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“Yeah, well, what else are best friends for if not for throwing huge parties and celebrating my BFF.” She saunters off, something or someone catching her eye. Dom stands at the bar, bringing a glass to his lips as Everly drops into the seat beside him.
“She wouldn’t?” Kenz asks.
“I think the more important question would be, would he? And I’m afraid the simple answer would be yes,” I reply with a laugh as I steer Kenz around the room to greet everyone.
There are a few tears when she sees Charlie is here, but her smile turns mischievous when we leave her chatting with Jackson.
He arrived back in Silverbell the day after all the drama, just like Drake said he would. After I ripped him a new one for disappearing on me, we sat down with Kenz as he filled us in. After we told Jackson we thought Stu was involved with Titan, he followed Kenz and me to the diner. He waited till Drake left and then followed him before cornering him and demanding information.
Turns out Jackson was the one who took the Titan folder from Archie’s safe. Stu had put it there after realizing there was something dodgy going on with Titan. Jackson had been there the day we cleared out the office and had seen his dad taking something from the filing cabinet and placing it in the safe. It seems that Archie had collected a lot of damaging information on Titan already, including the flash drive, which Jackson had missed when grabbing the file.
With the file and info that Drake reluctantly shared with Jackson, he was able to find several residents in two towns Titan had developed in that would be willing to make a statement but only with an offer of protection, which after Kenz sent Drake everything we had on Titan following my arrest, he was able to get his FBI contact to confirm and arrange for anyone willing to testify against them. It was like a domino effect, and once one person spoke out, people came from all over to tell their story of how they’d been blackmailed, coerced or manipulated in some way to do whatever Titan asked of them.
Calvin Carmichael and Aria Thomas paid for their crimes with their lives, and while I feel some amount of sadness about Aria, I don’t feel one ounce of pity for Carmichael’s death.
The cops finally picked up Preston Thomas a couple of days later. Now he and Liam Carmichael, aka Deputy Robert Peters, are facing a lifetime in jail for their part in a decade long reign of corruption, blackmail and murder.
After a couple of hours of mingling, I can’t wait any longer and go in search of Kenz. I find her chatting with Lily and Tripp, and I excuse her and drag her off down the beach, leaving Tripp and Lily laughing at the bar.
“That was rude. Where are we going, Ash,” she asks, giggling as she tries to take her heels off while I pull her along.
“You’ll see.” I’ve been hard all night watching her flit around the dance floor in a dress that should be illegal, all long toned legs and bare back down to the top of her ass.
When we reach the small cave carved into the cliff below The Clifton hotel, I can already see the twinkling lights from inside.
“What’s going on, Ash,” she asks, apprehensive but with an edge of excitement too.
I don’t reply and instead tug on her arm as I head inside.
Everly did a fantastic job setting this up. Much better than my first attempt.
“Wow! This is amazing,” she exclaims, taking in the fairy lights pinned all around the ceiling and lit candles set in lanterns around several large throws laid out on the sandy floor.
Spinning around, she leaps into my arms and slams her lips down on mine. I can taste the sweetness of pineapple from whatever cocktail she had last, and it just enhances the already addictive taste of her.
We don’t break for air as I take her to the floor and worship her.
We don’t come up at all until the sun is cresting over the horizon with embers of burnt orange and red slashed across the sky. It matches the fire that will always burn for Kennedy Scott.
