“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Sloane whispered.
He lowered his coffee cup. “Not sure what you mean.”
“I’m your twin sister, Jules. And, yes, I’ve been absorbed with my new business and my own problems for the past year or more, but you’ve been absorbed, too—and happy, as far as what you’ve told me. But something’s wrong. I can always tell. At first, I chalked it up to jet lag, but now...”
“It’s nothing,” he insisted.
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t bothering anyone by talking, but they were far enough away from the group and the performers that no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.
“Bullshit,” she said, turning back. “You volunteered to help Mom and Dad through two minor surgeries.”
“So? I’m a nice guy,” he said with a grin.
She couldn’t argue with that. But that grin didn’t reach his eyes. It’d been manufactured for her benefit. “True, but normally it would be me.”
He put his cup in his other hand. “Consider yourself lucky, then.”
“The problem is that you don’t seem to be in any rush to get back to your job. Have you grown bored with it?”
“No, I love my job.”
That was what she’d thought. “So... is it the gallery? Was it a mistake to take that on? Tell me, Jules. If you need money, I’ll come up with it somehow—help you get a loan, sell anything I own. Don’t box me out.”
“I love you, too,” he said, “but I’m not ready to talk about it.”
Her stomach plummeted. Therewassomething wrong. “But... it’s nothing serious, right?” she said imploringly. “There’s some stupid woman who’s broken your heart or something like that. You’ll get over it in time, right?”
“It’s nothing serious,” he echoed, but something about his words didn’t ring true. Maybe it was that he was staring out at the sea instead of meeting her gaze and really trying to convince her.
The panic inside her notched a bit higher. “Then why won’t you tell me?”
“Because I need time to deal with it on my own.”
She looped her arm through his. They’d both been busy leading their separate lives over the past several years, but he was her rock, her foundation. Nothing could happen to him or her whole world would fall apart. It’d been the two of them—always on the same side—since the womb.
“Whatever it is, we’ll take it on together,” she whispered fiercely.
A sad smile curved his lips. “I appreciate that, but this is one battle I’m going to have to fight alone.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re scaring me. It’s not cancer, is it?”
“No, it’s not cancer.”
“Something just as bad?” She searched his face for some indication of just how worried she should be.
His jaw tightened. “Stop,” he snapped, and that was probably the most terrifying thing of all because there was nothingplayful about it, and he was almost always playful. “I need more time.”
She gripped his arm tighter. “Okay, I’ll back off. But—”
“No, you won’t back off. I shouldn’t have said anything,” he broke in and pulled away from her to stride over to where he’d been sitting before, close to Lilly, who’d been watching them as if they’d disappear if she so much as blinked. No doubt she could read the tension in their bodies and was so used to the adults around her not being completely reliable that what she saw alarmed her.
“Everything’s okay,” Sloane murmured as she returned to her seat and patted the girl’s knee, and Lilly was so busy watching them for any telltale sign that everythingwasn’tokay that she didn’t even bother to slide out of reach.
Ben was just leaving work when his phone went off. Surprised to see that it was from his wife—it was one in the morning on the Amalfi Coast—he answered on Bluetooth as he backed out of his space. “Hey, you’re still up?” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” she replied.
“The time change is brutal.”
