“And what did it mean to you, being on those giant waves today?” she asked.
I smiled. “It means everything to see the ISC recognize that women deserve to be surfing the biggest waves, that we’re as talented as men, if not better. For much too long, we’ve been forced into the shadows, ignored by the—”
Dave clapped his hands together sharply, and I stopped talking, all of us turning at the sound.
“You know,” he said. “We chose Serena because of her passion and her spirit, and that was evident on the water today. It’s not always about winning; it’s about what you, as a person, stand up for. What change do you want to see, and how will you bring it about?”
My eyes narrowed for a second. “I couldn’t agree more. Raising awareness of gender inequality is the most—”
“Serena, do you want to go sign some autographs?” Marty asked. “Oh, and so sorry, Rosa, but you can edit this out, correct?”
“Of course,” she said. “We’ve probably got enough sound bites from Serena. We can move on to your portion of the interview if you’d like.”
“We’d love it,” Dave chimed in. “Does that work for you, Serena? Sorry again for the change-up. I’m just noticing that the crowd is getting a bit restless, waiting for you.”
The brothers faced me with matching folksy smiles of appreciation as if they hadn’t interrupted me, twice, while I was trying to express myself. They were amenable and soft-spoken, making it hard to pinpoint the bullshit wrapped in sincerity.
“Are you sure?” I asked, with my own folksy smile. “I’ve got plenty to say on a lot of issues, as you’re well aware.”
“We’re sure,” Dave said with a subtle edge in his tone and a flash of irritation in his eyes.
We know you have it.
My stomach roiled again. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll be over there signing autographs. Rosa, it was lovely to meet you.”
The moment I turned and left them, heading towards the small crowd of fans, Cope dipped his mouth to my ear. “Seems like both brothers are assholes, right?”
I cast him a sideways you could say that again look but we were swept into a swarm of people a second later without time to debrief. I was actually grateful for Cope’s security presence. He was a natural at handling the crowd respectfully while making sure I was able to greet every person. I autographed surfboards and hats and took cute selfies with fans.
And the back of my neck prickled with unease the entire time.
Just as I was wrapping up, I felt a tug on the bottom of my shirt. A tiny girl surfer stood with her parents, staring up at me with sand still in her dark brown hair.
I grinned and sank to my heels to put us on eye level. “Hey there.”
“Are you Serena Swift?” she asked.
“I sure am,” I said, holding out my hand. She shook it with a giant I can’t believe this is happening smile. “What’s your name?”
“Luisa,” she said proudly. “I’m a surfer. I’m in surf school right now.”
“Right on.” I gave her a high five. “You’re starting way earlier than I did. That means, by the time you’re my age, your technique will be even better.”
“You think so?”
I squinted up at Cope. “What do you think?”
He dropped down, mimicked my pose with his elbows propped on his knees. “Miss Serena knows everything there is to know about surfing. So if she says you’re going to be better than her, she means it.”
I cocked a thumb at his face. “He’s right.”
“I’m already better than the boys,” she boasted, then peered at Cope and said, “Sorry.”
I hid a smile. “And don’t you forget it.”
“And I suck at surfing,” he said. “So I already know you’re better than me.”
“He’s really bad.”
“She laughs at me every time I try to pick up her surfboard,” he added.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Luisa’s tone made it clear she would find having a boyfriend exasperating.
“He’s my bodyguard,” I said quickly. “He keeps me safe from mean people.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, sounding wise beyond her years.
“I surf down at La Jolla most mornings.” I looked up at her mom and dad. “If she ever wants to join us, please bring her along. Just message me on Instagram?”
“Thank you,” mouthed her dad.
“It’s no problem, really,” I said, turning my focus back to her. “You’re going to be a force to be reckoned with, Luisa.”
“I’ll try my best,” she said, extremely seriously.
As soon as we said goodbye, and finally made it to the parking lot, I was dead on my feet. I couldn’t see Dave or Marty anymore, but I was too exhausted to be concerned or afraid.
“Can we go?” I said to Cope on a giant yawn.
“Absolutely.”
The assistants had already secured the board to the top of Cope’s car, so I threw my bag in the back and leaned against the side door for support, rubbing my eyes. Yawned again.
I blinked, and Kyle was suddenly standing there. Technically he was ambling across the lot in his board shorts with a towel over one shoulder. But when he spotted me, his arrogant smirk made my skin crawl.
“Whatever you want, Kyle. I’m already over it.” I sighed. “Can you go?”
“Hey, Swifty,” he drawled. “Sure was fun watching you choke out there today. Didn’t know they’d turned the women’s heat into amateur hour.”
