Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Every sweet thing he’d said a few minutes earlier, everything we’d done the night before—all following a big, fat lie!
Oh, God! My chest was being ripped apart. How could I have been so stupid? So easy? So willing to trust him?
“Kate,” Colin said, holding my arm with one hand and putting his phone back in his pocket with the other.
I untangled myself from his arm as he repeated my name several times.
I walked over to the other side of the boat, shoving Colin and Maggie out of my mind so that I wouldn’t completely unravel in front of everyone.
Pam engaged me in conversation, which (as was to be expected) didn’t end until we were safely back and docked by the house. I didn’t look at Colin for the rest of the excursion, and I got off the boat and walked back to the house without looking back to check if he was behind me.
When I got back to the room, I locked myself in the bathroom, finally allowing myself to buckle under the weight of it all.
Nothing was clear and everything was more muddled than ever, but knowing he’d lied to me more than once about who’d been calling him hurt so much that I knew without a doubt I’d never see him again. And that hurt even more.
Why had he lied?
I hadn’t given him a chance to explain yet, but honestly, what explanation was there? It couldn’t be something good, right? There was no coming back from a lie. To think he’d been so upset about his previous relationship and Andrea’s lies, and yet here he was being the one doing the lying.
“Kate,” came his voice from the other side of the bathroom door. I was sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub, and I turned on the water, filling the tub and then turning on the jets so that the continuous noise drowned out any justifications he might have wanted to communicate.
I soaked in the tub, closing my eyes and trying to take the deep breaths that they say are supposed to calm your nervous system. But my system must have been in overdrive because every breath just brought on a new idea.
Maybe they had dated, and something bad had happened between them. Maybe he threatened her with losing her job in exchange for something. Maybe he was using her to get back at his brother over the crashed kayak.
It could be anything, I supposed. But the only way to find out what was really going on was to hear it from him directly. And that’s if he’d tell the truth this time.
After I finished my soak, I wrapped a towel around me and opened the door. Colin bolted up from the bed and put up both hands, as if in surrender.
“Please listen to what I have to say,” he said, bringing his hands together in front of him as if in prayer. He looked at me from my bare toes to my sopping wet hair. I held my towel firmly in place.
This was the only way to find out what was really going on, I told myself.
“Go ahead,” I said as I gathered some clothes to cover myself with quickly. “But turn around.”
He blinked a few times and then faced the window. I let the towel drop and quickly put on soft jogger pants and a plain white T-shirt while he began a wild story I was not prepared for.
“I was working at Hansen & Jones. Made it to the top on my own. I didn’t plan on leaving for a long time, but the board at my father’s company voted me in as VP, with Martin Flame making me the offer when Kirkman was fired for groping Kaitlin at the company Christmas party.”
I didn’t interrupt him, but this bit of news shocked me. I felt bad for Kaitlin despite her continuously haughty attitude toward me. No woman deserved to be violated like that.
“After I accepted and had a welcome dinner with the executives and department heads, I was told why they’d really hired me. Martin had put my name front and center to avoid a scandal. Not because of what Kirkman had done to Kaitlin—something else.”
He hesitated for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck, and I realized that if everything he was saying was true, he was about to entrust me with some very confidential information. I almost told him not to say it, but he spoke up and spilled it all.
“Martin told me that night at the welcome dinner that someone was siphoning confidential information to our competitors. He wanted me to take the lead in investigating since he had determined it was coming from within the sales division, but not being a daily presence in our building, he needed someone working on the inside that he was certain wasn’t involved.
He trusted I wouldn’t tell anyone. Martin has known me since I was a kid.
Maggie and I used to play together as children. ”
This was a lot of information at once, and it was certainly surprising that someone had been leaking information to our competitors, but his involvement with Maggie was what I was most interested in.
“You can turn around now,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed in anticipation.
He faced me, his hands in his pockets, and continued, “She’s always been like the Maggie you know today—beautiful, charming, mysterious.
