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Marcus goes back down to the yard and leaves me alone with my hands shaking.

Sitting doesn't work. I re-type Whitmore's ruined invoice and get the total wrong twice, which has never happened in my life. My hands need something to do that isn't thinking about green water, or about the man who went into it after me and then couldn't get away from me fast enough.

He obviously regrets the kiss. Nothing else fits the way he’s been acting all morning. And that thought hurt likes an absolute bastard.

A little voice keeps telling me to slink off with my tail between my legs and accept that we were never meant to be. Yes, it was the best kiss of my life. Probably the best in the entire history of the world, but he’s never coming near me again. If I leave now, at least I won’t have to listen to him firing me.

It’s tempting, but if I give up, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if we could have been more if I’d only tried a little harder. This man’s been featuring in all my fantasies for as long as I’ve been having sexual feelings. I’m not handing him an easy out. I just need to stay busy.

So I go for the dead files. The boxes in the back room, the paper graveyard from before my time, the project I keep promising myself for a rainy day. My hair's still dripping. I guess that’s close enough.

I find it in the third box I open.

A fat folder, swollen and water-stained, with years of dust on it. Photos on top. The roof of the workshop with a hole torn in it big enough to drop a car through. A dock, broken in the middle, lying down in the water like something that got tired. Repair quotes behind the photos, each one more money than the last.

And under all of it, one of the letters I've been half-waiting to trip over since my first day.

Before we can proceed with your claim, we require the following additional documentation...

Followed by a list as long as my arm. It's the one we had to send when the answer was already no and nobody's allowed to say so yet. It’s the insurance company playing for time while they find the right loophole. I sent hundreds of them.

At the bottom, in blue ink, V. Daniels, Claims.

I knew this had to be here somewhere. But knowing it and holding it turn out to be two different animals, because my hands have gone icy all over again.

Aiden jumped into the water after me today with his boots on. He kissed me last night and I was hoping with all my heart to take it well beyond that tonight. Meanwhile I’m the person who signed the worst letter anyone ever sent him, and he doesn’t know the truth.

He already doesn’t want anything to do with me. This is surely going to be the final straw, but I can’t keep this from him any longer. I was hoping to help improve the business, somehow atone for being forced to reject his claim, and then tell him, but if he stumbles across one of these, he’s going to know immediately. I’m shocked he hasn’t put it together already.

I put the folder back in the box, close the lid, and go down the stairs with my heart slamming.

He's outside the workshop, hosing harbor muck off the dock lines in dry clothes, and he doesn't look up.

"Aiden."

"What?"

One word, and it almost turns me around. I force myself to stay where I am. "There's something I should have told you a long time ago, and I-"

"Mr. Cole!" Whitmore comes around the corner of the building like a man arriving at his own party. “You’re both fine, that’s good to see. Now about wintering her here. I'll want her under cover, of course, none of this sitting outside under a tarp business-"

"Talk to Vanessa." Aiden shuts off the hose and starts coiling it. "The schedule is in the office, she can give you all the information you need and confirm which spaces are available."

Whitmore beams at me like this is delightful news all around.

And that's it. The moment’s gone. Aiden hangs the hose on its hook against the wall, and Whitmore starts telling me about a leather boat cover he had made in Italy, and the truth goes back down my throat where it's been living for years.

I stand there nodding about waterproof Italian leather while Aiden disappears into the workshop without a single look back, and I could honestly cry from how relieved I am.

Whitmore finally runs out of things to say about boat covers, and after reserving the most exclusive spot to winter his boat, he kisses the back of my hand like it's 1950 and strides off toward his Lamborghini.

Diesel puts his head on my feet, looking up at me with his soulful eyes.

The folder stays in the box. Not hidden. Not moved. Exactly where it's been for three years.

Monday he decides if I stay. So I make a deal with myself. I’m going to let him judge the woman who's been working for him before I tell him who I used to be.

I know I’ve done a lot of good things for the business in the short time I’ve been here, and there’s a lot more I’d like to do. After he’s made his decision, I’ll tell him everything. Before anything else happens between us. He deserves to know who he's kissing.