Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
Natalie’s heart slammed against her ribs as strong hands spun her around.
She stumbled backward, her feet catching on the uneven gravel, and threw her hands up instinctively.
“Don’t move,” the man said.
It sounded like Timothy’s voice—yet not Timothy’s voice at the same time.
The tone was harder, colder—the voice of someone used to giving commands and being obeyed.
For a terrifying moment, she couldn’t breathe.
The security light cast harsh shadows across the face of the man she’d known for three months, making him look like a stranger.
And maybe he was.
Maybe he’d always been a stranger.
A cry lodged in her throat at the thought.
“Timothy?” Her voice came out smaller than she’d intended, shaking with fear and confusion.
He stared at her, and she watched something shift in his expression—shock, then what looked almost like pain. His hand dropped from her shoulder, and he took a step back.
“Natalie.” He said her name like an accusation. Or maybe a prayer. “What are you doing here?”
The question sparked something in her. Anger cut through the fear. “What am I doing here? You’re the one who drove to an abandoned marina in the middle of nowhere. I should be asking you that question.”
“You followed me.” Not a question. A statement.
“Yes, I followed you!” Her voice rose, echoing across the parking lot.
The sound of water lapping against the dock seemed unnaturally loud in the silence that followed.
“My father called me and planted all these doubts in my head about you,” she continued. “What was I supposed to do?”
Timothy—or whoever he was—put his gun back into his waistband.
Gun? Why did he have a gun? She’d never seen him with a gun before.
Then he ran a hand through his hair. She’d seen him use that a gesture a hundred times when he was stressed. But now even that familiar movement, one that had once seemed so endearing, felt like a lie.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice dropped. “It’s not safe.”
“Not safe?” She laughed, but it came out bitter and broken. “Nothing about you makes sense, Timothy. Your vague job, the apartment I’ve never seen, the way you disappear for days at a time. And now you’re meeting someone at a closed marina in the middle of the night?”
She hated how her voice cracked on the words, hated the tears that threatened to spill.
She’d come here for answers, not to fall apart.
She especially didn’t want to fall apart in front of Timothy. She didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt her.
He didn’t deserve that satisfaction.
“Is there someone else? Is that what this is about?” The question tasted like poison on her tongue.
“No.” His answer was immediate and firm. “Natalie, no. There’s no one else.”
“Then what? What are you hiding from me?”
The breeze picked up, sending a chill across her skin.
Or maybe the chill came from the way Timothy was looking at her—like he was calculating something, weighing options she couldn’t see.
Finally, he licked his lips.
She braced herself for whatever he was about to say.
“My name,” he said finally, his voice rough, “isn’t Timothy Shaw.”
The words hit her like a physical blow. She’d suspected he was lying about something, but hearing him admit it still felt like the ground had dropped out from under her feet.
“What?” The word came out as barely a whisper.
“My name is Hudson Roberts.” He said it like a confession, an apology. “And we need to talk.”
Everything went still around her.
Hudson Roberts.
The name meant nothing to Natalie, and somehow that made it worse.
Three months of knowing him, three months of falling in love, and she didn’t even know his real name.
“Who are you?” She took a step backward, her mind scrambling to make sense of this. “Who are you really?”
He held up his hands, a placating gesture that only made her more anxious. “I can explain—”
“Explain what? That everything between us has been a lie?” Her voice rose again, but she couldn’t control it. “That the cooking class was a setup? That you never actually liked indie films or butter pecan ice cream? That every single thing you told me about yourself was made up?”
“Not everything was a lie.” He moved toward her, but she backed away, her heel catching on a piece of broken concrete. He stopped immediately. “What I felt for you—what I feel for you—that’s real.”
“How can I believe anything you say?” The tears now fell hot against her cold cheeks. “You’ve been lying to me since the day we met. About your name, and probably everything else. Who’s to say you won’t lie about this too?”
The distant sound of a boat motor drifted across the water, and Timothy—Hudson—whoever he was—tensed. He scanned the darkness beyond the marina.
“We can’t talk here,” he said, urgency entering his tone. “It’s not safe. Please, Natalie. Let me take you somewhere we can talk properly. Somewhere secure.”
“Secure?” A hysterical laugh bubbled up in her throat. “Why would we need somewhere secure? What kind of consulting requires security, Timothy? Or Hudson? Or whatever your name actually is?”
He was quiet a long moment, and in the flickering light of the security lamp, she saw the conflict playing out across his features.
“I don’t work in consulting,” he finally said. “I work for a private security organization. And right now, you might be in danger.”
The word “danger” seemed to echo across the empty marina, bouncing off the water and the abandoned boats.
Natalie wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly freezing despite the mild temperature.
She was completely alone with a man who’d been lying to her for months, at an isolated marina where no one would hear her scream.
And he’d just admitted he wasn’t at all who he’d claimed to be.
She should run. Every instinct she had screamed at her to get back in her car and drive away as fast as possible.
But she stayed rooted to the spot because, despite everything—despite the lies and the fear and the impossible situation she’d stumbled into—part of her still wanted to believe that what she and Hudson had together meant something.
“Tell me the truth.” Her voice sounded steadier than she felt. “All of it. No more lies, no more half-truths. If you ever cared about me at all, you owe me that much.”
Hudson—she couldn’t think of him as Timothy anymore—looked at her with an expression that might have been regret or resignation or both.
“You’re right,” he said. “You deserve the truth. But not here. Please, Natalie. Trust me one more time. Let me take you somewhere safe, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Trust him? After everything, he was asking her to trust him?
She glanced back toward her car, hidden in the shadows behind the trees.
She could still leave. She could still pretend this night had never happened, go back to her regular life, and forget about the man with two names and too many secrets.
But she’d come too far for that.
She needed answers, even if those answers destroyed everything she thought she knew.