Chapter 4
THEO
“If you go in there looking like that, she’ll smell the blood in the water and eat you alive,” Madelaine whispered in my ear as the house came into view.
Montauk was as beautiful as ever. Streaks of white cloud hung over the steel blue of the lake, the golden afternoon light glinting off the rippling waves like a handful of spilled glitter, the salted breeze keeping the worst of the summer heat at bay.
The only reason I hadn’t thrown up was because I couldn’t bring myself to ask Madelaine’s boyfriend—Cameron—to pull the car over so I could. Now that the house was within view on the other side of the water, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t throw up in the car.
If that happened, I was walking into the Atlantic and not coming back.
I shouldn’t have accepted the ride with the two of them.
Simon hadn’t been able to get today—Thursday—off after all, so he couldn’t leave the city until after work.
I would’ve been happy to delay my arrival as long as possible, but when I’d told my mother I’d have to, she’d told me Madelaine would be picking me up.
There’d been no arguing with that.
On the plus side, Cameron drove like a short-sighted nonagenarian who’d been in several car accidents already, so we hadn’t exactly made great time. One point in his favor.
“She’ll eat me alive anyway,” I said, staring out at familiar scenery.
My mother was a saint, if you asked around. Her charity dinners raised fortunes every year for the arts and culture. She’d raised one daughter—Madelaine—to be a heart surgeon and the other—Delilah—to be the sparkling jewel of the social scene.
There was also me. The editor. Not as impressive as a heart surgeon, not as easily toted out at gala dinners to smile and shake hands and take selfies with. The other Hargrave kid.
Occasionally, I’d be involved with a book her friends approved of, which was, as far as I knew, the only reason she hadn’t changed my name and shipped me off to Iceland.
That possibly wasn’t fair. Viewed from the right angle, everything she did, she did because she loved me.
It was just that bending my neck to just the right angle made it a little hard to breathe.
Madelaine nudged my knee with her own as Cameron—a corporate lawyer wearing a watch worth more than some small apartments—pulled into the drive.
“She’ll be busy with Delilah,” Madelaine said. “Just don’t make it so obvious you’re terrified of her and it won’t set off her hunting instincts.”
I didn’t for a second think that was true, but I appreciated the attempt at reassurance.
Mom had told me this was going to be an intimate family wedding, hence having it at the summer house, and the number of cars in the drive suggested that for once, both of our definitions of intimate more or less lined up.
I’d just gotten my bag out of the back of Cameron’s yellow Porsche—a car that made him stand out as a nouveau riche interloper amongst the small black-and-silver BMW and Mercedes-Benz fleet otherwise present—when I heard the unmistakable sound of stiletto heels crunching on gravel.
“Theo? Is that you?”
I’d expected Delilah—my mother would never have rushed over to greet anyone, let alone worn stilettos before nine—but instead turned to find Audrey Carfax, wearing a shimmery silver dress it looked like she might’ve been sewn into and heels that made my ankles nervous.
Audrey was one of Delilah’s… friends wasn’t the word for it.
Entourage, maybe. She’d gone wherever Delilah did in high school.
I remembered her being here every summer until we stopped doing family summers.
She’d never voluntarily addressed me in my life before now. Which made the broad smile she gave me, showing off what felt like too many unnaturally straight, white teeth, a little alarming.
The way she looked me up and down with a speculative glint in her eyes didn’t make me any more comfortable. Nor did the way the corner of her bright red lips quirked when her gaze reached my face again.
“Wow,” she said, biting the corner of her lower lip and swaying from side to side, her dress shimmering in the last rays of sunlight. “All grown up.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. Was she…?
No. She couldn’t have been flirting with me. Why would she?
“Umm,” I said articulately. “You… too?”
Her smile widened unsettlingly again as she laughed. “Never,” she said. “I’m still seventeen at heart. So I hear you’re—”
“Audrey,” a voice that sent a shiver down my spine said. Not shouted—just spoke. She never shouted.
I’d been so distracted by whatever Audrey was up to that I hadn’t noticed my mother sneaking up.
“I see you’ve found my wayward son,” she went on, touching Audrey’s arm as she passed her, sensible shoes crunching on the gravel. “I’d started to think you weren’t coming.”
I glanced toward Cameron, but he and Madelaine were already heading into the house, having neatly escaped my mother and left me to take the blame for the timing.
“Mom,” I said, rather than arguing, and let go of my suitcase to accept the hug she wrapped me in.
She smelled of iris and white flowers, as always—no scent you could just buy, but something custom she’d been wearing for the past twenty-eight years, at least. Longer, probably, but I hadn’t known her before then.
