Chapter Eighteen

Contrary to whatever Anna thinks I’m doing in the shower, I’m actually lecturing myself: You fuckwit. You imbecile. You are stronger than this. This absolutely cannot go any further.

I’ll say it as many times as I need to, because it’s the truth. Anna and I are two strangers in paradise, experiencing an attraction that absolutely would not persist back home. We are too different—temperaments, lifestyles, ambition, location—and we have one very simple task: fake a marriage. The goal here is to make it through the wedding, return to life as we know it, and quietly divorce in September. The goal here is the clean removal of my father from my life.

But my body continues to deprioritize all that. Last night, I climbed into bed to find Anna curled up on her side, already asleep. She’d been wearing one of those absurd excuses for pajamas that her friend Vivi packed for her—tiny satin straps on her camisole, shorts barely covering her ass—but as I’d pulled back the sheets, I hadn’t been transfixed by her body, but by that stupid tan line. I wanted to slide in behind her, press my hips against the soft curve of her ass, draw that strap off her shoulder, and suck at the skin there. That tan line that feels, strangely, like it belongs to me.

And somehow, I ended up with my fingers all over it today without even realizing.

This is the exact brand of thought that I cannot have, but with it back at the forefront, my mind wanders to the feel of her lips gasping open just now when she felt my cock pressed against her chest, of her small, soft tongue licking at mine, so paradoxically gentle while her sharp nails dug a path of fire around my rib cage and up my back. The bite of her teeth on my neck, the bright sting of those nails… I wanted more, and harder. It shook me how she could pay such close attention to learn, so quickly, what I like.

I reach forward, shutting off the water, squeezing my eyes closed as the cool droplets run from my hair and down my face. I’ve hired Anna for a job. Like she said: I just remind myself I’m here doing a job. For all intents and purposes, she is my employee, and it’s enough that she’s having to deal with my family. It’s enough that she’s forming emotional connections to my niece. I cannot let this turn sexual and risk her getting hurt in other ways.

Unfortunately, the sight of the hickey on my neck in the mirror sends renewed heat across my skin. I carefully lather the shaving cream, drawing the razor slowly over my jaw, remembering the shock of her bite, the slow, searing burn of her mouth sucking at my throat. I give myself to the count of ten to imagine the way I would take her, languid and teasing at first, kissing and licking all of her sweet, aching places, and then hard and fast, pinning her beneath me, ruthless, leaving her eagerly, feverishly clawing at my skin.

That’s it, I tell my reflection as I pat my face dry. That will live only in your imagination. You can kiss when you need to, for show. Not like that. Never like that again.

I have bigger things to focus on.

Out on the balcony, I expect to find Anna back at work on her sketches, but instead there’s a note:

Going snorkeling with Reagan! See you later.

I blow out a breath, saying, “Thank fuck,” aloud even though a betraying twinge of disappointment snakes through me. And the feeling darkens when I glance at my watch and realize that in five minutes, I have to meet the groomsmen—including both fathers—for the suit fittings.

CHARLIE HAS CHOSEN CREAMlinen for the groomsmen, and I trust that she knows what she’s doing, because in this heat and humidity, I suspect it will be only a half hour before the wedding party looks like a collection of wadded-up newspaper.

But there’s food and drinks and a mostly great group of guys. We’re in the groom’s prep room, a wide, bright space where a few tailors have set up for the day. My father and Alex aside, Kellan and his best friend, Nate, are hilarious together. Add in Jake, and the room gets loud with overlapping accent impressions, stories of Kellan’s pre-Charlie mistakes in romance, marital predictions that I probably don’t want to hear, and laughter.

“How are the toasts coming?” Kellan asks. The Weston brothers have each been tasked with a short speech at the wedding. Alex will probably use his time to kiss Dad’s ass. My speech will be thoughtful, sentimental, and most importantly, short.

Jake is the wild card. Given the way he was expected to be either charming or invisible as a child, my baby brother never misses an opportunity to be the center of attention in a crowd, and standing on a wooden pedestal at the front of the room is his time to shine.

