Chapter 17
17
“S hhh,” Sadie mumbled. People were yammering somewhere nearby, and they needed to stop so she could keep enjoying this glorious nap. Wait, where was she? She opened her eyes, and the crocheted rim of the umbrella instantly oriented her. She sat up and blinked, looking around. Their cozy beach spot seemed the same, except that Grant had vanished. Where was he ?
A small group of people, maybe five or six, stood at the raised lip of sand where the beach angled down to the water. Something or someone lay on the sand there, and onlookers busily snapped photos. A shark? A seal?
Fully awake now, she scrunched her eyes as she focused her vision between the people’s legs, trying to make out the cause of the commotion. Were two people on the sand? Wait…was one of them Grant?
After another second of staring, certainty settled into her. It was Grant, and he was stretched out on the sand next to a woman. Sadie couldn’t see who she was, but she could see Grant’s muscled shoulders leaned over her, see the top of his sandy head, see his arms pressing into the sand on either side of her. By the closeness of their bodies, they had to be kissing—and deeply.
Sadie’s heart took a few extra, wonky beats as her breath caught. Who was Grant kissing? The woman’s hair looked fairly blonde and maybe curly. Of course, curly blonde hair is straighter and darker when weighed down by heavy seawater. The only other detail she could make out with certainty from this distance were blood red, long fingernails. The memory of a red-tipped finger tapping an extra-clean water glass cemented Sadie’s suspicions.
Julia.
A dank pit opened up inside Sadie. Her vision blurred and she began to shake. A stinging started behind her eyes for which she had no explanation. She didn’t own Grant. She knew Grant and Julia were a thing. Julia loved him, and he loved Julia. Julia showing up this way to interrupt fake date number three was odd, but not that odd. Her diva reputation—including emotional swings and jealously—made up a good part of her personal brand. Julia obviously knew exactly where they’d be, because she’d arranged the location.
It all made sense, but still—and for reasons Sadie had no time to try to decipher—she had to get away from that place. Immediately. She groped for her towel and sandals, but the sandals were wonky and difficult to put on. She gave up and decided to carry them in her hand. Better to burn the soles of her feet than stay there one more second watching that .
The crowd around the pair still clicked away with their phone cameras. Was this the moment she was supposed to stomp off in a huff? If so, she didn’t have the stomach for it. Standing up, she spotted the gray frog hat she’d half buried in sand. She snatched it up, shook out the sand, and smashed it onto her head, pulling the brim low and tucking her hair inside the way Monique had shown her. Not only would it keep her from seeing one more millisecond of that kiss, but it might keep the photographers from recognizing her as she walked—no, ran—to her waiting car.