“You couldn’t have worn something other than black, for once?”
I looked down at my black shirt, black fitted blazer, black jeans, and black dress boots.
Okay, I did wear a lot of black. I didn’t wear a lot of anything else. But—
“What’s wrong with—”
“You know I hate it,” Mom interrupted, her voice low enough that I was the only one who’d hear it. “Never mind. Audrey,” she continued, her signature welcoming smile plastered on as she turned, waving Audrey over. “Theo works with those books you were talking about.”
I tried not to let my eyebrows jump up, but they rose anyway. I sincerely doubted that, unless she was really into middle grade fiction.
Not impossible, but if she read at all—and I’d take Mom’s word for that—then I couldn’t imagine Layla and the Impossible Door being to her taste. I thought it was great, but it was work for me. I didn’t read them for fun.
What I really wanted was to edit romance.
I’d just never felt like I could say that aloud.
Simon was the only person in the world who knew about my romance novel addiction.
He’d only found out in the first place because I’d accidentally taken the one I was reading out of my bag instead of the book I’d been studying in the library, a few weeks after we’d met.
He’d never been cruel to me about it. He’d asked me about it, like he did with the books I was studying, and he’d listened and asked intelligent questions.
The next week, he’d brought me another one. Second hand, creased along the spine, some of the pages folded over by the previous owner. I still had it. If my apartment caught fire, it was the only thing I’d grab before leaving.
He’d given me others since—lots of them—but that first Captured by the Rogue meant the world to me. Even if bodice rippers weren’t necessarily my favorites.
“You’ll have so much to talk about!” Mom enthused, dragging me back to the present.
Hearing her enthuse about anything to do with me was setting off all kinds of warning bells in the back of my mind.
I was not normally the subject of her enthusiasm.
“I was so afraid you’d be the only single here and have no one to talk to, but then I got talking to Audrey and she wanted to know everything about you. Turns out she’s here alone, too!”
“But I’m not here alone,” I said.
Mom looked around, craning her neck theatrically as though someone might be hiding behind me.
I’d told her I was bringing Simon. She knew that.
“I don’t see anyone else here?” she asked, blinking up at me innocently. The stage had lost… well, it probably gained more from her patronage than it would’ve gotten out of her acting skills, but still. She was laying it on thick, and it might even have been convincing to someone else.
“Simon couldn’t get away until after work,” I said. “You know this. I told you this.”
Mom’s head titled back as she let out a bark of laughter, releasing one of my hands to wave off what I was saying.
“Honey, we’re always happy to host Simon here,” she outright lied.
“He’s practically family. But I’m talking about romance.
It is a wedding, after all. Love is in the air!
And it’s about time you started thinking about the future.
Getting serious about someone. Settling down. ”
She squeezed the hand she was still holding. Just as well, because otherwise the sudden rush of blood to my head might’ve made me faint.
Romance.
The future.
Behind her, Audrey flashed me a shy smile calculated down to the last fraction of an inch and fluttered her eyelashes.
Mom was setting me up.
With Audrey Carfax.
Who’d never, in her entire life, shown any interest in me. Who I’d once overheard call me Delilah’s loser brother. Who was looking at me now like I was—
Oh. Right. Her angle must have been…
The expectant look Mom had laser-focused on me made the back of my neck itch and forced my attention back to her.
“I—” I began, only to be interrupted by the sound of tires on the gravel behind me. Whoever was driving, I owed them a life debt.
I took advantage of Mom’s momentary distraction to turn and look.
Simon’s sensible little sky blue 2004 model Honda Accord, absolutely covered in bumper stickers, pulled up behind us. I’d never been so happy to see Gertrude—the car—in my entire life.
Or the man driving her.
Mom stayed quiet as Simon parked and got out.
He wasn’t wearing his glasses. He was wearing a pair of khaki chinos that actually fit him—really, really fit him, showing off his perfect butt—and a casual off-white collared shirt—linen, or a good fake—tucked into the waistband and open at the neck, showing off a tempting V of skin that ended at the hollow of his throat.
His usually unruly chestnut hair was slicked back with what had to have been an industrial amount of product.
He looked incredible. He barely looked like himself.
I freed my other hand from Mom’s grip and strode up to him, heart hammering in my chest.
“Simon,” I said, a smile so wide it hurt spreading over my face. He smiled back, amber eyes sparkling in the fading light.
I reached out for him once he was within touching distance, all the nerves and stress dropping away. It was such a relief I could’ve burst into tears.
Instead of doing that, I grabbed his face with both hands and, stomach swooping, kissed him square on the mouth.