I flipped him the double bird. “My two middle fingers should sum up my thoughts on that.”
His smirk turned mean. “I told you people would know the truth. You got lucky at Jaws and sure as shit aren’t ready for the ISC level.” He shrugged. “I mean, we all just saw it, right?”
He took a step closer into my personal space.
Cope appeared from behind with a smirk. His hand hit Kyle’s chest as he pinned him easily to the car door. Kyle’s eyes went wide as he took in Cope’s much taller, much bulkier form. “Kyle, is it?”
“Who the hell are you?” he asked in a small voice.
“I’m Ms. Swift’s personal security, and I believe, if I’m reading her gestures correctly, she gave you the universal one to fuck off. And yet here you are, not fucking off. Do you see why I might be upset?”
Kyle squirmed beneath Cope’s hand. “I can walk wherever I want, bro.”
Cope appeared to ponder this for a second. “Yeah, that’s not true, actually. Because as long as I’m around, you can’t walk near Ms. Swift. Especially if she’s already politely asked you to leave her alone.” He lowered his face to Kyle’s. “And if you bother her again, I will take great pleasure in feeding your face to a pelican. That hungry looking bastard over there in particular.” He released him with a smile. “Now fuck off.”
Kyle shuffled away, releasing a string of expletives directed at us both, but it gave me great, great pleasure to have witnessed that exchange.
“Bye, bro!” Cope called after him.
He opened the door, and I climbed into the passenger seat with a grateful and exhausted “Thank you.”
I bunched up my sweatshirt against the window, slipped off my sandals, and curled into the best sleeping position I could manage. Cope had witnessed this transformation hundreds of times before, so as he climbed inside, he gave me an understanding nod.
“You need anything?” he asked softly. “You feel okay, right? Nothing hurts?”
“I want my bed and to eat a million cheeseburgers,” I said, yawning again. His answering grin awakened the butterflies in my stomach.
“As you wish,” he said. I let my eyelids close, then heard him whisper, “Creepy son of a bitch.”
I sat straight up. “What is it?”
Marty was waving at us from directly in front of the car.
“Oh, fuck,” I said, sinking back against the seat and rubbing my face. Cope rolled down his window and gestured Marty over.
“Did you need to talk to Serena
, sir? I was just driving her home.”
It was easy to read the lines of my ex-husband’s body language. Tight jaw, rigid spine, fingers clutching the wheel.
“Hi there.” Marty waved at me.
I waved back, weakly. “Is everything okay? I finished signing autographs and figured it was fine to head out.”
“Oh, of course,” he said, friendly as ever. “I just wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind swinging by the offices tomorrow morning? We’ve got some mock-ups of the Heavy article to review with you, and I’d love to get your opinion on a few things.”
I shrugged. “Sure, that should be fine.”
“Great, great, great.” He patted the door, looked between the two of us. The hairs on the back of my neck rose up again. “I hate to ask you guys this, honestly it’s so embarrassing, but you really haven’t come upon any work files of ours, have you? Not in your bag or your car or somewhere in your house?”
I didn’t like the look in his eyes when he said your house.
“No, sir,” Cope said evenly. “Falco and I have been with Ms. Swift every day, and we’ve seen nothing come up.”
“Drat,” Marty said. “Well, okay then. We’re trying to turn over every stone, so I’m sorry for asking you twice.”
He was already turning away when I leaned across the console. “Is Catalina feeling better?”
He paused mid-step. “You know, she’s still sick. Has a nasty bug, it seems.” Marty waved again as he started back to the beach. “Hopefully, it’s not going around.”
Cope rolled up the window, and we both watched silently until Marty disappeared from view.
21
Cope
I stood outside Serena’s house on high alert.
When we finally arrived home, I’d shaken a very cute sleeping Serena awake. Bleary-eyed, she watched me silently as I checked and double-checked every lock, window, door, and shadowy corner. Then I checked it again. I knew as soon as I left she was going to soak in a hot bath then nap—it was what her body required of her after every event. It was like watching a machine finally shut down to rest.
I tried not to think about the third thing on that list of what she needed—it came after her nap and before she gorged herself on food.
Serena shoved me back onto the bed, sending the pillows flying to the ground. “You’re not too tired?” I asked, then immediately lost the ability to speak. She reached down for the hem of the short dress she’d slept in and lifted it over her head. She was gloriously naked, tan and freckled, and she crawled up my body like a wet dream come true.
