Chapter 4 #4
She lifted one shoulder. “She has to make her own choices. That’s the whole point. She’s spent too much of her life surviving other people’s choices.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
It didn’t mean I liked it.
“Does she know?” I asked.
“About Pepperdine? No.”
“When are you telling her?”
“Birthday.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
“We’re having a party here at the villa,” Regan said. “It fits the cover. Rich girl turns eighteen in Cabo with family friends. Nothing suspicious. Nothing sad.”
“Nothing sad,” I echoed.
Regan ignored that. “Now that JD’s handling things back home, Tarak and Edge are flying out. Skye too. Mason and his old lady, Siena.”
“The scientist?”
“The one who got pissed her desert burned, yes.”
I almost smiled. “She had reason.”
“Oh, she was furious. Six months of field work lost. Habitat damage. Native plants burned. She talked for twenty minutes about endangered species and soil recovery while Mason looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock.”
“That sounds like Siena.”
“She was right to be angry,” Regan said. “But then I explained what those girls did to Destiny. The drugging. The grave. The messages. The way they used Mandy’s name like a weapon.”
“She understood?”
“She understood why it happened. She still wishes ten acres of desert didn’t have to pay for it.”
“Fair.”
“Mason’s been keeping a low profile, but he’s helped.”
“Mason’s good people.”
Regan nodded. “He is.”
The night moved around us. Waves. Ice shifting in Regan’s glass. Distant music from farther down the beach. Somewhere nearby, a group of tourists cheered over a round of shots. The bar lights flickered gold across Regan’s face, making her look younger and older at the same time.
“Destiny got in,” she said.
“To Pepperdine.”
“Yes.”
“That fast?”
“JD didn’t even really have to pull strings.
Not the way he usually does. They had space in the program.
Hacker submitted all her paperwork, transcripts, recommendations, financial information, support documents.
I don’t pretend to understand how college applications work these days, but apparently when enough people want something done, it gets done. ”
“You’re sending her in the fall.”
“Yes.”
“She knows that was her dream?”
Regan smiled faintly. “She doesn’t know we know. But yes. Nursing. Ocean. A fresh start somewhere beautiful. She used to talk about California like it was a place where girls could become new people.”
The tequila sat heavy in my stomach.
“She deserves that,” I said.
“She does.”
We both heard the rest of it.
She deserves that more than she deserves you.
Regan didn’t say it.
She didn’t have to.
“A bad love like yours shouldn’t stop her,” she said.
There it was.
Sharp.
Clean.
True enough to draw blood.
I looked at her. “Bad love?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“You’re intense. Loyal. Dangerous. You look at her like you’d burn down a city if she asked nicely, and that might feel romantic to a girl who has never had anyone stand between her and the world before. But she needs a start, Dylan. Not another fire.”
I swallowed.
“She’ll be two hours from me,” I said. “Three at most.”
“I know.”
“It’s like dangling a carrot under my nose.”
“Yes.”
I let out a rough laugh. “You admit that?”
“I’m not stupid. Malibu puts her near the charter. Near Rick and Eddie. Near people who can watch her without making her feel caged. It also puts her close enough to you that if this thing is real years from now, life can find a way.”
Years.
The word felt impossible.
“And if it isn’t?” I asked.
“Then she gets a life anyway.”
I looked down at my hands.
Ink.
Scars.
Blood that wasn’t there but always was.
“I expect better of you, Dylan,” Regan said.
That hit harder than judgment.
Judgment I could take.
Expectation was dangerous.
“Once this assignment is over,” she continued, “I think you should find yourself an old lady and forget about my daughter.”
My mouth twisted. “Your daughter.”
“My daughter,” she said without hesitation.
“She’s not even eighteen,” I said, because it was the wall I kept putting between us even when everyone knew the wall had cracks.
“I know.”
“I know I’m just a guy with ink and blood on his hands, right?” The words came out before I could stop them. “Even when I wash it off, it’s still there. I know I’m not good enough for her.”
Regan reached over and put her hand on my back.
The touch stunned me silent.
Not romantic. Not pitying. Not afraid.
Maternal, maybe.
Merciful.
“No,” she said softly. “No one is ever going to be good enough for her.”
I stared at the bar top.
“But if there was a man,” Regan continued, “I’m sure it would be you.”
The breath left my chest.
“Regan.”
“It’s just the timing that’s all wrong.”
I closed my eyes.
