33. Now
NOW
Drew
Just landed! I’m sending my hair and makeup team for you and Donna, FYI. I knew you’d forget to book people ??
OMG. You didn’t need to do that. The fact that you’re attending at all is more than enough. But thank you.
Are you kidding? I owe you EVERYTHING.
M y megastar friend is giving me way more credit than is due—she was twenty times more famous than me when we met, and she remains so—but I just happened to help her at one of the lowest points of her life.
She’s at the happiest point now—madly in love with her husband, her baby boy.
Her happiness has gone on for years and shows no sign of going away, but it’s hard to imagine having an amazing thing come into your life and actually getting to just…
keep it. Just getting to stay happy. That’s not how my life has worked.
That’s not how most people’s lives work.
Luke surfs that afternoon, so Donna and I have the suite to ourselves while the hair and makeup team do their work.
When the team is done, my hair is blown out to long, sleek perfection, and I’ve got red lips to match my red dress—strapless and fitted, perfectly suited to a James Bond-style villainess, which is how half these people see me now anyway.
I walk into the living area to find Luke freshly showered, tugging at the collar of a tuxedo shirt just as Donna walks in from the hallway with a bottle of champagne in her hands.
“Oh, Juliet, you look stunning. Doesn’t she look stunning, Luke?”
His eyes drift over me for one long moment.
There’s desire there, but also something sweeter, as if he feels exactly what I do—the hit of straight joy I get simply watching him walk in the room.
I try to grip the moment, seal it into my memory.
Later tonight, I’ll think about this look on his face and imagine that nothing ever went wrong between us.
I’ll imagine he was simply my bored husband, waiting for me to emerge from our room and remembering all over again why he chose me.
“Yeah.” He coughs. “You both do.”
Donna hands him the bottle of champagne. “Juliet’s friend Drew sent it up. I was hoping someone in the hall could open it, but since you’re out of the shower, I’ll allow you to do the honors. Summer’s coming tonight, by the way.”
I stiffen, nails digging into my palms. Luke’s gaze lands on me and he barely hides a smile. “I’m not sure she’s my type,” he tells Donna.
“Oh, Luke, don’t you think it’s time you settled down? Wouldn’t it be nice to come back from your trips and have someone there waiting?”
His eyes meet mine as he hands her a glass of champagne. “I’ve thought about that on occasion. I wouldn’t mind getting a little place on the beach. A deck with a hammock. The whole thing.”
It hurts, hearing my stupid little dream parroted back to me when I’ll never be the one in that house waiting for him.
We finish our champagne and take the elevator downstairs together.
“Juliet!” Drew squeals, exiting the elevator beside ours and throwing her arms around me.
Drew’s husband, Josh, greets me in a far more subdued manner. “Juliet,” he says, placing a hand at the small of Drew’s back, “good to see you.”
Heads start to turn, and it’s a relief to not be the interesting one for once.
“Donna, Luke,” I begin, “let me introduce you to my friend Drew and her husband Josh.”
“Luke Taylor,” Josh says, his jaw dropping. He’s married to one of the biggest stars in the world and his brother is a famous guitarist, but I’ve never seen him look awestruck until this moment. “Holy shit, hon. How could you not tell me a surfing legend was going to be at this thing?”
“I’m so proud of them both,” Donna says, wrapping an arm around each of us. “You know, Luke lived with us several summers in a row, in college.”
“Wait a minute,” says Drew, turning to me with astonished eyes.
My stomach drops. I already know what she’s going to say, and I wish I knew how to stop her.
“Is he the reason you were at Pipeline Masters?” she asks, as I knew she would.
Oh, Juliet, how could you have forgotten this? How could you be so careful about so many things but allow this one to slide?
Luke stiffens. “You were at Pipeline?”
“There was a big party there,” I reply weakly. “I stopped by.”
Drew laughs. “I love how Juliet tries to make it sound like she was there to party .” She turns to me. “Dude, you weren’t even drinking . You were hiding out on the dunes with a pair of binoculars that entire—” At last she sees the look on my face and stops talking.
