Chapter 3
CASSANDRA
Blake Harrington jumped into the Quince River to save me. That fact should have been what I was focusing on. Instead, as I stood under a scalding hot shower back in my apartment an hour and a half later, all I could think was that bastard.
Blake Harrington knew who I was and didn’t say anything. Worse, I was pretty sure, like ninety percent sure, that if I hadn’t seen Eli at that choice moment, Blake Harrington would have kissed me.
Blake Harrington was a married man.
Red rage flooded my vision as I pulled on my skirt and blazer. I pictured Blake not as I’d met him on that island with his sopping hair and beard, but like he was on the front page of his website, leaning back-to-back against his wife. What an asshole.
It would be hard to tell Lila exactly how her husband had behaved with me this morning; but it would be much better than letting that asshole get away with… with what exactly? We hadn’t done anything. He could have been looking in my eyes, seeing if I had signs of hypothermia.
But I knew that was bullshit. What had happened between us did not feel innocuous. No, it wasn’t cool, and given how I’d been on the other side only last year—granted, with a much bigger betrayal by Ned, but still—I wouldn’t stand for it. He was getting fired.
Unfortunately, it would have to be after the meeting with him.
I wished not for the first time that I’d scheduled the intro meeting for later in the afternoon so I could have at least had the option to talk to Lila first. Though in some ways, it was a good thing it would go ahead.
I did need them to share the results of the study, even if they weren’t going to be continuing on with us.
Even if I couldn’t stand the thought of listening to a single word Blake Harrington said.
Even if I knew in my heart, too, that the study wasn’t enough—we needed that operational review. But I could never work with a man like Blake Harrington. There was no way.
Luckily, I knew from the meeting agenda their employee Brynn had sent me that they’d agreed with my proposed schedule of sharing the results of the remote review first. When I’d asked them to set it up that way, it was so I could warm my siblings up.
Show them how the initial review outlined that the full review was not only recommended, but necessary.
After that, I was going to call for a break and tell them I’d booked the whole thing.
Now, I’d pull Lila aside after the break and tell her what happened.
Never mind that I’d have to suffer through any part of a meeting with Blake Harrington pretending things were fine.
God I was an idiot. I was an idiot now, for not having recognized Blake, and I was an idiot last year, when I’d sat down with Ned completely unaware he was about to shatter my heart in a million pieces—and my trust in any man ever after. I just wished I’d remembered that standing in those trees.
The heat that had spread through me then threatened to come back now, but I shoved it aside with all my might.
I would not be charmed by a philanderer.
My hands shook as I hooked in the pearl earrings Mom had given me when I graduated college into my lobes.
Somehow, I managed to stroke on some mascara without stabbing myself in the eye.
Still, the memories from this morning came creeping back.
After Eli got over the shock of seeing the two of us together in the middle of the Quince, he’d pulled out his phone and called Griff, who of course had access to a dinghy with an outboard.
The wait on shore with Blake had been awkward—I’d shut down when he told me who he was, wanting very badly to hit him.
I’d never wanted to hit anyone before. I’d never even wanted to hit Ned, not even when he told me he wasn’t coming with me to my mother’s funeral.
Not even when he told me he was leaving me for a friend of mine—a friend he’d apparently been sleeping with for over a year.
I’d been shocked to my core, but I hadn’t wanted to hit him.
But this guy? When Blake held out his hand for me to shake, I didn’t take it.
Instead, I managed to say between gritted teeth, “I guess you know who I am already,” while my mind reeled with what to do.
Mortification rippled through me. In the end, I opted to pace the gravel rather than talk—or enact physical violence.
He seemed to understand I needed time to process and didn’t try to speak.
Instead, he peeled off the sweater he’d been wearing, revealing a white t-shirt, plastered to his body.
It was then I noticed his gray sweatpants, which were also very plastered to him. To everything.
I’d let out a gasp, then jogged all the way to the tip of the little island to keep myself from seeing him again.
The man was horrible. Shitty. As bad as Ned, almost. And the fact that I found him physically attractive after knowing that made me ill.
Griffin showed up twenty minutes later, and I’d never been happier to see my grumbly brother and his buzzing outboard motor in my life.
