The only reason he’d agreed to leave the villa at all was Isabella. She’d made him feel tremendously guilty for the day he’d spent moping, and he didn’t dare invoke her ire further. She wielded shame with the prowess of a nona twice her age.
“I swim quite well, actually. What makes you say that?”
“I haven’t seen you go into the water once.”
“I’m biding my time.”
“For what? Checkout?”
“Maybe.”
Isabella pulled the book from his hands and scooted him over, joining him on the lounge overlooking the blindingly beautiful water.
“Is everything okay with you guys?”
Heath’s stomach rippled like the water lapping the shore.Maybe he should go swimming. Or better yet, snorkeling. You couldn’t talk about fake husbands if your face was in the water.
He put on an exaggerated smile and crowed, “What? Everything’s fine!”
“Heath.”
“Izzy.”
She frowned. “Only my friends get to call me that.”
“We’re not friends?”
“Friends don’t lie to each other.”
Was that ever a dagger to the heart.
“I’m not—” Her perfectly arched eyebrows commiserated with her frown, and Heath immediately buckled. “It’s not what you think.”
“And what is it I think?”
“That we… that he…” He let his head drop back against the cushion with a huff. “I don’t actually know.”
She gave his knee a gentle pat. “I think you look veryunrelaxed for a man on his honeymoon. Evan is clearly a handful, but is that all he is?”
Heath stared up at the swaying palms and thought of all the words he’d used to describe Westin since they’d met. The collection made him cringe.
You knownothingabout me!
It was true. Every aspect of Westin’s personality was a construct of his own design, a fabrication based on secondhand observation and bias. He’d taken one look and lumped him in with every man of means he’d ever met. Then put zero effort into disabusing himself of the opinion.
“I gave my students an assignment over the break. It felt timely, given the world we live in now.”
If she thought it a non sequitur, she didn’t complain.
“What assignment?”
“The Crucible.”
Her eyes sparked with a smile. “Oh, that’s a good one. Very timely indeed. Now, I wonder why you’re bringing that up.”
Heath chuckled as she pursed her lips and tapped a finger against her chin. It was ironic, really. He’d picked the 1950s play intending to show his students that accusations and dogpiling were hardly something invented by the internet. That it was very easy to be swept up in hysteria by bad actors out of fear of standing out and being targeted yourself. Or because you couldn’t admit when you were wrong. Yet there he was, letting his terrible experiences color his opinion of anyone he decided belonged in the same group.
If there was anything he hated more than pedantry, it was hypocrisy.
