“Did we move here so you could hide out?” I demand. The memory of Beau suggesting we could stay in Florida comes rushing back, and this time it’s tinged with something bruised. “You acted like it was for me, but really, this was for you?”
Maybe my first impression of him was the right one. Maybe he is a poison pill. One of those electrical storms that takes down a whole grid. I stepped into his atmosphere and lost my fucking mind.
Because how else did I miss this?
“Este.” His voice is low and careful. “I didn’t hack Redwood.”
“I don’t even know what that means, Beau!” I scream.
He flinches at the sound of my voice. “I love you more than all of this, Este.” His voice is barely a whisper. “But I need a few more days to make things right.”
“Makewhatright? You can’t un-bankrupt a company, Beau. You can’t un-fuck my career. Unless what you’re working on is a time machine? Some kind of magical wormhole into the past. Is that what you’re doing?” I throw up my hands, angry and barely able to look at him. “Actually, don’t tell me. Turns out I’m pretty comfortable in the dark.”
Beau’s mouth opens like he might speak, but I can’t take another half truth. Not one more word meant to pacify me.
My hand closes around my keys, the metal biting into my palm. “I can’t do this.”
As soon as I say it, I want to be gone. Want to put a quiet room or maybe an entire continent between us.
“All this time I thought I was hiding from Simon. From some mistake I missed.”
“I didn’t—”
“But it wasyou.You’re the reason my old life fell apart. You’re the glitch I couldn’t find.”
“Este—” My name sounds sharp and desperate on his lips.
“Did you kill her?” I say, and the words slice at something between us. My stomach aches, and I wonder if this is what the beginning of the end of us looks like.
Or did the beginning of the end happen years ago? Have we been on a crash course toward this moment since that day in Simon’s conference room?
Beau takes a step back as if I’d thrown a punch.
“If you lied to me about this, how do I believe anything you’re saying? If she could prove the hack, that would be motive. Last time I checked, hacking a company like that would be subject to criminal prosecution.”
“Este, this isn’t—That’s not—” I can’t tell if he’s trying to mount a defense or reaching for some new lie.
I spin on him, tears streaking down my cheeks. “Don’t. Don’t say my name like it absolves you. Like it makes this anything less than a betrayal.”
His hands flex at his sides. But he doesn’t move toward me. And that, more than his secrets, breaks something deep inside me—that he would let me go.
“I’ll be at Nora’s,” I murmur. The words tremble, but my spine is steel.
The silence between us is thick and merciless.
Then I turn. “Call me when you want to say something true.”
I slam the door behind me, and the midafternoon heat swallows me whole.
Chapter 27
Five Years Ago, Winter Park
“What do you think?” Beau asked when he appeared in my semipermanent residence—a cabana at the Ritz-Carlton with a view of the golf course.
He handed me an iPad with a real estate listing already pulledup.
“Isle of Sicily?” I pushed my sunglasses into my hair. “Sounds like it should come with a drawbridge. It can’t possibly live up to the promise of its name.”
