AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The pressure I’m under weighs every step like my feet are coated in cement, and guilt strikes my temples with the beginnings of an unforgiving headache.
“When am I supposed to return?”
“I convinced the team to give you three days to wrap up any loose ends,” she says simply. “It’s more than the bosses wanted to give you, but I know you’re a perfectionist. I’ve got your back.”
I give a curt nod, though my insides are being shredded to bits. Three days to figure out the biggest piece of the puzzle, then I’ll disappear without a trace and hope a good, long stint in therapy will be enough to get me through the heartache.
“I’ll email you the return flight information shortly,” she says with her stern, I-mean-business, voice.
“Understood.” My hands tremble when I disconnect our call. The clock in the top corner of the screen reads 5:08 a.m.
I slam the device face-down on the kitchen counter as my stomach pitches. I grip the edge of the sink as a sick, dizzying sensation dries out my mouth.
“How could I have let this happen?”
I retch repeatedly, clinging to the edge as the room spins. Tears prick my eyes, but nothing comes up, leaving my queasy stomach roiling.
My arms shake with anger at myself, at the unfairness of it all, but mostly, that I’ve broken every one of my rules where Marcus is concerned when I should have known better.
He said he was going to keep me. He said he was never going to let me go. And as he held me in the barn where precious memories with Penelope and his sister were made—where he’s given a mare he refuses to admit he adores a new place to rest, commanded a pretend pirate ship, and eventually commandedme—I ripped my frozen heart open and allowed the warmth of those words to thaw it like the affection-starved girl I’ve always been.
My lips tremble, stomach clenching again as the anxiety and instability of my time in the foster system batter me into a corner.
I rub my palm over the twinge in the center of my chest. If Marcus discovers I’m a journalist, the last thing I’ll have to worry about is a stupid NDA.
Ping.
I swipe the corner of my mouth with my wrist, casting a quick glance at my phone. Snatching the stupid thing off the counter, I unlock it to find Alice’s email, along with several others left unanswered in my inbox.
By the time I scroll through the fifteenth email, my thumb freezes on the screen. “What the hell?”
I hover over a message from none other than Ellis Turner, time-stamped twenty-three hours ago.
Acid rises in my throat as I scour every single word, punctuation mark, and syllable for the punchline to what has to be a joke.
I’ve got information on the Matthews you’re not going to want to pass up. How about a trade?
“No.” I scrub my hands over my face and into my hair, yanking on the roots. “There’s no way he’s serious.”
I don’t know what he’s still doing on the island, but I do know I can’t trust Ellis as far as I can throw his cocky British ass.
That niggling sensation in the back of my mind refuses to quiet. Alice’s call was a reality check; a hard slap in the face to wake me up from the fantasy I’ve been living in Augustine.
Because that’s exactly what’s been going on here.
Stripping away what brought me to Topica Bay to begin with, how the hell would Marcus and I ever make ‘us’ work? As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, we’re fated enemies.
I scan Ellis’s message two more times, thinking maybe this was the push I needed to remind me we’re better off that way.
I respond with a heart-pounding:
I’m listening.
With a day between responses, I don’t expect to hear from him for while, but it takes less than five minutes of pacing the floor for him to reply.
Meet me at the volleyball courts in Butterfly Cove. Ten o’clock. If you’re late, no deal.
I exhale sharply, reaching for my phone to call Alice, only to pause. I already know what she’s going to say.He’s a snake. A liar. Don’t be an idiot, Sinclair.