Donna reaches for my hand. “I had no idea you were at Pipeline,” she says, and I’m saved from replying by Hilary, who marches herself into the center of our circle with another of her tight, displeased smiles.
“Have any of you seen Libby?” she demands. “She’s supposed to be monitoring the silent auction tables, but she’s nowhere to be found, which is exactly why it’s a bad idea to entrust personal friends with important roles.”
I’ve fucking had it. I take a step forward but Luke beats me.
“Donna and I will see if we can find her,” he says.
“And, Hilary…alienating the people who pay your salary isn’t a great move.
” His words are polite, but his tone and the chill in his eyes send a clear message.
He takes one last look at me, a too-long look, before he leads Donna off in search of Libby.
“I’m sorry,” Drew whispers. “Was he not supposed to know?”
I shake my head. “It’s okay.” But I feel like it’s all spilling out, one secret after the next and, really, there’s only one left. The worst one. “Let me see if I can find Libby.”
I walk away, pulling out my phone and looking for Libby’s name.
When our text chain appears, I feel sick all over again about how one-sided our friendship became: it was always her reaching out, her congratulating me, and me replying every third or fourth time with a heart emoji or something similarly distant.
One more person I disappeared on.
Hey, just making sure you didn’t go into labor. Hilary is looking for you. Is everything okay?
Libby
No, not really. But I’m nearly there.
She walks in the door a minute later, and I cut across the room toward her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She looks over her shoulder. “Here, walk with me,” she says under her breath. “I’m supposed to be working in the auction part of the room.”
We start walking. The air seems to whistle out of her chest, and with it, she deflates. I hadn’t realized, until now, just how tired she looks.
“Grady got a call this afternoon and said he had to go back to talk to the police,” she continues.
“The police?”
She nods and looks around her quickly. “Some reporter gave them all this new information about the night Danny died. She’s suggesting they reopen the investigation.”
I grip the table closest to me to stop the room from spinning. “What?”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have broken the news to you like that.
I just…they’re making something of the fact that Grady and Danny argued.
And I guess Grady was seen coming back in the middle of the night—I didn’t even know about that.
I mean…they can’t possibly believe Grady would kill someone, would they? ”
The room is too loud and too bright. My knees begin to shake.
If the police even suggest Grady was involved, I know exactly what he’ll do. The very thing I’ve dreaded for the past seven years.
He’ll tell them the truth.
“I need to—” I whisper weakly, moving away from her without even finishing the sentence.
I walk blindly toward the other side of the room, hands pressed to my stomach, my heart beating wildly.
I don’t know how to fix this but I’m still desperately hunting for a solution.
I think of Luke so many years ago at Harrison’s house, glancing up at the cliff and saying, “You ever try jumping off that?” Right now, I’m looking for a way he can jump and survive. I don’t think there is one.
I have no idea what Grady and Danny argued about, but it hardly matters because Grady does have an alibi for those hours on the beach. And Luke doesn’t.
That fucking reporter. I should have known. I never should have come back.
“I can’t wait to peel that dress off you later tonight,” Luke says from behind, leaning down so I’m the only one who’ll hear.
I turn, looking around us before I answer. “We can’t. Donna’s going to be in the suite.”
“You think she’d care at this point? She just wants us to be happy.”
He tugs me toward the dance floor. It seems like a bad idea, in front of all these people, and an especially bad idea when I should be figuring out how the hell to get him out of this mess I made, but I can’t resist. The clock’s been ticking for us, ever since we arrived, and it’s moving faster by the moment.
If the cops are talking to Grady right now, this might be my last chance to be near Luke at all.
“I didn’t figure you for a dancer,” I tell him, stalling. “Or a guy who’d own a tux, to be honest.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m full of surprises, sweetheart.”
His hand slides from my hip to the small of my back.
People will talk if they’re watching, and I should probably back away, but I can’t seem to.
I should probably tell him about Danny’s case getting reopened and I don’t do that either.
