She was already walking to the bar before his mind caught up.
Before his mind caught up, got distracted by the fact that she wasn’t wearing shoes and that that somehow made her sexier, and then focused again.
‘You’re talking about this very nonchalantly,’ he commented once he joined her at the bar.
‘How am I supposed to talk about it?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘I would think there’d be more emotion about your ex taking over your family’s business. That he’s seen as family.’
She ordered some tropical mocktail for herself, glanced over her shoulder for his order. He asked for the same.
‘You’ve worked hard,’ she said quietly, turning back to him. ‘You deserve this.’ There was a pause. ‘And since it’s not me, I’d rather it be you.’
He didn’t have any time to process before she was moving on.
‘Besides, my father’s seen you as family long before our relationship. He’s not going around offering internships to every bad-tempered university student.’
The barperson set down their drinks and she grabbed them both, offering his to him with a sly smile.
‘I was not bad-tempered,’ he said, choosing the most innocuous of what she’d said to focus on.
‘You’re right. I made it sound like it was in the past.’
He refused to smile at that. ‘Did you come to this dance specifically to annoy me with perkiness?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you dare call me perky, Montgomery.’
He lifted his free hand in surrender, and suddenly realised the other patrons of the bar were staring at them, watching their interaction with unabashed interest.
‘Want to find a place closer to the water to finish these at?’
Her eyebrows rose, but she turned, scanned the room before lifting her coconut. He followed her gaze and found Trevor and Lynette standing on the patio. Lynette responded in kind, but Trevor only nodded.
When Wyatt turned back to Summer, her eyes were tense. She covered it up with a smile.
‘Sure. They’ve both seen me now, so I can abandon ship.’
He followed as she led the way past the dance floor, stopping right at the edge of where the waves crashed on the beach. She sat on a dry piece of sand, away from the view of the dance, extending her legs. He couldn’t bring himself to care about the privacy she’d anticipated though when he couldn’t stop staring at her legs.
It was fascinating, seeing the brown of her skin against the almost identical brown of the sand. He wanted to touch her legs; to take the sand and spread it over them to see how different they truly were.
Which was nonsensical, and more erotic than he should have allowed his thoughts to indulge. He drank deeply of the sweet drink in his coconut, relishing the burn of the sugar in his throat.
Perhaps it would burn away his insanity.
‘Why did you come?’ he asked, desperate to get out of his own thoughts.
She set her drink down. Began drawing circles around it in the sand.
‘It didn’t seem fair,’ she said after a pause so long he’d thought she wouldn’t respond, ‘to force you into explaining my absence.’
‘You weren’t forcing me.’
‘I would have been.’ She carried on drawing circles. ‘And now I’m forcing you to be here with me.’
‘How are you forcing me when I asked you to come down to the beach with me?’
‘Because...you don’t put yourself first, Wyatt.’
‘What?’
‘You agree to share a blanket with me at a picnic because of my father. You agree to keep me company on the cruise because I asked you to.’ She didn’t look up. ‘Were those really things you wanted to do? Or did you do them even though you’ll regret them?’
‘I didn’t regret them,’ he said after he’d processed what she was saying. And realised she was right.
‘Not even that kiss?’ she asked softly, abandoning her sand drawing.
‘It was probably a mistake, but I don’t regret it.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘They’re the same thing.’
‘No, they’re not. Regret is wishing you hadn’t done something. I don’t—’ he hesitated ‘—I don’t feel that way.’
Her eyes were full of emotion he couldn’t describe.
‘And a mistake?’ she asked, her voice husky.
‘A mistake is...knowing you did something wrong.’
‘So our kiss was wrong, but you don’t regret doing it?’
‘Exactly.’.
‘Why not? Why don’t you regret it?’
Up until that moment, he hadn’t thought about the kiss. Or he’d tried not to, except to acknowledge that it had been a mistake and he couldn’t repeat it. But not once had he wished he hadn’t done it. Even now, when his mind told him it would be for the best to regret it, he couldn’t bring himself to.
‘I don’t know, Summer,’ he replied honestly. ‘I guess it was nice to remind myself that our marriage wasn’t a fluke. That there was a real, honest attraction between us before everything... Before.’
‘You doubted it?’
He gave her a steady look. Her cheeks pinkened.
‘Fair,’ she said. ‘But now you know the divorce wasn’t because of that.’
‘I still have questions.’
Her fingers curled into the sand beside her.
‘So ask them.’
He hadn’t expected that, but it didn’t take long to come up with a question. He’d been wondering it ever since their discussion.
‘How could you have ever thought you weren’t what I wanted?’
There was a long silence.
‘Because you kept looking for more.’
‘At work?’ he asked. She nodded. He sighed. ‘I wasn’t looking. I was...hoping. If I could give you what I thought you wanted, maybe you wouldn’t leave.’
