1. Kate
Kate
THREE MONTHS LATER…
Coming back to Bayview had felt inevitable.
The town had a way of pulling people home, no matter how much time they’d spent convincing themselves they’d escaped. It wasn’t merely a place. It was salt air and old secrets, cashmere sweaters hiding hickeys, espresso served with a side of gossip.
It was a mood.
And after three and a half months away, I’d slipped back into it frighteningly easily.
I sat inside the Velvet Bean with an espresso cooling between my hands and watched the wind roughen the harbor into restless gray peaks. The water matched the tension that had lived beneath my ribs since my return.
Every time the bell above the café door chimed, my gaze lifted.
Not because I expected Michael Waters to walk in.
Because I was making sure he didn’t.
The Velvet Bean was supposed to be safe.
Wedged between a high-end candle boutique and a nautical souvenir shop, it was all red velvet booths, copper lighting, and bread baking in the kitchen.
No press. No brokers. No men who looked at me as though my repeated rejection was merely an obstacle they hadn’t decided how to remove yet.
Besides, Michael had been at Pier 19 last night. He rarely appeared at the same place two nights in a row, which meant tonight should be clear.
I knew because the Bayview Resort and Casino’s X account had announced his location to the entire town just before midnight.
Spotted: Waters boys lighting up the floor at Pier 19. And yes, Michael’s still attached to Bayview’s reigning ice queen, Krystal K.
#CasinoRoyalty #TooHotToFold
I hadn’t liked the post or retweeted it.
I had screenshotted it, though.
Then stared at it long enough to hate myself.
There hadn’t been a photograph of Michael. There never was. He guarded his image as ruthlessly as he guarded everything else. If some overeager social-media manager ever posted his face without permission, he’d probably crash their domain and the local server along with it.
A woman rode past the café window on a beach cruiser, her basket overflowing with groceries and a rolled-up local paper. The sight pulled me backward—to summers when my friends and I rollerbladed along the docks, flirting with miserable tourist boys trapped on family vacations.
I used to be that girl. Fast, breezy, full of possibilities.
Bayview had been different then. Simple. Sleepy. Predictable.
Now it was the Hamptons with sharper teeth.
The Victorian houses still lined the streets, guarding generations of family secrets behind their painted doors.
The river still curved through town before spilling into the Atlantic.
But money had followed the water inland, bringing developers, casino executives, and dangers no one discussed above a whisper.
During the summer, the marinas overflowed with European yachts and Miami ego trips. September had finally thinned the crowds and sharpened the air, bringing the first suggestion of sweaters and seduction.
I’d spent half my life dreaming of leaving Bayview.
Then I had.
I’d collected rooftop bars, ocean-view condos, and skylines in cities where no one knew my name. None of them had felt like this.
None of them had Michael Waters either.
That should have made them safer.
Instead, it made them easier to leave.
I couldn’t be with him.
I wouldn’t.
Our paths had crossed too often since the Fourth of July, and every encounter followed the same pattern. Michael found me. He pursued. I refused. Then he watched me walk away with a look that asked why I was still fighting something we both wanted.
I answered with silence. A smile. The turn of my heel.
It was the only answer I trusted myself to give.
Because Michael and I were no longer exchanging harmless flirtation. Whatever had sparked between us that first night had become dangerous, electric—combustible. Every encounter added more fuel, and we both knew it.
It had started at the tapas bar on the Fourth of July. I’d been drinking overpriced Tempranillo when a creep with a Monaco accent decided my lack of interest was negotiable. I slipped into the crowd along the docks to escape him and collided directly with Michael.
My breath left my body.
Michael hadn’t asked my name. He hadn’t needed an explanation. He’d taken one look at the man following me, closed his hand around mine, and led me away.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, it became our beginning.
But a beginning was all I could allow it to be. Michael couldn’t know who I really was.
On paper, I was Kathryn Peters. Kate to my friends. Real estate broker. Investor. Low-key empire builder.
I kept my name clean and my business cleaner. My portfolio included half of Bayview’s high-end waterfront, acquired through a web of shell corporations designed to give me privacy and power.
More importantly, they kept Michael from discovering that the woman he’d kissed beneath the fireworks was also the woman repeatedly outbidding him.
My most recent acquisition was the reason I’d finally come home: a stretch of waterfront orchard with enough open land to become the crown jewel of everything I’d built.
Michael had wanted it too.
He still didn’t know I was the one who had taken it from him.
A gust rattled the café window, drawing my attention back to the harbor. From where I sat, I could almost see the ivy-covered condo waiting for me down the shoreline. It had no yard, only a private dock and my boat tied outside my door, forever tempting me to take one day off and drift.
I never did.
Staying busy kept me focused. Staying focused kept me hidden.
At least, that was the theory.
Bayview had never been good at protecting secrets.
Especially now, with Mystic Moon and Redwood River turning the town into a battleground.
