The beach. She’d walked to the beach. And she’d kissed Tristan. There was no forgetting that part. And she’d—
With a gasp she sat up, holding the edge of the bed to steady herself. She’d removed her shirt and tried to remove his, but he’d rejected her. Now,thatwas embarrassing. What was she supposed to say when she saw him again?
She was never drinking again, as long as she lived. And judging by the way she felt right at that moment she probably didn’t have long to live.
Squinting through her pounding headache she saw a glass of water on the table next to her bed, along with a couple of tablets and a note.
She picked up the note, pain lancing through her eyes as she read it.
Take the tablets and drink the water. Then get to work. And tell them the truth. Or I will.
Tristan, presumably. And presumably it was Tristan who had brought her back from the beach and removed her shoes before she’d collapsed on the bed.
Thoughtful of him to leave tablets and water.
She frowned at the note, the words swimming slightly. Truth about what? What was he talking about?
She picked up her phone and saw that she had five missed calls from her mother.
Her mother never rang her spontaneously. Why would she be calling? Especially when she knew the time difference.
There was a single voicemail and she pressed Play with a growing sense of foreboding.
Abby, I received your message. Please call me back when you’re sober.
Message? What message?Sober?How did her mother know she’d drunk too much? Did she have someone spying on Abby? Was someone working under-cover, watching her while she was under-cover? That was a lot of under-covers to keep track of.
A memory flickered to life in her brain. Her heart started to race. Her fingers were slippery with sweat.
The night before, had she called her mother? Yes, she had. How could she have forgotten that? And what had she said exactly?
The conversation dripped back into her aching head in horrifying fragments.
She’d spoken her mind. She’d told her mother she was going to tell the team the truth about who she was. And Tristan must have witnessed the entire conversation.
Which explained his note.
Get to work. Tell them the truth. Or I will.
He knew. He knew everything. Well, not everything, because she didn’t know everything (and she noticed that her mother still hadn’t answered any of the questions she’d asked), but he knew all the worst parts. He knew she’d been lying about who she was.
She sat there, shaking and drenched in panic.
What had she done?What had she done?
She’d been having the best time of her life, and now she had to walk in there and confess to all these people that she’d grown to like so much, and who had welcomed her so warmly, that she was a fake. That she’d been lying to them.
Her stomach rolled and she dragged herself off the bed, stumbled across the room trailing sand behind her and just made it to the bathroom in time.
13
Alexandra
It was past midnight in Boston and Alexandra was wide awake. She’d been working late and the desk in her study was covered in spreadsheets and reports, but she’d been unable to concentrate.
Instead, she’d been checking her phone as obsessively as a teenager. She kept checking it was switched on. That the volume was up. That she hadn’t missed any calls in the few minutes it had taken her to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen.
There had never been a time when Abby had failed to return one of her calls.