In high school she didn’t date any of the guys who fawned over her, or so Landon would tell us.
Eventually, rumors spread that she’d started dating celebrities during her time interning in New York.
All of this is to say that Maggie and her father didn’t get along.
He didn’t approve of her going to New York.
Let’s just say he has certain ideas about women, and he didn’t want Maggie to aspire to any of that.
But she did have big ambitions, and here she is, working at the company he’s on the board for.
He gets wind of the information leak, and he’s desperate to prove it’s someone other than his own daughter to protect her reputation. He can trust only me.”
“None of this explains why you lied about Maggie calling you,” I said.
My patience was wearing thin. I looked outside and saw that there were clouds forming on the horizon.
Colin quickly took a step toward me, overriding my slight fear of what the dark clouds might mean for the wedding this evening.
“It’s a very long and convoluted story, but please give me a chance. I’m getting to that,” he said, searching my face for something.
Understanding? Grace? He started pacing then.
“I haven’t been able to figure anything out.
I’ve let down Martin, and pretty soon, if this keeps up, my father’s company won’t meet expectations for the quarter.
You saw what happened in Chicago. It happened again this past week on my trip to Philadelphia.
It’s going to keep happening because I’ve failed to discover who else is involved.
I’ve been trying to protect Maggie, but certain inconsistencies are pointing to her.
I’ve been asking questions, seen a few suspicious transactions on her company card.
She’s onto me, which is why she’s calling me often to update me on a new client or a new lead and giving me lots of useless information except what I really need. ”
I shook my head. I wanted to trust him. God help me, I did.
“I understand the need for secrecy,” I said. “I get why you weren’t able to tell me about the investigation. But why not tell me the truth when I asked who was calling? Why couldn’t you say that Maggie was calling to tell you about a new client?”
He ran his hand from his jaw to the top of his head and back. “I thought it was you.”
I scrunched up my face. “Huh?”
“I thought you were the one who was siphoning information.” He stood there, and I sat there, in complete silence for about thirty seconds after he said that.
It was as if the world stopped turning, yet my brain was moving at a thousand miles per hour.
“And when did you decide I wasn’t a suspect anymore?” I managed to whisper. My heart was beating from the insane amount of adrenaline running through my body.
He had thought I was the informant?
Of course!
That’s why I went to Chicago. That’s why when I didn’t give away anything in Chicago (because obviously I’m not involved in whatever is going on), he asked me out. That’s why he’s continued to ask me out.
I felt sick. So much so that I ran to the bathroom before he could answer, shut the door behind me, and sat in front of the toilet with my head between my legs. Nothing was coming up, but I was still nauseous to the point I was afraid I’d pass out.
I must have made some pretty gross noises because I heard Colin calling my name, and when I didn’t answer, he opened the door. I looked up to see him finding me in that awful state, and he rushed down to my side.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his tone the epitome of concern.
I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to tell him not to concern himself with me now. Not now that he’d made me fall for him when he’d had no real attraction, no real interest, no real feelings…
I lunged up to the toilet, and it all came out. The breakfast, and who knows what else. Certainly the silly visions of a future I’d started to dream up.
As I braced both sides of the toilet, I felt him gathering my hair with one hand and laying his other hand on my back. There wasn’t much more in my stomach to come out, so I reached for the toilet paper to clean myself up as best as possible, flushed the toilet, and sat back.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’ll bring you sparkling water,” he said and left me.
The thoughts continued. I understood everything now. Even now, I was probably still under suspicion.
But what about last night? Was that part of his plan to get me to confess? Keep your enemies close, so they say.
Ruminating didn’t help. It was too painful to remember how happy I’d been such a short time ago, when I was convinced we had a future.
Colin came back faster than I would have predicted, handing me a glass of sparkling water. I forced a few sips. Physically, I was doing much better.
I stood up, rejecting his outstretched hand, and pushed past him to brush my teeth.
“Kate,” he started.