“Oh, I have mine ready,” he says, grinning at his reflection. The tailor continues to move around him, pinning and measuring, but Jake will not be deterred. “I thought I’d start with something like, ‘When I was four years old, our mom said we were getting a present. The best, most exciting present ever. When it turned out Mom didn’t mean we were getting a dog, I took Charlie to the neighbor’s house and offered to trade.’?”

Laughter fills the room.

“Or I could talk about the time when I was twelve and we were watching Forrest Gump. After the movie, Charlie looked at me and asked what I thought the most important lesson from the movie was. Wanting to be a good big brother, I told her I thought it was about never underestimating yourself. Now, I should have prefaced this story with a few things,” he says, adjusting his tie. “First, I had blood sugar issues as a kid, and couldn’t eat a lot of sweets. Second, I had two older brothers who gave me copious amounts of shit, so I spent a fair amount of time giving it to Charlie. So, this adorable little eight-year-old looks up at me with her big, innocent eyes and says, ‘No, the most important lesson is that life is like a box of chocolates. Do you know what that means, Jakey? It means that you’re fucked.’?”

The room erupts. Finished with his fitting, and like the great performer that he is, Jake grins widely and steps off the podium to head my way. Unfortunately, this is also the moment he zeroes in on my neck.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he says, quieting the room as he leans in to get a better look. “Hold the phone. Does my big brother have a hickey?”

Catcalls surround us and I shove him away, feeling my skin heat under my collar.

“Not surprised,” Alex calls from his side of the room. “They were putting on quite a show earlier.” He lowers his voice: “You’d never catch me behaving like that.”

“Yeah, your wife has mentioned this once or twice,” Jake says, and the laughter starts up again.

Oblivious to the jovial atmosphere in the room, Dad steps up beside me at the long mirror and doesn’t waste any time. “What kind of bullshit was that last night with Ellis?”

“It wasn’t the time or place, Dad.” The tailor approaches, crouching to adjust the unfinished hem of my dress pants. “It’s not the time now, either.”

The last thing I want is for Alex to hear any of this and mistake whatever it is for me gunning for the CEO role.

But my father doesn’t pick up on the cue. “Are you fucking kidding, Liam? More business happens at a wedding than at a weeklong conference at a Hilton. Why do you think I have half of these people here?”

“To celebrate the beginning of your only daughter’s life with Kellan McKellan?” I unbutton the collar of the shirt and then tug my cuffs down in the linen sport coat, looking at the tailor. “Could we lengthen the sleeve on the coat a bit?”

Nodding, the tailor helps me out of it and pins a note with measurements to the sleeve. I’m done with my fitting, and despite all the laughter and how much I needed a little time to think about nothing, I am suddenly, keenly ready to get out of here.

My father stops me from leaving with a hand on my arm. “This has to be settled.”

“It is settled, Dad.” I glance across the room to make sure Alex hasn’t heard. “And regarding last night, it is absolutely not going to go over with the board if you soft launch me in front of the editor of Forbes as your successor without their input.”

When I look back, my eyes meet Dad’s in the mirror. “Are you saying yes, then?” he asks.

“How—I mean, how on earth does that translate to yes?” I run my thumbnail along my eyebrow, trying to keep my cool in this crowded room. “Dad. I’m not coming on board. I have no idea why you would think that.”

“You’re the only person in this family who has what it takes to do this job.”

I stare at my father in shock. There are about a million things I want to say in response, but what comes out is the one I would want to say the very least: the most vulnerable. “Then why did you throw me to the wolves?”

There’s a shocked pause, and then my father tosses his head back and laughs. “Oh, it’s going to be this sob story again.”

I can’t do this.

Mute with rage, I change back into my shorts and T-shirt, forfeiting the rest of the time together with the other men for the sake of my sanity. I hug Kellan, shake Mr. McKellan’s hand, and pat Jake’s shoulder as I pass.