Unfortunately, my happiness drained away when Griff screwed up his face and yelled over the roaring engine at Blake as we crawled into the boat, “Didn’t I see you yesterday at the resort?”
Blake had thrown me a look and I knew he hadn’t wanted me to know that.
“Wait, what? You stayed at the resort?”
He’d kept his eyes on me when he shouted back to Griff, “Yeah, good memory.”
My brother did have a good memory, and he was never wrong about stuff like that. He knew faces.
Humiliation ripped through me. Had Blake been watching me at my job ahead of our start date?
That’s part of what the Harringtons did, I knew.
They shadowed employees at the businesses, though I didn’t know they did that before contracts started.
And shit, neither Griffin nor Eli knew Blake was preparing for a longer stay.
The only saving grace I could think of was that I hadn’t really shown my face at the resort this past week at all—I’d been holed up in my office, preparing for the meeting with this very asshole.
I should have fired him right there, but the motor was so loud I’d have had to yell it—and then explain myself to Griffin.
Plus, it was only a moment before we hit the little beach Griff had navigated us to a bit upstream, where Eli was waiting.
Blake jumped out. He stood on shore and looked me in the eye as he said goodbye, and I knew my brothers—Eli, on the beach, and Griff, at the stern of the boat—could sense the tension between us.
“I’ll go back with you,” I yelled to Griffin.
Blake had lifted a hand to me, which I hadn’t returned.
But I couldn’t just ignore him—Eli and Griff could already tell something was up.
They were looking at me with expressions of confusion.
Finally, I brought my eyes back to Blake.
At least I could admit through my anger and humiliation that he had saved me—possibly even my life. I could respond to that.
“Thank you,” I called out. “For pulling me out.”
Blake said nothing, just held my gaze a moment longer before giving a curt nod and walking away with Eli, his hip waders slung over his arm.
I hated myself for the tug of pain in my chest as I watched his back shift under his still-damp shirt. We’d had a moment, I knew we had, and how pathetic was it that the first person to spark those feelings in me in so long was a married man? Asshole.
My stomach had churned wondering what Blake and Eli were talking about. But now, even though I’d cranked the ringer up on my phone, it was silent as I pulled on my shoes and a light jacket. No messages from Eli.
When I stepped out of my apartment, my insides were still a tumultuous hurricane of emotions.
But I forced myself to breathe as I opened the ground-floor door onto the still-gorgeous morning.
By the time I entered the patch of trees that lined the four-minute walk between the staff apartments and the resort, I’d cooled down enough to think a little more generously about the situation.
As the staff entrance of the Rolling Hills resort came into view, I wondered if somehow I’d misread the whole situation.
Maybe Blake hadn’t been flirting. Lord knows I wasn’t exactly up on my skills in that department.
I hadn’t even contemplated dating again since splitting with Ned, let alone put myself out there. I wasn’t sure I ever would.
When I jogged up the steps to the quieter west wing staff entrance, instead of going right inside, I leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. I needed a level head for this meeting. I could do this—I just needed a minute.
“You want to tell me what you were doing on a secluded island with a married man?”
A jolt of adrenaline shot through me as I opened my eyes. “Goddammit, Eli,” I said. “You scared me.” Then I pushed myself off the wall. “You know I would never do anything like that.”
“Oh no?”
“Not in a million years.” I wouldn’t. Even before everything went down with Ned, I wouldn’t have done that.
But after? I’d have to be some kind of self-flagellating sociopath.
I’d left home to live with Ned, back when my future was brighter than the sun warming my skin right now.
I’d trusted him. Sure we’d been busy with work the past few years, doing fewer and fewer things together as a couple, but I never would have dreamed he’d cheat on me.
To my horror, I felt a lump forming in my throat.
Eli saw me getting affected; I could tell by the way he shifted as he leaned against the banister, his eyes darting sideways for a moment. Something almost softened in his expression, but I could tell he still wasn’t clear about what had happened between Blake and me.
Join the club.
“Eli,” I said. “Do you honestly think I would be messing around with a married man, after what Ned did to me?”