Chapter Sixty-Five
Isla
“Cancer sucks,” Lincoln Nilsen Granger spat out the two words with equal parts anger and grief before he dove into the pool and swam underwater to the other end.
Having my chest crushed by a thousand pounds of pressure and breaking every one of my ribs would have hurt less than seeing the grief on that fifteen-year-old boy’s face just now.
Except Lincoln wasn’t a boy.
He was taller than most men, life had shown its worst cruelty to him already, and he was Will’s son.
His son.
Whose mother had died of cancer.
I was no longer swimming in the cocooned bliss of Will’s life. I was drowning in Lincoln’s sorrow.
As if he knew I was as broken as his son on the inside, as if he could see that I was about to lose it, Will was suddenly at the edge of the pool behind me. “Isla.”
I couldn’t even think of him as Nix anymore.
Now, he was Will.
Will, the father. Will, the man who’d kept the single most important thing about himself a secret from me. Will, who had told me that if I walked into this house, it would be as deep as it gets. Will, who’d offered himself to me for my agency, then robbed me of my heart instead.
“Come on.” Large hands slid under my arms, and all at once, I was being hoisted out of the pool like a rag doll.
I wanted to yell at Will to put me down, to fight him. I wanted to accuse him of being deceitful and underhanded and so very him, but I just stood there while he set me on my feet and wrapped a towel around my shoulders.
How did I not see this coming?
A lying warfighter swept my hair from my face as casually and as dominantly as he’d orchestrated his Lincoln-and-Isla theater today—watching from the wings, directing the acts but not the script. “You okay?”
Dear God, was he insane? “Yep.” Nope. I was not even close to okay. “I’ll set the table.” I made to move around him.
Will grabbed the back of my neck. “Isla.”
Linc surfaced at the shallow end of the pool.
His father dropped his hand.
I stepped away from him.
Changing his mind about letting me go, Will grabbed my arms. Then he bent slightly at the knees, cocked his head, and searched my face. “Linc and I will do that in a minute. Talk to me.”
Now he wanted to talk?
After banana pancakes with blueberry compote?
After a perfect day of sunshine, ocean, and poolside laughter?
After his son had told me his full name this morning with pride in his voice?
I would be furious if it weren’t for the incredible fifteen-year-old he’d unknowingly brought into the world. I didn’t know the full story, and I didn’t need to. It hurt enough just seeing every pinpoint of his pain, because he wore his grief. Oh my God, did Lincoln wear his grief.
Except I stupidly hadn’t realized what it was, and damn it, I should have.
Linc had smiled and spoken animatedly about the things he loved, but all day, I’d noticed there was something reserved about him. I’d carelessly attributed it to Will’s statement about how they were still getting their feet wet.
But now that I knew?
I saw it.
I heard it.
Every smile, every conversation—I was now replaying them from a different angle, and I couldn’t do this.
Linc dove back under the surface.
I couldn’t look Will in the eye. “I can’t do this.”
“You’re already doing this, Isla.”
Knowing what I’d come from? Seeing his son’s grief? I couldn’t stand here. I shouldn’t be here. With my heart catastrophically crushing in on itself, I did the right thing. “Your son is amazing. The house is perfect. I’m so very glad he has you.”
“Why does that sound like goodbye?”
Because it was. But I was too cowardly to say it then. “I think I got a little too much sun today. I’m going to head back to the hotel and call it an early night.” It wasn’t early. It was too late, and I wasn’t going to stay.
For a heartbeat of a second, Will stared at me. Then he cupped my face and stroked my cheek with a firm caress. “You telegraph when you lie, intruse.”
Staring up at the man I had thought was perfect for me, I committed every hard angle and masculine feature of his strikingly handsome face to memory. “I have to go.”
The concern, the gentler tone, the almost empathetic expression as if he knew my thoughts—it all shut down in a blink. “You’ll stay for dinner. We’ll talk after he goes to bed.” Standing to his full height, a warfighter looked over my shoulder and called to his son. “Lincoln, set the table.”
“Yes, sir.” A fifteen-year-old lifted himself out of the pool and grabbed a towel before walking inside.
He didn’t make eye contact with me.
Knifing guilt sliced through my heart as I wondered how much he had heard.
I didn’t dare ask his father.