Episode 207
LYIN’ EYES
River
Emily and Sienna enter the mansion first. We find them in the living room with Evangeline.
“Evie,” Seb says. “Misty’s dehydrated. Where’s the doc?”
“Last I saw her, she was eating lunch with Heather and June on the deck.” Evangeline eyes Misty and then Jake. “I’m sure there’s a story here.”
“I’m feeling much better,” Misty says.
“We’re still going to have the doc take a look at you.” Sebastian and Alex lead Misty through the foyer.
“You want to go with them?” I ask Brett.
“Seb and Alex are more than capable. Evangeline, we’re going to need a room for our friend.”
Evangeline clears her throat. “There’s an empty suite next to yours, Brett. I’ll have housekeeping make it up. I would have had it ready upon arrival, but no one bothered to tell me you invited another guest. Is he a friend of Alex’s? Here for the wedding?”
Jake says nothing, and neither does Brett.
I suppose it’s up to me. “Yeah. For the wedding.”
“Okay, then.” Evangeline holds out her hand. “I’m Evangeline, the event planner.”
“Jake.” He shakes her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Jake. I’ll show you where you can stay.”
Jake looks to me, and I nod subtly. “We’ll be up in a minute.”
As Jake follows Evangeline up to the second floor, Emily and Sienna approach us.
We do owe them both an explanation, but it will have to wait.
“We’ll be back,” I say, yanking Brett out the front door.
An exasperated sigh from Emily and a worried whimper from Sienna.
I’ll make everyone understand, but Brett is my first priority at the moment. I owe him that much.
I inhale the floral scent of jasmine as we walk across the pavement. God, it makes me want to puke.
Jake and I had breakfast early this morning. Seems like hours ago. Probably because it was. I chartered a private jet, and we landed in Montego Bay at five a.m., grabbed breakfast, and then hopped a private ferry to the island.
“You finally going to level with me?” Brett asks, voice low and tight.
I nod slowly. “You have to understand. I didn’t know about your feelings for Jake.”
His expression twists. “This isn’t about feelings.”
“Come on,” I say. “You don’t get that look in your eyes over just anyone. I saw it when you laid eyes on Jake this morning. Hell, maybe I should’ve seen it years ago.”
Brett looks away, jaw tight, hands flexing at his sides like he’s trying not to punch something. “You don’t get to act like you suddenly care about how I feel.”
“That’s not fair. You’re my best friend, Brett. My oldest friend. If I’d had any idea—"
He snaps his gaze back to me. “Any idea? Did you think about Alex or Seb? We all loved him. Did you think about his fucking mother? You’ve been sitting on this for twenty years, River. Twenty. Fucking. Years. We buried him. We grieved him. We cried for him.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know,” he seethes. “You couldn’t possibly know what that was like. What it’s still like. You can’t know because you always knew the truth. You knew he was alive. That he was out there.”
I rub a hand down my face. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”
“Then why did you do it?”
I scoff. “Why do you think? Because Jake was in danger. Real danger. He made a mistake. A big one. And no way was I going to let him pay for it with his whole life. It was the only way.”
“And you decided to play God with the truth?”
“I decided to protect him.”
Brett’s shoulders rise and fall with shallow breaths. He’s angry, yeah, but underneath that? He’s gutted. That’s what makes this worse.
“I could’ve helped,” he mutters.
“I know. But the fewer people who knew, the better.”
That lands hard. He flinches, like I struck a nerve.
“You think I would’ve blown it?” he asks.
“Back then? No, I didn’t think that. But if we brought you in, we’d have had to bring in Alex and Seb too. It was too dangerous for Jake.”
He shakes his head. “So what did the two of you do?”
I draw in a breath. “I can’t, man.”
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t tell you that. It has to come from Jake. I made a promise to him twenty years ago that his secret would die with me.”
“You already told us—”
“I already told you way more than I should have. The rest has to come from him.”
“What’d you bring him back here for?” Brett grits out.
“Because it’s time,” I say. “Because Jake deserves more than to live like a shadow.”
“You should’ve let him decide that.”
“He did,” I snap. I take a breath, trying to steady myself. “He wanted to come back. I didn’t drag him out of hiding. I offered him the choice, and he said yes. He said he was ready to stop running. And he knows what that may mean for him. For him and us.”
Brett folds his arms, muscles tense, like he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will. “And what about the rest of us? What are we supposed to do with all this? Just act like nothing happened?”
“No. You’re supposed to remember who he was to us. And trust that he’s still that guy, somewhere underneath everything he’s been through.”
Brett lets out a bitter laugh. “You’re asking me to trust you after twenty years of lies?”
“I’m asking you to trust him.”
Brett doesn’t respond right away. His jaw tightens, and I can see it in his eyes—how badly he wants to be angry, to stay angry. But under it all, the hurt is louder.
I step closer. “Brett, if I could’ve done it differently, I would have. If there’d been any way to bring him back safely without putting a target on his back—”
“But there wasn’t,” he cuts in. “So you lied. To all of us.”
“I did what I had to do.”
A heavy silence falls between us. The kind of silence that says this isn’t over. Not even close.
Brett looks out toward the beach, breathing hard. “He was everything to me, River. And I didn’t even get a goodbye.”
I nod. “I know. And tonight, after dinner, we’ll have a bachelor party for Alex. Just us men, and Jake can say what he needs to say. But there’s something you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“Jake was involved with a woman in Miami. Her name is Felicity. He told me it’s not serious. I believe him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed to come with me so readily.”
Brett doesn’t answer right away. Just scrubs a hand down his face and shakes his head. Finally, “I’m involved with someone too.”
“Sienna.”
“Yeah. I love her, damn it. I was finally—finally—ready to love again, Riv. And now this?”
“Listen, Brett,” I say as gently as I can. “You don’t even know if Jake would be open to…you know.”
He sighs. “I know. But after all this time, I feel like it’s providential. Like he wouldn’t have returned unless there was a chance for us.”
“And Sienna?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I love her. And I love him. I’m not sure I can choose.”
“Maybe Jake will choose for you,” I say, again gently.
“Maybe,” Brett says. “But how can I give Sienna up?”
Interesting response. My comment was meant to help Brett understand that Jake may not be able to love a man that way. Brett took it to mean the opposite.
He grimaces then. And before I can react, Brett does something he’s never done before in thirty-five years of friendship.
He cracks his fist against my jaw like a thunderclap.