The casinos were locked in an arms race funded by tribal land claims, Vegas money, and—if the rumors were true—cartel cash.
Stories circulated about shootings on the docks and ships delivering things far more valuable than tourists.
Michael had his hands deep in Mystic Moon and his fingers in other, darker places.
He was rich, ruthless, and devastatingly good-looking. Half Italian, half Spanish, all alpha. His black hair curled slightly at the ends, inviting a woman to wrap her fingers through it and discover exactly how much control he could lose.
I had imagined it.
I had also imagined him tying me up in the back of an abandoned dockside warehouse.
More than once.
That was precisely why I needed to stay away from him.
Outside of my inconvenient fantasies, the casinos had left real scars. Bayview was divided over whether their arrival had revitalized the town or corroded its soul.
Both were true.
My friend Mindy had lost her family home when the tribe annexed the land for casino expansion. She’d never recovered from it.
None of us had.
By the time I closed my laptop, darkness had settled across the harbor and my espresso had gone cold. Amber, my golden retriever and morning running partner, would be waiting for me.
I gathered my things, wrapped myself against the crisp wind, and stepped outside. The breeze caught my blonde hair, whipping the waves around my face and down the center of my back.
I loved the feeling.
Wild. Free.
Two things I had never quite managed to be.
People said my eyes looked that way too—amber, flecked with gold—but most people only saw what I wanted them to see.
When I reached my condo, Amber was standing inside the door with her leash clenched between her teeth.
“Not tonight, babe.”
She released an aggrieved huff and collapsed dramatically across my feet.
I stepped over her and opened my laptop at the kitchen island. There were contracts to review, a zoning problem to finesse, and another anonymous inquiry about my lighthouse property sitting in my inbox.
The third inquiry that month.
I had just begun drafting a response when my phone buzzed.
Claire: Pier 19. Now. No excuses. We miss your face.
I looked down at my Pilates pants and tank top.
Me: In the middle of something.
Her response arrived immediately.
Claire: You own half this town. It’s time you start enjoying it.
I glanced at the inquiry waiting on my laptop, then at Amber, who had begun watching me with the same judgmental expression.
Claire had a point.
My inbox could wait.
I changed into an ivory corset top and classic black skinnies, then added bronzer, mascara, and gloss. A single gold chain went around my neck—the signature piece I rarely left home without.
Amber’s tail thumped against the floor.
“Good girl.”
Heat rolled over me the moment I stepped inside Pier 19.
It was Latin night, and the live drums and brass had packed the dance floor with bodies moving against one another. The band—four men from Miami who doubled as Mystic Moon blackjack dealers—had whipped the room into a frenzy.
Pier 19 was less a bar tonight than a fever dream of velvet booths, neon lights, rum, sweat, and something spicy.
I found Claire and Sara in a corner booth near the dance floor, their drinks already half-finished. Claire waved both arms over her head as if there were any chance I might miss her.
“Kate! Finally.”
I slid into the booth, laughing.
Claire wore a satin slip dress, her brunette curls bouncing around her shoulders as she talked. Sara had paired high-waisted pants with a cropped blazer and was already watching me with a knowing smirk.
“Look at you,” she said. “Bayview’s golden girl, back from the dead.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You mean hiding.”
I shrugged because denying it would have been pointless.
“Did you start writing music again? Any inspiration?”
“No, I—I just can’t. It’s gone.”
“It’ll come back,” Mindy squeezed my shoulder lightly.
A waitress appeared with another round, and the conversation dissolved into familiar Bayview gossip—teachers getting fired, real estate agents sleeping with clients, casino money greasing every corner of town.
For a few minutes, I almost relaxed.
Then Claire leaned closer.
“You know Michael’s here, right?”
My hand stopped halfway to my drink.
“With Krystal?”
“Of course. His brothers are with him too. They came in about ten minutes ago.” She glanced past my shoulder. “Two booths over.”
Apparently, Michael had decided to make an exception to his no-repeat rule.
I took a sip of my drink too quickly and hated that his presence could still make my pulse stumble.
Sara’s gaze narrowed on me. “He hasn’t taken his eyes off this table since you walked in.”
I looked over with as much casual indifference as I could manufacture.
Michael Waters sat two booths away, all six-plus feet of lethal charm wrapped in a tailored charcoal suit. The fabric hugged his body like sin. Krystal sat beside him, beautiful, polished, and cold enough to freeze the condensation on my glass.
Michael wasn’t looking at her.
His dark eyes were locked on me.
The connection struck like a match.
A jolt. A gut punch. Heat spreading low and fast through my body.
I gave him a cool, detached smile—the one I used in negotiations when I already knew I held the winning hand.
He didn’t smile back.
He only watched me, as if the last three and a half months had been an inconvenience and he’d finally grown tired of allowing me to run.
I lifted my glass and turned back to my friends.
Perfectly composed on the outside.
Already burning underneath.