“She has to start her life,” Regan said. “She has to write her own story. She finally has a book with nothing but empty pages in it.”
“She has to find her own destiny,” I finished.
Regan’s hand stayed on my back.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Maybe that leads her back to you. Maybe it doesn’t.”
The ocean kept moving.
It had no respect for wrecked men.
I laughed under my breath, but there was no humor left in me. “This is just infatuation anyway.”
Regan’s hand lifted from my back.
I picked up the tequila. “I’ve known her less than a week. That’s hardly an epic love story.”
Regan snorted as she finished her drink.
I looked at her.
She set the empty glass down, slid off the stool, and gave me a look that made me feel fifteen and stupid.
“Yep,” she said. “That’s what they all say.”
Then she walked away, leaving me alone at the beach bar with the tequila, the ocean, and a truth I didn’t want.
I had spent all day pretending to be a man who could flirt and laugh and move on.
I had gone to dinner with pretty girls who smelled like coconut lotion and expensive shampoo.
I had watched Destiny get pissed and told myself that was good.
I had told Nate I knew better.
I had told Regan this was nothing but proximity and adrenaline and a kiss under bad circumstances.
But when I turned my head down the dark beach, toward the hidden stretch of coastline where the villa waited behind walls and guards and palms, the tie pulled so hard I had to grip the edge of the bar.
I couldn’t see her.
That made it worse somehow.
Because wanting her wasn’t about seeing her in a window or watching her move through moonlight.
It was knowing she existed somewhere down that shore, sleeping off pain medicine with hot cocoa in her stomach and three days left before the world decided she was grown.
Not because I wanted to take something from her.
Because I wanted to be there when she finally had everything.
The empty pages.
The ocean.
The future.
The name that belonged to her.
And that was the most dangerous wanting of all.
Regan walked away, leaving me alone at the beach bar with the tequila, the ocean, and a truth I didn’t want.
I sat there long after her perfume faded from the air.
The waves kept rolling in, silver-black under the moon, dragging foam across the sand before pulling it back like the ocean was breathing.
Farther out, boats bobbed on the horizon, their lights blinking soft gold and white against the dark.
Rich people’s toys. Fishermen’s livelihoods.
Party boats full of drunk tourists who would wake up tomorrow with sunburns, hangovers, and stories they’d exaggerate for the rest of the summer.
I watched them all like they might give me answers.
They didn’t.
The bartender came by and lifted his chin toward my empty glass. “Otro?”
I nodded.
He poured another shot of tequila, the good stuff, the kind that went down smooth enough to lie to a man before it punched him in the chest. I tossed it back and set the glass down.
The burn felt honest.
That was more than I could say for most things.
A woman slid onto the stool beside me.
Not Regan this time.
Blonde. Forties maybe. Expensive tan, expensive teeth, expensive divorce energy. She wore a black dress that looked like it had been engineered to make poor decisions easy, and she smelled like jasmine, coconut oil, and money.
“Well,” she said, looking me over like I was something on a menu, “aren’t you hiding from the fun?”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Just not looking for any.”
Her mouth curved. “Ma’am? Ouch.”
“Respectful upbringing.”
That was a lie so ugly I almost laughed at myself.
She leaned closer anyway, her nails tapping against the bar. “You here alone?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Wife?”
“No.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
A pair of girls from the dinner table drifted over before I could answer.
Sorority types. Young enough to think a man staring at the ocean alone meant he needed saving by giggles and lip gloss.
Old enough that there would have been a time I wouldn’t have cared what their names were as long as they were legal, willing, and gone by morning.
One of them wore a pink bikini top under a white crochet thing that pretended to be a shirt. The other had glitter on her cheekbones and a margarita in one hand.
“There you are,” glitter girl said. “Nate said you were boring, but I thought he was just jealous.”
“I am boring.”
Pink bikini smiled. “I don’t believe that.”
“You should.”
The blonde on my other side laughed. “Honey, don’t waste your time. I saw him first.”
Great.
Perfect.
I had become contested property at a beach bar.
Once upon a time, this would have been my kind of night.
Women circling. Liquor flowing. Music low and dirty.
No promises required. No hearts involved.
No morning-after guilt because everyone knew the deal going in.
Bodies were easy. Bodies didn’t ask about your childhood.
Bodies didn’t care whether your hands were clean as long as they felt good in the dark.
There had been a time when I would have leaned back, smiled slow, and let the night pick which trouble came home with me.