She blinked. ‘Why didn’t you ask me what I want?’ When he didn’t reply, she said, ‘The answer would have been simple: I wanted you. The man I fell in love with. The man you already were. Not who you were trying to be.’
My father.
He heard the words as clearly as if she’d said it.
It felt as if his heart had been torn out of his chest and lifted into space. It was too tight, too sluggish, too exposed. He waited for the feeling to pass, and when it didn’t, he stood and began to pace.
‘Wyatt—’
‘I wanted to give you the life you deserved,’ he interrupted.
‘I didn’t deserve you turning into my father,’ she said so softly he might have missed it if he hadn’t moved forward.
‘You didn’t deserve the instability I’d grown up with either,’ he said through his teeth.
‘Were those our only two options?’
‘One of them wasn’t as bad as the other.’
Abruptly he turned and walked towards the ocean. Almost immediately a wave washed over his feet. It happened again when he didn’t move. And again, when still his feet remained rooted in the sand.
‘Wyatt,’ Summer said from behind him.
When he turned, she was standing a metre away from him. Gently, she took his hand and pulled him out of the water, closer to where they had been sitting.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to make you think about it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s...always there. Hovering over my head. Work helps to keep it at bay.’
She dropped his hand. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘I didn’t want you to... I didn’t want you to think I was broken. Or remind you I wasn’t what you wanted.’
‘I wouldn’t have.’
‘You wouldn’t have,’ he repeated, agreeing. Finally seeing. ‘There’s a reason I want that life you s
ay is unrealistic, Sun,’ he said softly. ‘Realism wouldn’t have got me out of my situation. I had to work towards something. My job... It allowed me to do that.’
Her eyes were wide, bright even under the night sky. She nodded.
‘I thought,’ he said after a moment, ‘that I was working towards a good life for the both of us.’ He looked down. ‘I guess I was doing the opposite.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said after a moment. ‘I should have said something. I would have...’
She trailed off. He waited for more, but there was nothing, not for the longest time. Eventually, she said, ‘This is my fault, too, Wyatt.’
‘Why?’
‘I—’ She exhaled sharply. ‘I can’t tell you.’
He studied her. ‘What am I supposed to do with that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
Her hand lifted, her fingers curling into a fist before it dropped. But then it lifted again, almost as if she couldn’t help it, and cupped his cheek.
‘I don’t know.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FEAR PULSED INSIDE her chest.
She wanted to tell Wyatt the truth so badly, but that fear confirmed the only thing telling him would bring her was heartache. She felt torn between the two desires: tell him, or protect him. Or protect herself. The turmoil almost caused her physical pain.
A part of her suspected things would change soon anyway. Something had happened between her mother and her father. Summer could see it in the stiff way her mother held herself up; in the sharp glances her father sent her.
Even if Summer hadn’t seen those signs, she would have known something was wrong based on her mother’s behaviour. Lynette was acting strangely. Apologetically. And that could only mean her mother knew the truth.
So maybe she could tell Wyatt and finally get it off her chest.
But that wouldn’t change the reasons she hadn’t told him in the first place. She still wanted to protect him. She wanted him to keep his purpose. Except that felt up in the air now. Things had changed with him, too. They’d been honest with one another, and it hadn’t destroyed him. It hadn’t destroyed her either. Maybe she could—
The fear bounced inside her, demanded her attention. She dismissed the possibility. No, she needed to keep this a secret. And she’d just have to deal with Wyatt walking away from her this time...
Except he wasn’t.
He should have. Her hand was cupping his face, and she was seeking comfort from him for her own selfish reasons. He should have been walking away from her.
He wasn’t.
All she could think was that it felt good. Touching him felt good. Being there, practically alone in the dark with him, felt good.
She kept expecting him to push her away. To tell her that she didn’t deserve to touch him, or feel good about anything that had to do with him. She held her breath, waiting for it. Waiting for the moment he’d realise he didn’t have to stay there with her. The moment he’d realise his life would be so much easier if he left.
But it didn’t come.
The longer she waited, the stronger the spell of the moment wove around them. The fact that the ocean was only steps away from their feet. The fact that the moon shone down over them, and the stars twinkled above them. Like the night before, when they’d met on that bridge.
Except it felt different now. As if the obstacles that had kept them from talking the night before had suddenly been overcome. Which they hadn’t been, she knew, and yet it didn’t change that things felt different.
Music drifted down towards them, mingling with the sound of the waves crashing in a seductive tune that made the spell impossible to bear.
Soon she wasn’t thinking about what Wyatt should be doing. Or about what she should be doing. She was only thinking about her hand on his face. If she wanted to, she could slide it to the back of his head, apply pressure, and bring his lips down to hers...
It didn’t help the fantasy—or delusion—when he turned his head to press a kiss into her palm. It seared her skin, so that when he tugged her hand away from his face, she looked down to check for a scar. She barely had a moment to see her hand before his fingers twined with hers. His free hand slid around her waist, pulling her gently towards him as he began to sway.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Dancing,’ he replied, lifting a brow. ‘Clearly I’m not doing it very well if you had to ask.’
