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He tugs me toward the dance floor. It seems like a bad idea, in front of all these people, and an especially bad idea when I should be figuring out how the hell to get him out of this mess I made, but I can’t resist. The clock’s been ticking for us, ever since we arrived, and it’s moving faster by the moment. If the cops are talking to Grady right now, this might be my last chance to be near Luke at all.

“I didn’t figure you for a dancer,” I tell him, stalling. “Or a guy who’d own a tux, to be honest.”

His mouth twitches. “I’m full of surprises, sweetheart.”

His hand slides from my hip to the small of my back. People will talk if they’re watching, and I should probably back away, but I can’t seem to. I should probably tell him about Danny’s case getting reopened and I don’t do that either. I suspect he’ll just make things worse. He was always too goddamn honest. I’ll have to solve it on my own. Somehow.

“Are you going to tell me why you were at Pipeline?” he asks, tugging me closer.

“I just was.”

I start to pull away from him and his grip tightens around my hip, pressing me against him. “Can you just, for once in your fucking life, tell me the truth? You didn’t just happen to be there.”

“It doesn’t matter why I was there,” I whisper, but my voice cracks.

It doesn’t matter that I was in Tahiti for the Tahiti Pro and in Australia for the Pro Gold Coast, and that I have gone to as many of those as I could possibly attend and hidden it so he wouldn’t know. It’s all resting there, right on the tip of my tongue, but then he turns me…and I stop dancing entirely as Cash walks toward us. Cash, who never made any effort to see me, is here, cutting across the dance floor, in a tux. He’s smiling, but there’s a dangerous look in his eyes I recognize. He hasn’t seen me in six weeks but still thinks he’s got the right to be angry that I’m dancing with someone else.

I stop moving, and Luke turns, already wrapping a protective arm around me when he has no clue what’s happening. And then he recognizes Cash—and that arm tightens.

“Cash?” I whisper. “What are you doing here?”

He raises an eyebrow and folds his arms across his chest. “I thought I was here to surprise you.” His head jerks toward Luke. “Who the fuck is he?”

Luke is still and silent, and then the arm that was wrapped around my waist releases me as he steps forward, his fist striking Cash so hard and so fast that Cash can’t even brace himself.

He stumbles backward, into the crowd, knocking over dancers, but Luke isn’t done. He dives at Cash and knocks him to the ground while the dance floor turns into chaos. People scatter, and Cash’s bodyguards spring into action, grabbing Luke from behind and pulling him away. Beck steps in as Cash climbs to his feet to make sure the fight ends…but the damage is already done.

Luke just hit Cash with no provocation and there were many witnesses, including Donna, who stands a few feet off the dance floor. Her eyes are wide, confused, and then her shoulders sag as if she’s finally figured out what’s been so obvious to everyone else.

“Call the cops!” Cash yells.

“No.” I step forward. “Let’s just go.”

Luke reaches for me. “Where the fuck are you going?” His fingers are on my skin for the very last time. Memorize this, Juliet.

“Let me handle it,” I reply, shaking him off.

“Juliet, if you leave with him, we’re over,” Luke says.

I swallow hard. These weeks with him have been thrilling and painful, and I think maybe I’ve stored up enough memories to get me through a few more years.

“I know,” I reply softly. I mean to sound careless but I don’t. I sound like I’m on the verge of falling apart.

I cross to where Cash stands and slide my arm through his. God, his timing couldn’t be worse. I’ll get him out of here and then figure out how to fix things with the police. “Let’s go elsewhere.”

“Fuck that,” he says. “I’m pressing charges.”

I raise a brow. “Cash, you’re not the only one who can press charges. The whole world saw you dragging me off an elevator by my hair, and there’s so much more I can say. So should I call the cops on you or should we start walking?”

He stares at me, dumbfounded. For all the dozens of times he’s hit me or thrown me against a wall, I’ve never once suggested I’d turn on him. “You wouldn’t.”

I laugh. I never said I loved him. I never even said I liked him. He just assumed it was true and took my silence as proof. “Watch me.”

A vein throbs in his temple as he grudgingly turns toward the ballroom’s exit just as the doors open and my stomach drops farther than I thought it possibly could.

Two uniformed officers are making their way toward me. Four others are heading toward Luke.

“What on Earth?” Donna asks, walking up beside me. “It was just a little fight.”