He starts to ask why I’m leaving, but one look at my face and he knows. He glances to Dad and I see my younger brother in action, the way his mind wildly searches for an anecdote, a joke, some story to divert the path from potential explosion and back to good times as I make a quiet exit.

It’s a ten-minute walk back to the bungalows, but I get only five of them in peace.

“When are you going to grow up?” my father calls from only a few feet behind me.

I keep walking.

“I’m not going to have expanded my father’s business into what it is today only to see it crumble in the hands of my three sons!”

“That’s the point, Dad,” I say over my shoulder. “You have two other sons already working with you.”

“Alex is a fucking head case!” my father booms, and the words echo down the path.

He didn’t even bother to consider Jake, and I laugh humorlessly. “Maybe if you did more than humiliate him once in a while, he wouldn’t be.”

He snorts. “Like you’re one to talk.”

“I’m not his father.”

We walk in tense silence, emerging onto the beach, walking toward the wooden footpath leading to the bungalows.

“If this is about PISA—” he starts, but I immediately cut him off with a low, growled, “I’m not fucking talking about PISA with you, Dad.”

“What do you want from me? A hug and an apology?” He laughs incredulously. “You know why we handled it that way. You were a kid. A fucking child when you made that software. You would rather I shoulder the blame and watch the entire company fall apart because of what happened with a thing you created?”

I wheel on him, white-hot with fury. “You and I both know it was never created for that. So, yes. I expected you to shoulder the blame because what ended up happening was your fault.”

“So that’s why you skulked away?” he sneers. “Took the limp-dick route through life instead? Went to school to prove to the world what a nice guy you are, that you couldn’t possibly have been behind all that ugliness because deep down you’re a jacket-with-elbow-patches good guy who teaches a bunch of rich virgins about how to be a nice executive when they get their first seven-figure salary?”

“I had to redeem myself!” I yell. “I had to run as far away from that world as possible just so I could—could—could imagine a time when everyone we knew wasn’t talking about me and what they thought I’d done. I had to find a way to get myself out of the business section of every newspaper in the world. At twenty, Dad. Twenty. None of the blowback ever touched you, and you never even fucking acknowledged it.”

Dad’s expression morphs. His teeth pull back into a grotesque sneer. “You want a thank-you? Fuck you. You want an apology? Fuck you. The only reason you exist is because of what I gave you. The only reason you can live is because of my money.” He steps closer, getting in my face, his spit hitting my chin as he huffs out a derisive laugh. “Do you forget? Everything I gave you, I can take away just as fast. I own you. Every single one of you.”

He shoves past me down the path toward his bungalow and I feel the planks beneath my feet vibrate with the force of his footsteps.

He has no way of knowing how direct a hit that was. That he’s got me in the soft underbelly, my biggest fear, that it won’t just be my life I’ll ruin, it will be all of ours. I haven’t felt this close to crying since I was twenty years old and my entire world shattered around me. I never wanted to go back to this feeling, and yet here we are. I can’t avoid it if he’s nearby. I just can’t.

Shaking, I turn down the bridge toward our bungalow.

But the sight of Anna staring down from the upper balcony pulls me up short. The look in her eyes, the devastation gleaming there… she heard all of that. Or at least enough to know it was messy and painful. Enough to question what the fuck PISA is, what the fuck I did, what my father did, what on earth could have happened between us eleven years ago that has angry, ashamed tears burning the surface of my eyes.

I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t ever want to go back to that time in my life. But when she comes down the stairs, hurrying, like she’s in a rush to get to me, I let go of all the rational hesitations, the reality of our circumstances, and walk faster, too, desperate to get to her. We crash together with her two steps above me on the stairs, pulling me into her arms. Wordlessly, she presses my face to her ribs and holds me, whispering a soothing “Shhh, it’s okay” against the top of my head. I send my arms around her hips, curling into her as I shake. I don’t know what she can possibly be thinking, and for the moment, I don’t care. I have never needed anything more than I need this, from her, right now.

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