“Grant, her father is on the board of directors. He’s here on the yacht right now talkingwithLandon. They’re joking aroundand having a grand old time. There’s no way her dad knows they have something going on.”
“Well, that’s fucking crazy, isn’t it? What are the chances there’s another Landon?” I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head through the phone.
“We won’t figure this out right now,” I said when I saw Colin walking my way.
“No. I guess not. Call me if you find out anything,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” I quickly replied. “I’ve got to go. See you Monday.”
I didn’t wait for his goodbye, but pressed the red button on the screen and threw the phone back in my purse, smiling at Colin.
“Who were you talking to?” he asked when he reached my side.
“It was Grant,” I said. I was avoiding going into the details of the conversation, but bringing Colin into the loop seemed essential to figuring out what was going on. I was considering telling him about everything Grant and I had been investigating, but Colin’s demeanor changed when I mentioned Grant’s name.
“You guys are pretty close if you’re talking on the phone on a Saturday morning,” he said. His sudden stiffness had me changing my mind about discussing anything Maggie-related.
“We’re work friends,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t say that Grant was romantically interested in me again. I hated the way saying Grant’s name shifted something in Colin. “He was calling to tell me about something that happened in our department yesterday.”
It was the truth, but he narrowed his eyes slightly. I was about to start defending myself, possibly even break down and tell him everything rather than have him think I had anything at all going on with Grant.
Colin pulled his phone out of his pocket. The sun was bright overhead, but I was still able to make out the name on the screen.
It was as if it were in slow motion—me recognizing the name on the screen, my head automatically turning to find Landon and Martin still chatting, and my head swiveling up to witness Colin and his deer-in-headlights expression.
If Martin Flame was right there, then why the fuck did Colin’s phone show that M Flame was calling?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Every sweet thing he’d said a few minutes earlier, everything we’d done the night before—all following a big, fat lie!
Oh, God!My chest was being ripped apart.How could I have been so stupid? So easy? So willing to trust him?
“Kate,” Colin said, holding my arm with one hand and putting his phone back in his pocket with the other. I untangled myself from his arm as he repeated my name several times. I walked over to the other side of the boat, shoving Colin and Maggie out of my mind so that I wouldn’t completely unravel in front of everyone.
Pam engaged me in conversation, which (as was to be expected) didn’t end until we were safely back and docked by the house. I didn’t look at Colin for the rest of the excursion, and I got off the boat and walked back to the house without looking back to check if he was behind me.
When I got back to the room, I locked myself in the bathroom, finally allowing myself to buckle under the weight of it all.
Nothing was clear and everything was more muddled than ever, but knowing he’d lied to me more than once about who’dbeen calling him hurt so much that I knew without a doubt I’d never see him again. Andthathurt even more.
Whyhad he lied?
I hadn’t given him a chance to explain yet, but honestly, what explanation was there? It couldn’t be somethinggood, right? There was no coming back from a lie. To think he’d been so upset about his previous relationship and Andrea’s lies, and yet here he was being the one doing the lying.
“Kate,” came his voice from the other side of the bathroom door. I was sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub, and I turned on the water, filling the tub and then turning on the jets so that the continuous noise drowned out any justifications he might have wanted to communicate.
I soaked in the tub, closing my eyes and trying to take the deep breaths that they say are supposed to calm your nervous system. But my system must have been in overdrive because every breath just brought on a new idea.
Maybe they had dated, and something bad had happened between them. Maybe he threatened her with losing her job in exchange for something. Maybe he was using her to get back at his brother over the crashed kayak.
It could be anything, I supposed. But the only way to find out what was really going on was to hear it from him directly.And that’s if he’d tell the truth this time.
After I finished my soak, I wrapped a towel around me and opened the door. Colin bolted up from the bed and put up both hands, as if in surrender.
“Please listen to what I have to say,” he said, bringing his hands together in front of him as if in prayer. He looked at me from my bare toes to my sopping wet hair. I held my towel firmly in place.
This was the only way to find out what was really going on, I told myself.
