Although I didn’t mind it as much as I should have because I had the strangest sensation that someone was watching me as we’d gotten out of the car. The back of my neck prickled, and a jitter ran down my spine.

But I was being paranoid. Nobody was there.

And now the driver would be able to report back on my living situation to Ronan. It was the kind of intel my brother’s enemy would no doubt love to have.

Willow Lennox, reduced to living in the kind of apartment her father would have hated to see her in.

Not that there was anything wrong with it. In fact, I was proud to pay for it using my own hard-earned money. But it had nothing on the penthouse where we’d lived when Dad had been alive. Unfortunately, Tom had gotten his hands on my trust fund after Dad had passed, and while I’d had enough left to get through college, there wasn’t anything remaining for a better home.

“I was instructed to see you safely inside, and that means all the way to your apartment.” The driver puffed as we ascended the stairs. My place was on the third floor, and while there was an elevator, I usually took the stairs because it made me feel less guilty about not having a gym membership.

“Nobody is going to mug me in here,” I assured him as we strode up the corridor. I stopped outside my apartment and withdrew a key from my purse. “I’m here safely.”

He gave me a look that said he wouldn’t leave until I was shut inside. Despite myself, I admired the man’s dedication to doing exactly as his boss had ordered. Loyalty could be a rare commodity.

I let myself in and locked the apartment door behind me, relieved to escape that sense of being watched.

“Willow!” Sage appeared from her bedroom, her hip-length chestnut-brown hair swaying as she hurried over to scoop me into an embrace. “I’ve been sending you positive energy through meditation. How did it go?”

I sat with her on the sofa and told her everything, starting with my attempt to find what I needed in Ronan’s desk and ending with his driver escorting me home.

“He was different from how I remember him,” I told her. “He pretty much admitted what he has planned and didn’t seem to care at all about the damage it might do. He made me so angry.”

“It’s been years,” she reminded me. “People change. Especially when they’ve gone through as much as he has.”

“Still.” I shivered. “It’s hard to process that the man I spent years half in love with is the one who’s trying to tear my family legacy apart.” I buried my face in my palms. “What am I going to do?”

Her hand smoothed up and down my back. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he took over,” she said gently. “You could pursue your art full time.”