Chapter 29
Sarah
Miami was supposed to be a break from Key West. From the hotel she couldn’t enter, the apartment that felt too empty, the constant buzz of her phone with another story, another lie, another piece of her life dissected in print.
It wasn’t working.
She pushed pasta around her plate while Carlos and Esmeralda talked about the hotel. Stavros had stepped in, gotten everyone’s hours restored. But the board remained hostile. They were still trying to turn the national board against her.
“Jonathan’s lawyers requested another deposition.” Sarah set down her fork. “Next week.”
Esme looked up. “What are they after?”
“My entire history with Billy. How we met. When I told him I was gay. Every conversation we ever had about the trust.” Sarah reached for her wine glass. “They want to prove I manipulated him. That the whole marriage was a con.”
“It wasn’t,” Carlos said.
“I know. You know. But a jury?” Sarah drank. “They’ll see a young maid who married an old millionaire and walked away with everything when he died.”
Her phone buzzed against the table. Another article. This one about her mother, painting Sarah as the heartless daughter who’d abandoned her struggling family.
She’d tried calling her mother last week. Just to ask if she’d really gone to the newspaper, if she’d really sold the story. Her mother hadn’t answered. Why would she? She’d gotten paid twice now. Once by Sarah, once by the Gazette.
Sarah flipped the phone face down.
Carlos’s phone lit up. He glanced at it, then looked again.
“We need to go back to the hotel.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me.” He was already standing, wallet out.
“Carlos—”
“Please. It’s important.”
They drove back in silence. Sarah watched Miami pass by the window. The hotel was one of the smaller Barnes properties downtown. She’d stayed here years ago with Billy when they were scouting locations. Back when her life made sense.
Carlos pulled up to the entrance. “Go inside.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just go.”
Sarah climbed out. Walked through the glass doors into the lobby.
Lizzie sat on one of the sofas near the windows. A thick folder rested on her lap. She looked nervous and determined and so familiar that Sarah’s forgot to breath for a second.
She turned back toward the door.
Carlos blocked her path. “You need to listen to her.”
“I can’t—”
“Listen to her,” Esmeralda said from behind him. “Please.”
Then they were gone. Back to the car. Leaving Sarah alone in the lobby with Lizzie ten feet away.
