how come no one has been following me?”
“Maybe they have been, but you just haven’t noticed.”
His eyes squinted slightly. “There are security cameras all around this building, inside and out. The staff here is some of the best in the city. Someone would have noticed if anyone was sneaking around.”
I shook my head. “This city is big.”
He sighed, just as exhausted with the whole conversation as me.
“Cristiano,” I said. “You really don’t believe me, do you? You don’t think you came from Cyprus?”
His lips parted, but he didn’t say anything.
“It’s not that far-fetched,” I argued.
“It kind of is, actually.”
Anger burst in me, a hot, feverish bubble. I stood up. “This is your life! I thought you cared about finding your mother. I thought you wanted to know where you were from.”
“I do,” he responded, his tone taking on its own cutting edge. “But this hardly sounds like—”
“I can’t believe this!” I interrupted, grabbing the roots of my hair in frustration.
He rested his hands on my shoulders. I almost shrugged them off, but I stopped. Enough of the world was against us. I couldn’t drive a wedge between me and the man I was trying to protect.
“Cristiano,” I whispered, “Please be careful. Isn’t there something you can do? A bodyguard you can get or something?”
The corners of his mouth lifted the tiniest bit. “Would that make you feel better?”
“Yes,” I said, half sure that if anyone wanted him dead, no bodyguard could stop that from happening. But at least his chances of getting kidnapped would be lessened.
A sadness rested on his face. He thinks I’m going crazy, I realized. Or maybe he thinks this is just my normal state, and I’ve been doing a good job of hiding it the last couple weeks.
“I can prove it to you,” I blurted out.
I bit down on my tongue, knowing I’d made a mistake. I was acting rashly, saying things I shouldn’t be.
His dark lashes fluttered. “What?”
I gulped. “I mean, we could find out... somehow.”
Cristiano stared at me for a long, hard time, and I felt it. The first moment where he really questioned who I was, how honest I was.
I’d always known that moment would come, but feeling it right then, having it punch me in the gut, sucked hardcore.
I searched for an escape. “I, um... I have plans with Evie. I should be going.”
A bit of life came back to his features. “Are you sure? You look so tired.”
“I’ll take a nap when I get back. Or when I go home later.”
“You don’t need to go home, Blaire. I still think it’s best if you stay here. At least until the security system gets installed in your place.”
I hadn’t meant to suggest I was leaving for good. “Thanks,” I nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”
I wrapped my arms around him and pushed my face into the top of his chest. One of his hands rested on the top of my head, and the other pushed between my shoulder blades. So fast. It had all happened so fast. One day he was just some enigmatic and chivalrous man that piqued my interest... and the next day he was my everything.
I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t lose him. And I would do whatever it took to protect him.