Chapter 26
Two Days Before the Hurricane
The drive home from the Ritz-Carlton—away from Simon, away from the veiled accusations he lobbed—passes in a blur. Street signs barely register. All I can see is the litany of mistakes I’ve made flashing through my head.
How did I miss it? Simon’s jealousy. The Redwood hack. And Beau.
Beau. How could he hide the truth from me for all these years?
When I finally reach the driveway, my hands tighten on the wheel. This house is supposed to be ours—walls we painted together, a life we made. But now all I can see is the fault line running through it.
I’m about to walk in and ask Beau the kinds of questions you can’t take back, questions that split everything open. And I’m not sure I want the answers.
“Este?” Beau’s voice startles me. I turn and see him stepping out of his car beside me in the garage. His face is caught in the wash of headlights dimming on a timer.
I’m out of my car before I know it, adrenaline crackling through me.
“I just got back from the police station,” he says. “Where were you?”
The words rip out of me before I can stop them. Loud and sharp. “Were you behind the Redwood security breach?”
His brow ripples with the start of a frown or something more sinister, like he’s doing everything he can to mount a defense.
He dips his head to reach my eye level. “Can we go inside to talk about this?”
I open my mouth—to agree? To scream?—but no sound comes out. Because I already have my answer. I can see it in his eyes.
I know he did this. Because I know him.
And that’s when I realize two things at once: I was right to suspect he’d lied about what really happened the night Gemma died. Because he absolutely had something to do with the security breach that sank a multibillion-dollar company. And he’s been keeping it from me for years.
My chest seizes. “I can’t breathe.”
I shoulder past him, stumbling into the house, desperate for oxygen.
Inside, the stillness in the air feels heavy. I grip the kitchen counter until my knuckles are white.
The door clicks shut behind him. His footsteps follow, measured, deliberate.
“Este.” That’s all he says. My name, low, careful.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “This whole time.”
He stops a few feet away. I can feel him watching me, the weight of his gaze dragging heat across my skin.
“This whole fucking time! You kept this from me.”
“Este, it’s not—”
“Don’t bother denying it, Beau.” I drop my hands from my eyes. “Is this why we moved here? Why you took the meeting with Redwood? Is this why you married me?”
“Come on, Este.” His voice is softer now. Each time he says my name, it’s slightly calmer, like he’s trying to coax me back from the brink of madness.
“You were never going to sell to him, but you wanted something from inside that office. So you let me book the meeting. You let me walk you in there. Did you think I was stupid?”
His eyes plead with me to stop, but I can’t.
“And then he fired me.” I don’t realize I’m crying until the tears start to burn the corners of my eyes. “Because of that meeting. My career—” The word tightens my throat.
Beau’s jaw flexes once, twice. He looks like he’s choosing his words with a gun to his head.
“Did we move here so you could hide out?” I demand. The memory of Beau suggesting we could stay in Florida comes rushing back, and this time it’s tinged with something bruised. “You acted like it was for me, but really, this was for you?”
Maybe my first impression of him was the right one. Maybe he is a poison pill. One of those electrical storms that takes down a whole grid. I stepped into his atmosphere and lost my fucking mind.
Because how else did I miss this?
“Este.” His voice is low and careful. “I didn’t hack Redwood.”
“I don’t even know what that means, Beau!” I scream.
He flinches at the sound of my voice. “I love you more than all of this, Este.” His voice is barely a whisper. “But I need a few more days to make things right.”
“Make what right? You can’t un-bankrupt a company, Beau.
You can’t un-fuck my career. Unless what you’re working on is a time machine?
Some kind of magical wormhole into the past. Is that what you’re doing?
” I throw up my hands, angry and barely able to look at him.
“Actually, don’t tell me. Turns out I’m pretty comfortable in the dark. ”
Beau’s mouth opens like he might speak, but I can’t take another half truth. Not one more word meant to pacify me.
My hand closes around my keys, the metal biting into my palm. “I can’t do this.”
As soon as I say it, I want to be gone. Want to put a quiet room or maybe an entire continent between us.
“All this time I thought I was hiding from Simon. From some mistake I missed.”
“I didn’t—”
“But it was you. You’re the reason my old life fell apart. You’re the glitch I couldn’t find.”
“Este—” My name sounds sharp and desperate on his lips.
“Did you kill her?” I say, and the words slice at something between us. My stomach aches, and I wonder if this is what the beginning of the end of us looks like.
Or did the beginning of the end happen years ago? Have we been on a crash course toward this moment since that day in Simon’s conference room?
Beau takes a step back as if I’d thrown a punch.
“If you lied to me about this, how do I believe anything you’re saying? If she could prove the hack, that would be motive. Last time I checked, hacking a company like that would be subject to criminal prosecution.”
“Este, this isn’t—That’s not—” I can’t tell if he’s trying to mount a defense or reaching for some new lie.
I spin on him, tears streaking down my cheeks. “Don’t. Don’t say my name like it absolves you. Like it makes this anything less than a betrayal.”
His hands flex at his sides. But he doesn’t move toward me. And that, more than his secrets, breaks something deep inside me—that he would let me go.
“I’ll be at Nora’s,” I murmur. The words tremble, but my spine is steel.
The silence between us is thick and merciless.
Then I turn. “Call me when you want to say something true.”
I slam the door behind me, and the midafternoon heat swallows me whole.