She Owns The Devil ✔️

_Chapter Thirty-two_

Uneasiness slipped through him as he went downstairs and pushed open the door to Van's room. The furniture was exactly as he remembered—with the exception of the bed. Someone had stripped off the sheets and left the blankets neatly folded. The closet was empty, as were the drawers. She was gone.
He raced down to the main floor, where he found Sloane packing up the notes from the dining room.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Leaving." She didn't bother to look at him.

"All of you?"

She nodded. "We'll finish the work elsewhere."

Work? He didn't care about the work. He cared about Van. "Where is she? She can't leave. She has to stay the month."

He'd known that from the beginning. That she was stuck here too. Just like him. They couldn't escape each other. Hadn't that been the point?

Sloane looked at him. "She doesn't have to stay here. That was just something she told you. Emmett's donation has nothing to do with her. It was always about his friends."

She'd lied about having to stay? Why? So he wouldn't force her to leave? To make him think he had time?

"Where is she?" he asked again.

"I'm not going to tell you. If she wants you to know, she'll get in touch with you herself."

He didn't understand any of this. Why had Van been here in the first place? What had she wanted? Why leave now?

"Is it Justice?" he asked. "Is she upset because I told her what he was?"

Sloane's expression was almost pitying. "It's a guy thing, right? This failure to comprehend the most basic of human emotions? It has to be. I can't believe you're honestly that stupid." She smiled, then shook her head. "It always comes down to smart and stupid. How strange."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," she told him. "Van came here because she thought she wanted closure. She got it, in a way. She's been in love with you all these years. But the man wasn't really you. He was someone better. The person she thought you would be. Van embraces life. She loves and is loved. She cares about people. She thought you were all those things, too. But she was wrong. And now she's gone."

Van loved him? She couldn't. Not after what he'd done. Not after he'd let her down time after time.

"She can't," he whispered.

"That's what I keep telling her, but does she listen?" Sloane closed the box. "I'm done here. Derrick and I will be gone within the hour. Then you can have the house to yourself. You've got a few weeks left, right? I hope you enjoy your time here."

She started to leave. He grabbed her arm. "You can't leave it like that. There has to be more."

"Why? You don't want there to be more. It's not like you really care about her. She's just Emmett's little sister, right? An annoying responsibility. Your problem is you didn't know what you had until you lost it, and now she's gone for good. Goodbye, Adam."

He released her and let her go because there was nothing left to say.

Fine. He could be fine his last few weeks here. It was just three weeks and then he'd go back to Texas and bury himself in his work. He would stay busy and he would forget. He was good at forgetting.

***
Three Days Later

Adam knew he was damn close to slipping into madness. The house was empty. Too empty.
The silence mocked him. Worse, he found himself missing Van's nerd friends.

He missed the arguments about string theory and the scraps of paper with equations that had dotted every surface. He missed walking into a room and not understanding a word of what was being said despite the fact that everyone was speaking English.

He missed the closeness, the way Van bullied everyone to get outside, to live life. He missed her insisting on a better telescope because the stars were so beautiful.
He missed the sound of her voice, her laughter, the way her body moved. He missed her quirky sense of humor, her brilliance and how her smile could light up a room.

He missed her.

She wasn't the teenager he'd known all those years ago. The young woman who had intrigued him and at the same time scared the hell out of him. Not just because she was Emmett's sister but because there was a quality about her that warned him she would expect only the best of herself and those in her world.

For a while he'd thought maybe he could live up to those expectations, but then Emmett had gotten sick and he'd known he would only hold her back.
He'd let her go for a thousand reasons that made sense at the same time. She didn't need him. She had to grow up on her own. She was better off without him. He was afraid. They'd both been so young and his feelings for Van had been confused. So he'd walked away and stayed away.
He'd kept tabs on her from a distance. He'd taken the coward's way out.