I suspect he’ll just make things worse. He was always too goddamn honest. I’ll have to solve it on my own. Somehow.
“Are you going to tell me why you were at Pipeline?” he asks, tugging me closer.
“I just was.”
I start to pull away from him and his grip tightens around my hip, pressing me against him. “Can you just, for once in your fucking life, tell me the truth? You didn’t just happen to be there.”
“It doesn’t matter why I was there,” I whisper, but my voice cracks.
It doesn’t matter that I was in Tahiti for the Tahiti Pro and in Australia for the Pro Gold Coast, and that I have gone to as many of those as I could possibly attend and hidden it so he wouldn’t know.
It’s all resting there, right on the tip of my tongue, but then he turns me…
and I stop dancing entirely as Cash walks toward us.
Cash, who never made any effort to see me, is here , cutting across the dance floor, in a tux.
He’s smiling, but there’s a dangerous look in his eyes I recognize.
He hasn’t seen me in six weeks but still thinks he’s got the right to be angry that I’m dancing with someone else.
I stop moving, and Luke turns, already wrapping a protective arm around me when he has no clue what’s happening. And then he recognizes Cash—and that arm tightens.
“Cash?” I whisper. “What are you doing here?”
He raises an eyebrow and folds his arms across his chest. “I thought I was here to surprise you.” His head jerks toward Luke. “Who the fuck is he?”
Luke is still and silent, and then the arm that was wrapped around my waist releases me as he steps forward, his fist striking Cash so hard and so fast that Cash can’t even brace himself.
He stumbles backward, into the crowd, knocking over dancers, but Luke isn’t done.
He dives at Cash and knocks him to the ground while the dance floor turns into chaos.
People scatter, and Cash’s bodyguards spring into action, grabbing Luke from behind and pulling him away.
Beck steps in as Cash climbs to his feet to make sure the fight ends… but the damage is already done.
Luke just hit Cash with no provocation and there were many witnesses, including Donna, who stands a few feet off the dance floor. Her eyes are wide, confused, and then her shoulders sag as if she’s finally figured out what’s been so obvious to everyone else.
“Call the cops!” Cash yells.
“No.” I step forward. “Let’s just go.”
Luke reaches for me. “Where the fuck are you going?” His fingers are on my skin for the very last time. Memorize this, Juliet.
“Let me handle it,” I reply, shaking him off.
“Juliet, if you leave with him, we’re over,” Luke says.
I swallow hard. These weeks with him have been thrilling and painful, and I think maybe I’ve stored up enough memories to get me through a few more years.
“I know,” I reply softly. I mean to sound careless but I don’t. I sound like I’m on the verge of falling apart.
I cross to where Cash stands and slide my arm through his. God, his timing couldn’t be worse. I’ll get him out of here and then figure out how to fix things with the police. “Let’s go elsewhere.”
“Fuck that,” he says. “I’m pressing charges.”
I raise a brow. “Cash, you’re not the only one who can press charges. The whole world saw you dragging me off an elevator by my hair, and there’s so much more I can say. So should I call the cops on you or should we start walking?”
He stares at me, dumbfounded. For all the dozens of times he’s hit me or thrown me against a wall, I’ve never once suggested I’d turn on him. “You wouldn’t.”
I laugh. I never said I loved him. I never even said I liked him. He just assumed it was true and took my silence as proof. “Watch me.”
A vein throbs in his temple as he grudgingly turns toward the ballroom’s exit just as the doors open and my stomach drops farther than I thought it possibly could.
Two uniformed officers are making their way toward me. Four others are heading toward Luke.
“What on Earth?” Donna asks, walking up beside me. “It was just a little fight.”
Except they’re not here because of the fight.
They’re here because Grady told them everything.
They keep walking until they’re nearly to where we stand, and then one of them turns to the security guards surrounding us and holds up a piece of paper. “We have a warrant,” he says, and nods to the guys behind him. Several of them walk to Luke, and one of them comes to me.
“Luke Taylor and Juliet Cantrell,” he says, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Daniel Allen.”