Chapter 25
SYDNEY
My first instinct is to take off after Kendall and kick the shit out of her. Then force her to tell me what she meant when she said that Cy was going to be sorry.
Is she Scarlett?
The red nail polish, and now that I think about it, the red dresses. She’s worn red to almost every activity. Red. Scarlett. Not a far stretch.
Don’t forget the tattoo.
Kendall has made plenty of snarky comments over the last two weeks. Since Cy carried me into the lodge after we’d been gone for the night, I’ve been the recipient of death glares every time I leave my room.
But Kendall’s temper tonight was next level.
I really just thought she was a party girl.
Is that why I haven’t seriously considered that she could be Scarlett?
Josie sucks in a happy breath. “Isn’t it exciting?” she asks, squeezing my arm.
“I’m sorry.” I blink away my racing thoughts. “What?”
Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline and she studies me like I have a third eye.
“Cy’s announcement. We’re going to Texas to meet his family.” She says the words slowly as if she’s repeating instructions to one of her students.
“Oh.”
Oh shit.
I’m going to meet Cy’s family. I’ve never met a love interest’s family before. Hell, I’ve never been in a relationship before. And this isn’t exactly a real one.
Even if the feelings are growing more real by the day.
As freaked out as I am, I can’t help but be excited too. Texas is surely warmer than Big Bear, and I’ll get to learn more about Cy, about where he’s from.
That excitement is tinged with dread, no matter what I do. Because I’m still keeping things from him. I’m going to meet his family, yet he doesn’t even know the real me.
And if things go sideways, I’ll be states away from Sawyer and Cole.
Oh, and then there are the three other women he’s dating. Who are also meeting the family.
Fuck, the mess of nerves, guilt, and excitement knots my stomach, making it roll.
“You don’t seem very excited,” Josie says.
Fuck.
My mask has slipped too far. Quickly, I try yank it—and a smile—back into place.
“Sorry. My ankle.” Grimacing, I point to my feet. “These shoes aren’t great on my feet right now.”
I kick them off, and I don’t have to fake the sound of relief that escapes me.
“Oh, I bet. Poor thing. I sprained my ankle last spring. Hobbling around my classroom was almost impossible, and I wasn’t wearing heels. Yet here you are, and it’s been what, four days?”
I nod, wincing slightly.
“Ladies, champagne?” A woman with a ski lodge name tag holds a tray out to us.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Cy says and holds his glass in the air.
I lift mine, and when his eyes find mine, my cheeks heat.
“To taking you home,” he says.
With the continued eye contact, it feels like it’s just the two of us.
He’s taking me home.
Holy shit.
I am excited.
And absolutely terrified.
“Why are you terrified?” Leigh asks.
All the activities are done for the night, but I can’t sit still or calm my racing thoughts. I’ve spent the better part of an hour on the phone with her while staring out at the dark landscape around the lodge.
“I’m not exactly a take-her-home-to-meet-the-family kind of girl,” I tell her.
I’ve had hookups, one-night stands, and situationships. I’ve done the friends-with-benefits thing and every other form of temporary connection. Nothing that’s ever come close to involving meeting any of the important people in a partner’s life.
“I’ve never done this,” I add, in case that wasn’t clear.
“So? You’ve met my family. My parents love you,” Leigh tells me.
I snort a laugh. “Your parents get a watered-down version of me. I’m on my best behavior around them. And you’re not a man I’m dating.”
What if they don’t like me? What if they like one of the other women more?
I’m not sweet like Josie.
I’m not sophisticated like Jade.
I’m not even as put together as Simone.
And what if I don’t like them?
Or, and this might be worse, what if I fall in love with them the same way I’m falling for Cy?
My chest pinches painfully at the thought.
Wait. Pump the brakes and back the fuck up.
What?
“Aha!” Leigh says.
I bobble the phone and nearly drop it.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Has she figured it out? If so, she did it a lot faster—with a lot less info—than I did.
Smart bestie.
“Aha, what?” I ask, nerves fluttering in my belly. Is she somehow reading my mind? Can she tell that more has happened between us?
“So you would say you and Cy are dating?” I can practically hear the grin.
“Duh. And he’s dating three other women too.”
I know he’s attracted to me.
The sex and make-out session two nights ago prove that.
I know he cares about me.
Curling up in bed with me the night before the compass ceremony is proof of that.
But it’s not real.
Or it’s not supposed to be.
“This is a job,” I say.
But I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince—her or me.
“So you’re saying you don’t have any feelings for him? He’s nothing more than a client?” she asks.
Fuck.
I open my mouth to tell her that of course I don’t have feelings for him, but I can’t.
“That’s what I thought,” she says, taking my silence as support for her crusade to find my soulmate. “Looks like the show is more real than you thought it would be, huh?” she asks.
The adrenaline that hit me at her aha moment flags slightly.
Because she thinks this is an admission that the show isn’t the made-up fairy tale I told her it was.
“I hate to burst your bubble, but do you know how many takes we have to do for every activity? How many times I’m forced to do something that’s scripted for a camera angle versus reality?
” I go on to explain the uproar over the lack of physical touch between Cy and me when I accepted the compass last week.
“But you like him. There’s real emotion even if there’s more coordination behind the scenes than I realized,” she argues.
I do like him.
Somewhere along the way, after the pool party and the visit to the shelter, the anger I’d been holding on to since I was sixteen faded, and after spending two very different nights with him, other emotions have bloomed.
He’s as innocent as I am, despite how much I’ve blamed us both. Neither of us is responsible for Katie’s disappearance nor her murder.
What was he guilty of?
Being a twenty-one-year-old kid who made a choice to walk away from an underage girl. It was the right decision. Was he a douchebag about it? Yes.
It hurt to be brushed off like that and to then watch him make out with another girl.
But if he hadn’t been an asshole, would I have stuck around, waiting to see if he changed his mind?
Also yes.
Would I have potentially gotten into more trouble than I should have at that age?
More than likely.
Fuck. When I was twenty-one, I made more than a few questionable life choices. Too many nights resulted in waking up with a guy whose name I didn’t remember.
I didn’t intend to let my hatred for him go.
But I have. And that not-hate has turned into something else. Something more. Now I have to somehow keep those emotions from interfering in what I’m doing here. Finding Scarlett.
“You like him.”
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.
“So what if I do? I’m not here to find a relationship, Leigh. I’m here to do a job.”
“Why can’t you do both?”
“I…don’t know,” I say. I’ve never asked myself that question.
“Maybe it’s something to think about. I’m going to let you go. We both need to get some sleep. I have a meeting first thing in the morning,” she says with a yawn.
Shit. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that she’s two hours ahead of me.
“Good night. Thanks for talking me off the ledge, babes.”
“Anytime. Night.”
Once the call ends, I navigate to my messages app and tap the thread between Cole and me.
COLE
Found all the files you asked for on KP.
KP. Kendall Pierce.
The next text from him is one I wasn’t expecting.
COLE
Found some of the files on JS.
Thanks, I’ll take a look.
I power down the phone, stash it, then dig out the iPad.
But as I settle on the bed, I don’t open the files. Instead, I find myself staring out the window again, looking for an answer not visible in the darkness.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?