“I believe her when she says she didn’t know what he was doing, stalking Nora. From what she’s said, it sounds like he hasn’t exactly been… clear-minded the last year.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” West says. “His company is spiraling toward bankruptcy because of his decisions, so he needed a scapegoat. It’s always easier to point the finger elsewhere.”
“When did you get so wise, huh?”
“I’ve always been wise. You just haven’t noticed,” he says with a grin. He’s been single for years, and now he’s suddenly in averycommitted relationship with my sister. They’re getting married in September.
“Is everything still good? With Nora?” I ask.
“Of course it is,” he says. “She’s still annoyed at me for not telling her beforeyour courthouse wedding.” He gives me a little shrug. “I told her right after.”
“I was the one who asked you to keep quiet.”
“You sure were, and you’re not doing that again, by the way. I never want to end up between two Montclairs again. Don’t make me choose.”
He walks ahead of me out on the stone dock with the lake’s waves softly lapping against it. The sun is close to setting. “But I’ll admit that I love it when she gets angry.”
I grimace. “Didn’t need to know that.”
“Not like that, you perv,” he says. “She’s getting better at standing up for herself. I like it.”
“Yeah. She is,” I say. She cussed us both out earlier. It’s a new dynamic in our relationship. For so many years, I’ve been the one taking care of her.
But she’s not a child anymore.
I like that my sister is finding her voice and becoming more herself. And I hate that I didn’t see her need for it before my best friend did. Now she’s angry at me for marrying Paige because she thinks Ideserve better than that. Better than a marriage of convenience.
It’s sweet. But it’s entirely false.
I don’t deserve better than that.
“I’ve heard you ask her if she’s happy, by the way. On the phone,” West says. “It’s mildly insulting that you still feel the need to ask her that every time you call.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “And you wouldn’t do the same for Amber?”
“When you put it that way…”
“I’ll keep asking,” I say.
He tilts his head. “So you and Paige help each other out with sunscreen, do you?”
“Shut up,” I tell him.
His smile widens. “You know I won’t.”
“It would be very easy to push you off this dock.”
“I’ll take you with me if I go down,” he says. “You know that.”
A boat approaches in the distance. It’s heading straighttoward us and sends cascading waves in its wake. My own boat, the dark wooden Riva boat my father loved so much, rocks beside the dock in the commotion.
“Rafe,” West says.
I glance at him again. “Yes.”
“She’s pretty. Objectively, you know.”
“Yes,” I admit. It would be an obvious lie if I didn’t. “Objectively speaking.”