‘No, I—’ She broke off when she realised how unsteady she sounded. ‘I’m surprised.’
‘That I’m dancing with you...at a dance?’
‘That you’re not running away from me.’
The light amusement on his face faded. ‘If it helps, I’m wondering that same thing.’
‘It does, actually. Not that I can tell you why.’
‘Misery loves company,’ he replied, the amusement creeping back into his voice.
‘Loneliness, too,’ she commented.
He looked down at her. ‘You’re lonely?’
She blinked when her eyes heated. Said, ‘Yes,’ before she could help it.
‘But you have a family.’
‘Doesn’t mean you don’t feel lonely,’ she told him. ‘Doesn’t mean you feel like you belong.’
He searched her face. ‘How did I get this so wrong? Your relationship with your family?’
‘Is this your question?’
He blinked. ‘What?’
‘Your question. Your payment for keeping me company earlier.’
‘Oh.’ A puzzled look settled on his face, then his eyes sharpened. ‘You’d like it to be, wouldn’t you?’
‘Just paying off a debt.’
He studied her. ‘Fine. You’ve given me plenty of other questions. I suppose this one can be official.’
Something settled inside her.
‘Well, then.’ She cleared her throat. ‘The answer is simple. You didn’t know how I felt about my family because I hid it away from you.’
Wyatt stiffened. Her expression told him she’d felt it, but she continued as if neither of them had noticed anything.
‘You know how, when you have someone coming over to your place for the first time, you make sure everything’s in place?’ she asked. ‘You stuff the cupboard with your clothing, pack away the dishes, make sure all the surfaces are nice and tidy before they get there so you can impress them?’
He nodded, unsure of where she was going with it.
‘That gives you a pretty good idea of what happened when I met you. Which is strange, because you were the only one who could see past what I was showing to the world.’ She shook her head. ‘The point is, I wanted you to see what you thought existed. Me, the perfect partner. My perfect family.’ She paused. ‘But I couldn’t keep pretending like the clothing wasn’t a jumble behind the cupboard doors. Or that I hadn’t packed the dishes away into the wrong places, or that the surfaces stayed nice and tidy. What you’ve seen this weekend is...behind the pretence.’
‘You’re saying you stopped tidying up?’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry for it.’ Her voice, her expression were sincere. ‘I see now that I added to the idea of the life you wanted. But it’s not real, Wyatt. I just pretended it was. At least, what you hadn’t seen through.’ She paused. ‘I’m not perfect. Neither is my family.’
‘Why? Why did you hide it?’
‘Ah, that’s a lot more complicated,’ she said, her face sad. ‘I’ve already told you some of it.’
‘Purpose?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘We’ve already spoken about that. What’s the rest?’
She shook her head, her face anguished, and he couldn’t bring himself to ask it again.
He should have. Maybe he would finally get the answers he needed. Except he already had them. Some of them, at least. He saw that part of why
she’d left had been because she believed she was doing the right thing for him. He couldn’t blame her for it when he had needed a purpose. He’d needed something to work towards.
He didn’t regret that desire when it had lifted him out of his broken childhood. But he could see how the idea of an even better life had ended his relationship. He’d had more than what he needed when he’d been married. Hell, he’d had everything he’d ever wanted. Still, he’d wanted more. He’d worked for more.
Not for Summer, he realised now. Summer had had the life he’d thought she deserved before she’d even met him. But he’d let his feelings about his parents cloud his vision. He’d let the brokenness they’d left inside him block his path.
And he’d hurt her because of it.
He should have been content with those answers. He wasn’t. He wanted to know everything that had contributed to the end of their marriage. He needed to know in case he didn’t have to accept that he’d allowed his parents to rob him of his happiness.
But he couldn’t ask her directly. Not when it had put that look on her face. So he hedged.
‘For someone who doesn’t feel like they belong to a family, you do a lot for them,’ he remarked slowly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Standing up for Autumn today. Making that toast.’ He paused. ‘Being here at all.’
‘This is my parents’ anniversary. I couldn’t not be here. I tried, remember?’
‘Summer, you can’t deny you care about them.’
She shrugged. ‘Caring about them doesn’t mean I belong. In fact, it makes it clearer that I don’t.’
‘Did they do this to you? Did they make you feel this way?’ he asked. ‘I can’t imagine Autumn or your mother—’
‘Because it wasn’t them,’ she interrupted. ‘Not intentionally.’
‘So it’s your father.’
‘Wyatt,’ she said, her voice low.
‘It is.’ He stared at her. ‘Your father made you feel like you don’t belong? How is that possible?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How is it possible that he could make me feel a part of something bigger than myself, but he made you, his own daughter, feel this way?’
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