His mouth tightened. "Seems to me that it's about the loss of love."
Of course it was. Was this another slap from her father beyond the grave? Violet examined the writing but didn't see anything bolded or out of the ordinary. She shook her head and folded the note, returning it to its envelope. "I'm not sure what I make of that."
"Perhaps it makes more sense with mine," Jonathan suggested, and ripped open one end of his envelope, removing his own slip of paper. He scanned it quickly, then made a sound in his throat.
"What?" Violet asked, scarcely breathing. "What does it say?"
Wordless, he held the paper out to her.
She plucked it from his hand and read it. There is a latch under my gravestone that opens a secret compartment. You'll find the answers you seek there.
Violet felt cold. Goose bumps rose on her arms. He was sending them back to his grave? His grave was in Detroit. At home. He'd sent them to England and New Mexico, and now Greece . . . all so she could go back home? "I don't understand."
"Violet," Jonathan said softly. He reached out and stroked her arm. "Are you all right?"
"I don't know," she answered. It was an honest response, too. She didn't know how she felt. Part of her was furiously angry, and part of her was disappointed. "He sent us all over the place just to have us turn around and go right back to Detroit? What was the point? Why not just send us there in the first place?"
"Maybe there was a message, a meaning of some kind, in each of the locations and the poems."
Her lip curled with anger. "Each poem basically sounded like it was berating me for being a bad daughter who ignored her dear old dad. If that's his message and I'm supposed to be shamed by it, he failed."
"It's all right," he soothed her, pulling her against him in a one-armed hug. "We'll figure it out once we go to his grave. The note says that all our answers are there."
She pulled away from Jonathan, shaking her head. "I don't want to go."
"What?"
"This is nothing but manipulation. All of this." She gestured at the letters "It's just another one of his stupid games. What are we going to find at the end of this? A copy of his favorite lecture? His favorite book?"
"I'm hoping to find my stele," Jonathan said quietly. "His notes would be a bonus, of course, but I want to take the stele back to the excavation in Cadiz."
She shook her head. After all this emotional turmoil between herself and Jonathan, after being dragged from country to country, only to find out that her father just wanted her to visit his grave? She felt manipulated by him once again. "I don't want to go."
Jonathan's voice was low, calm. "I'll be with you, Violet. It's fine. He can't hurt you any longer. We're together again. It's like the last ten years didn't happen."
It was like he'd slapped her across the face.
The last ten years didn't happen? Like hell they didn't. Violet's body went cold. Her heart felt like ice. "But the last ten years did happen. We can't change that."
"It's just a bad memory now."
She flinched. It wasn't just a bad memory for her. Fuck that. She'd been abandoned and devastated, and had lost everything. He'd mooned over her while living the high life. She'd rebuilt herself over again.
He might have spent the last ten years longing for her in-between archaeological expeditions and trips all over the world, but she'd been through hell. She'd been through hell . . . and come out the other side a stronger, more independent person. She knew the difference between love, lust, and need.
And she wasn't about to forget the last ten years simply because she was lusting after Jonathan right now.
Ten years ago, Violet DeWitt had needed Jonathan Lyons and he'd abandoned her. The twenty-nine-year-old Violet DeWitt didn't need anyone.
And even after ten years, Jonathan Lyons still didn't understand her.
Calmly, Violet refolded the letter and placed it in its envelope, and held it out to Jonathan to take. "Just because you don't want to think about the last ten years doesn't mean that they didn't happen. They aren't a mistake you can erase. You can't pretend they don't exist. It happened, and we need to learn from it."
Even as she said the words, she felt a twinge of remorse. Ten years ago, being in Jonathan's bed had gotten her pregnant and abandoned. Now it seemed she was making the same mistakes all over again.
"Violet, that's not what I meant-" He reached for her.
She drew away, getting to her feet. "I need to think, Jonathan."
He got to his feet as well, following her as she headed for the door. "Where are you going?"
"Back to my room."