Page 19

BEN

I’d been driving for forty minutes, looping the perimeter of Dove Key and staring out at the swaying palms, but the drive hadn’t done what it was supposed to do. Usually, the hum of the engine and the solitude of the road were enough to reset my brain, to organize the chaos into neat, manageable boxes.

Tonight, the chaos refused to be boxed.

Giving up, I pulled back into the driveway of my cottage. The headlights swept across the wet gravel. My house sat dark and quiet in the shadow of the banyan tree, save for the single lamp glowing in the living room window. I turned off the ignition and sat for a moment, letting my fingers drum on the steering wheel.

I wasn’t a fool. That would have been easier to swallow. A fool is tricked. I hadn’t been tricked. Instead I had been a willing accomplice in Sutton’s illusion. That was the core of it—the sharp, hot ember burning in my gut. I was a man who had actively chosen to pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.

I had accepted the Kate Green story because I preferred the version of Sutton that needed a quiet place to rest. And I preferred the version of myself that could just be a guy helping a stranded woman, rather than a pawn in a global media circus. But Brenna’s arrival had shattered the glass. If my sister could figure it out, someone else would, too. The storm was passing. And when it did, the cameras and the lawyers would come crashing down on this quiet dead-end road.

I opened the truck door and stepped out into the storm, not bothering to hurry. By the time I reached the cottage door, my T-shirt was plastered to my chest and water dripped from my nose, but I didn’t care. I pushed the door open. I expected to find Brenna still there, probably asking a million questions. Or maybe I expected to find the cottage empty, Sutton having called a car the second I left.

Instead, I found Sutton sitting on the edge of the couch, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The room was quiet. The lasagna dish was still on the counter where Brenna had left it. Sutton’s eyes were red-rimmed, puffy, and wide with apprehension. She was so small in the oversized clothes I had lent her. Stripped of the wig and the pretense, she was just a woman sitting in a stranger’s house and waiting for the verdict.

"Where’s Brenna?" I asked, staring at the wall above her head.

"She left. About ten minutes after you did. She wanted to wait, but she had to get back to her son. She... she promised not to say anything. To anyone."

"Right." I closed the door and locked it, the mechanical click echoing in the room. "Brenna can keep a secret."

I walked past her into the kitchen. The foil-wrapped casserole dish sat there like an accusation. It smelled of garlic and home, a scent that should bring me comfort. But now it only reminded me of the family life I was potentially dragging her into and the danger I was bringing to their doorstep.

I peeled back the foil. Layers of cheese, pasta, and sauce stared back at me. I picked up the dish and walked to the trash can. With a single, aggressive motion of a serving spoon, I scraped the entire contents into the bin. It was wasteful, and I hated waste. I had grown up in a house where we saved aluminum foil and ate leftovers until they disintegrated, but I couldn’t look at that food without remembering the realization on Brenna’s face.

"Ben," Sutton said in a thin, wavering tone. "Please don’t do that. You don’t have to clean up. I can do it."

"I’ll do it." I turned on the faucet, the water rushing out with a roar. "It’s my house. I’m handling it."

"I didn’t mean to..." She trailed off. "I didn’t mean to blow up your life."

I scrubbed the dish with a ferocity that threatened to crack the glass, attacking the stuck-on cheese like it was a personal enemy. I rinsed it and set it in the dishwasher with a loud clatter. I dried my hands on a towel, taking my time, composing my face into the mask I wore on shift—the one that was blank, professional, and completely detached from the panic spiraling in my chest.

Then I turned around, leaning my hips against the counter and crossing my arms over my chest. "Here’s the situation. The guy at the hospital recognized you, and other people at the hospital might have also but just didn’t approach you. The point being, even if Brenna keeps quiet, it’s only a matter of time before word gets out for real. And then people will start connecting the dots to this address."

Sutton frowned. "So? What are you saying?"

"I’m saying this place isn’t safe anymore. I promised you a sanctuary through the weekend, and that deal is off the table because I can’t guarantee your privacy here past sunrise. You need to be in a secure location somewhere else."

She flinched and pushed to her feet. "You want me gone? Is that it? Now that it’s inconvenient?"

"I want you safe," I corrected, stepping closer but keeping the island between us. "If I put you out on the curb right now, that would be throwing you to the wolves. That isn’t what this is. I am trying to give you a head start."

“It’s not that simple, Ben.” Her shoulders dropped as she shook her head. “In fact, this situation is anything but simple.”

I arched a brow. Finally. “Are you finally going to tell me the truth about why you’re down here?”

She sank back down onto the couch, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins. The silence stretched, broken only by the steady drumming of the rain against the metal roof. "Nash Calloway. My executive producer. And my ex-husband."

I nodded. Everyone with a television or an internet connection was familiar with their recent divorce. With Sutton saying they’d grown apart and Nash claiming she was nothing without him. My protective instincts roared. "Were you running from him?"

"I met him when I was nineteen. I had a guitar and a notebook full of songs, and he had the industry connections. He put me on a pedestal. He told me I was fragile, that I needed protecting from the business. So he started managing my schedule. Then my finances. Then my diet, my friends, my clothes."

She rested her chin on her knees and stared blankly at the dark television screen. "He didn’t hit me, Ben. If he had hit me, I could have gone to the police. I could have taken a picture of a bruise. He just erased my autonomy piece by piece until I didn’t know how to function without him. Every time I pushed back, he told me how worried he was about me. He hired doctors to prescribe me pills for anxiety. He built a narrative that I was a brilliant but broken artist who needed constant supervision."

My hands curled into fists against the granite countertop. The anger I usually reserved for drunk drivers and barroom brawlers ignited.

"I finally managed to divorce him last year," she continued. "But he still controls my label. My master recordings. My tours. A week ago, I told him I was done. I wanted out of the contract, and I refused to go into the studio."