“First, we need to reach a truce,” she said carefully. “We can’t try again if things are going to be like they were before. You’d need to agree to anger management counseling or some sessions with a psychotherapist. Preferably both.”
“I see.” Martyn took a long draw of his beer.
“We’d also have to start being honest with each other.” Skye’s foot began to tap underneath the table. “About everything.”
Martyn leaned closer, his head tilting to one side.
“The thing is,” she said. “I started lying to you because I was scared of how you’d react.”
A yawn broke through and he let it. Skye ground her teeth.
“I had a reason to lie,” she continued. “A valid reason. But why did you?”
Martyn ran a hand over his stubble.
“Why did I what?” he asked in a bored-sounding voice.
“Lie,” Skye pressed, her own tone neutral. “The whole thing with Beatrice, your imaginary sister.”
When he didn’t immediately reply, a twinge of unease passed through her. Had she pushed him too far? But then Martyn’s shoulders drooped, and he hung his head.
“I don’t know why I made her up,” he said, not looking at her. “I didn’t plan to, I just…I could sense that you weren’t all that interested in me, and I suppose I thought it would give us something in common. A foundation we could build on.”
The galling thing, of course, was that it had.
“Well, I had made grief my entire personality,” Skye said, and it felt strangely good to admit it. She hadn’t judged herself for it then, and she didn’t now. But naming it helped. She’d wallowed, let the sadness rise around her like water, and done nothing but float until it finally began to recede.
A faint smirk tugged at Martyn’s mouth. Whatever softness she’d glimpsed in him moments earlier was gone, replaced by something harder, more acerbic.
“You tricked me with that story about Beatrice,” she went on. “I thought your anger and aggression came from loss, but if that’s not the case, then where does it come from?”
“Maybe you bring it out in me,” he suggested.
The beer bottle was empty. Martyn picked at the label, dropping slivers of the goat’s face onto the tabletop.
“I think,” she said, sliding her still-full glass closer to him, “it might be a simple case of guilt.”
Martyn scoffed, though he did not get time to reply. A woman was striding purposefully toward their table, a man a few paces behind her.
“Martyn Lockhart,” Victoria exclaimed with a swish of her ponytail. She had put on an expensive-looking kaftan and designer sunglasses, while Adam had swapped his shorts and flip-flops for chinos and boat shoes. Neither paid Skye the slightest bit of attention.
“Do I know you?” Martyn asked in the oiled tone of a man well accustomed to turning on the charm.
“You were our pilot,” Victoria gushed. “Took us from the city out to the Hamptons. Must have been the summer of 2019, before the world went damn crazy. I knew I recognized you.”
“Of course,” he lied seamlessly, grinning from one ear to the other. “I remember your faces, of course.”
“And I remember yours,” Victoria simpered. “I said to my husband at the time, ‘What is it about pilots that make them so darn attractive?’ ”
“She did say that,” Adam agreed heartily. “If I wasn’t so rich, Marty old boy, I’d have been extremely envious.”
He had adopted a clipped aristocratic diction for the role and was clearly enjoying himself.
Martyn’s fixed smile failed to hide his wince.
Victoria put her bag on the table and made a show of fanning her face with her hands.
“That was the same summer we lost your late mum’s pearls—do you remember?” she said to Adam, who nodded gravely. “It was the oddest thing. We put them in with our luggage, and then when we got back to Park Avenue, they were gone, vanished from the box. I always assumed someone at the depot had stolen them.”
