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“You were right. Thatisfun to watch.”
“I know,” she murmurs. “And I spent so much of my life never even thinking about wetsuits.”
“Seems like the man makes the suit.”
Daphne laughs. “I knew you’d get me.”
After a while, Emerson and Will come back to the shore. Emerson looks at Daphne, and she stands up from her chair.
“They looked like good waves,” she says.
“The beach was beautiful,” he answers.
Daphne blushes. “You’re a flirt. Need anything from inside, Bristol?”
I wave her off, and they go inside. Will sticks his board in the sand and wades into the water with the twins. The water’s too cold for me. And now that Daphne’s been gone five minutes, I want a drink.
I catch Will’s eye and motion toward the house. He holds up a hand.Go.
Can you fall in love with a man from something that simple? I think so.
Inside the house, I shake out my hair and follow the sound of voices to the kitchen. Sinclair’s standing at the island in the middle, groceries spread out in front of him. Daphne sits on a stool nearby, her chin in her hands.
“—know about them? They’re just Constantines,” she’s saying as I walk in. “Hey, Bristol.”
“Who’s just Constantines?”
“Daphne’s mortal enemies,” Sinclair says.
Daphne rolls her eyes. “They’re notmymortal enemies. Leo and Lucian are both married to Constantines. I think that makes them relatives.”
“But you don’t know why the feud got started in the first place?”
Will said something about that. I thought he was joking. “Is there really a feud?”
Daphne casts me a sheepish look. “Therewasreally a feud. Because my parents don’t get along with the Constantines’ parents. And…other things happened. ButSinclairis trying to do investigative journalism on me. He wants history.”
“I am not. You’re not even on the record.” Sinclair takes out a bunch of celery and rinses it in the sink. “Just gathering background.”
“See?” Daphne points. “Journalism.”
“Conversation,” counters Sinclair.
I almost,almostbring up what happened with Finn Hughes and his dad. Daphne’s sister is engaged to him, so…I’m not sure if she would have heard about it or not.
She probably has. And if Will hasn’t brought it up with everyone, he probably wants to leave it at the office.
“Let me do this.” Daphne hops off the stool and takes the celery from Sinclair. “Go be in the sun.”
“Fine.” Sinclair pretends to be put-upon, but he lets her take over. “I’ll take Will a beer.”
“I’ll have one, too.”
Sinclair salutes me, then gathers three beers from the fridge. We cross the lawn together, and I sit back into my beach chair. He sprawls on the one next to me. On the shore, both the twins are lying in shallow holes, and Will’s shoveling sand onto them with both hands. The wind catches their laughter and tosses it across the beach.
“I’ll be damned,” Sinclair says.
“What?”
