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He flops back in the chair, stunned. “Whoa, there’s the motive. We need to let the police know.”
“I know,” she says, tearing up. “And then Justine must have come up with some way to lure Taylor back to the building that night. God, I feel terrible about it.”
Tom’s expression softens. “Look, sweetheart,” he says after a beat, “it’s possible you inadvertently triggered Justine, butshe’sthe murderer. You can’t feel guilty for a second.”
She shrugs. “Easier said than done.”
“Here’s something else to consider, then. I think that part of the reason Taylor talked to Justine was that she wanted to do some digging herself. Something I learned from my conversation with Brittany is that Taylor had begun to wonderif Ididhave something to do with Derrick’s death—maybe because you’d been asking about that weekend. So you had one very troubled person colliding with one very unethical one, and you’re not to blame for what ensued.”
“Thanks for sharing that with me.”
“I’m glad you got that off your chest. But now I need to know why you took off last night.”
Emma straightens in the chair and presses her palms on the table.
“When you were cooking dinner on the veranda last night, I found out you lied to me. Youdidcome to hear me speak in New York and despite what you told me, it was no coincidence that I ended up at Halliday. Please don’t insult me any more by trying to suggest otherwise.”
For a moment Tom studies her, saying nothing.
“Yes, I lied, Emma,” he says finally. “And it’s been eating at me for weeks.... Can you allow me to at least explain?”
Though she’d no longer had any doubts, it’s heartbreaking to hear him admit it.
“I’m not sure what good it would do at this point.”
“Please, let me try at least.... I’ll start with Miami. What I told you about the toothache was accurate and I really did sneak out of the room shortly after you were introduced. But we’d actually been in close proximity at the cocktail party. I was standing there, feeling miserable and wondering how soon I could split, when I suddenly heard this woman behind me say something incredibly insightful—about confirmation bias, I think. I turned around and it was you.”
“Did we speak?”
“Not a word. You were busy talking to someone fromAvignon and a guy who I later realized was Eric. I took one look at you and I was enthralled. That was the first time that had happened to me since Diana died.”
If she’d noticed at the time, she has no memory of it. The anguish she was experiencing over her marriage had dulled her senses.
“I googled you after that night,” Tom adds, “and a month later, in February, purely by chance, Stacey suggested we go into the city one night with a couple of people to hear this panel discussion on trends, and lo and behold, I saw you were one of the participants. I said yes in a heartbeat.”
“Staceywas the one who suggested going?”
“Yes, and you’re free to ask her. To me it seemed a bit like destiny putting us together, but as soon as you started speaking, I spotted the ring on your left hand and that was the end of the road for me.”
“But then you orchestrated my hiring at Halliday.”
“I dropped a hint with Scott after reading an article you were quoted in, and if he hadn’t taken the bait, I probably would have pressed him to bring you on board. Not, however, out of any romantic interest. As I just said, I knew you were off-limits. But I thought the company could use you.”
Emma has her guard up, refusing to be duped again or let her need to please take hold, and yet his account fits with the man she thought she married—a guy who knows what he likes and goes after it, and if it doesn’t work out, moves on—not the obsessive stalker type she’d allowed herself to imagine.
“But when you asked me to lunch, you were clearly interested in more than my thoughts on which hotel ads tended to be the most seductive.”
“By then Scott had mentioned in passing that you’d lost your husband, and the more I saw you in the halls, the more smitten I allowed myself to become. And this time I thought I might have a chance.”
Okay, so he was never playing some kind of creepy long game, but that doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t straight with her.
“Why didn’t you admit any of this to me in the beginning?”
“At our first meeting?” He flips over a hand. “I think telling a new consultant that you’re slightly gaga over her might qualify as harassment as well as insanity. And then by the time we started hanging out, it would have been awkward to simply bring it up.”
“Okay, but once Taylor told me we’d both been at that dinner together, why didn’t you come clean about seeing me there and your reason for sending Scott the article? And the fact that you’d attended the talk in New York?”
He shakes his head. “I could see how distressed you were about Derrick’s case reopening, and I thought that if you knew there were any other overlaps in our lives before that summer, you’d worry even more. Once you suspected I’d misrepresented things, I realized I’d made a total mistake, but I was afraid that if I confessed that late in the game, you’d think it was weird—some gray-haired guy like me carrying a torch for you.”