She was never too tired, and I learned to stop asking and start enjoying what would inevitably be some of the hottest sex of my life. The combination of our love and lust, plus her reaction to adrenaline and danger, always left us slick with sweat and covered in bite marks and scratches.
A car rolled down the street above her driveway. This was the third one in the past hour, but it was that time of night, and Serena said her neighborhood had quite a bit of traffic.
I still recorded it though. I scoured Falco’s logs from his night shifts and came up empty—no footsteps or flashlights or strange sounds. That should have been relieving, but ever since Serena had placed that drive in my hand, my instincts had been shouting different versions of this is wrong.
And that was before she’d received her first threatening message.
When Quentin called a few minutes later, I picked up on the first ring. “Howdy.”
“How’d it go today with Serena?” he asked, fingers clicking away on a keyboard in the background. “Everything work out?”
I stepped out into the front yard, where I had a better view of the whole house and its various entrances. “Not really. Serena received that message early this morning. Our buddy Marty found us in the car as we were leaving and asked if she’d come to his office tomorrow for a meeting. Before he left, he asked if we’d stumbled upon the missing files he’d mentioned. And told us Catalina was still out sick.”
“Ah,” Quentin said. “My guess is that Marty suspects the information has gone missing on purpose but has no clue where it ended up.”
“And they’ll try various threatening tactics to see what shakes loose,” I added. “Serena probably isn’t even the only person they suspect.”
“You’re gonna stay with her during that meeting, right?”
“I’m not leaving her alone with that creepy fuck.” I glanced over my shoulder at the trees that bordered the property. “He and his brother remind me of Gary Duncan.”
There was a pause on the other end. “I’m sorry, who?”
I repeated Gary’s name and waited.
“Hell, Cope,” he drawled. “That ain’t good.”
“It’s their endless friendly energy paired with Aerial’s uncorrupted reputation. They’re like happy drones. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like they’re hiding something behind their cheerful mission statement. Before the incident, I studied Gary for hours every day, for six straight months, searching for signs that he was a real human being and not just a nice teddy bear in a fancy suit. Cracks in the veneer or an imperfection. He never snapped; he never raised his voice. He was respectful and kind.”
“And he was actively in business with this city’s most dangerous criminals,” Quentin added.
“Yeah, and not by mistake. This wasn’t a story of a nice man getting in over his head. Gary was a criminal mastermind.” I rubbed the back of my neck, still uneasy. “Is it too much of a leap to say I think the Lattimore brothers might be similar?”
I watched the lights in Serena’s windows flicker on behind her curtains, from upstairs to downstairs. She was probably waking from her nap. I checked my watch—I was off duty in an hour.
“Not at all, especially after you hear what I’ve found out so far,” he said. “Those pictures and names all belong to quality control inspectors in Arizona, tasked with monitoring factories in the state and ensuring they’re adhering to strict safety guidelines and working conditions. Aerial’s well known for making their products in the US using fair trade practices and paying higher wages. In fact, that allows them to up-charge the customer to cover the cost of doing things ethically.”
I rubbed the back of my neck again. Spun around once in the driveway but still didn’t see anything. Or anyone. “That’s a very intriguing angle. Maybe they’re hiding something at those factories.”
“My thoughts exactly. I’ve got a few reporter buddies in Phoenix, so my first step is to get one of these fine folks pictured on this drive to give me some anonymous information.”
“You think that’ll work?” I asked.
“I think I’ve gotta try,” he said. “And I’m talking with Joey tomorrow. My law enforcement contact. I want to see what he can get me on David Lattimore, the city councilmembers, and any dirt on company fraud in the city. He’s already started the search for Catalina but hasn’t found her yet.”
I slipped my hand into my pocket, nodding along. “Can you come over tomorrow night to Serena’s place? It’ll have to be after Falco’s shift starts, so I’ll need to sneak back into the house before he catches me. But if things start moving fast, I want us all on the same page.”
“Of course,” he said. “Send me anything else you find out. And be careful at that meeting tomorrow.”
“They can’t know we have it,” I said firmly.
“Good thing you’re the best bodyguard the world has ever seen.”
“Just need my boss to see that,” I said with a grin. “Call me if you get freaked. Check that your doors are locked three times.”
“Already on it, my friend.”
The front door opened, and golden light spilled from the kitchen. Serena stood in the doorway, hair wild and loose, wearing a Sublime band tee-shirt she’d had since high school and a pair of running shorts. She looked content and wide awake. I could hear reggae music coming from the speakers in the living room.
“Do you want one?” She held ou
t a Pacifico. “I can see you pacing back and forth from inside. At least come in where you can be worried and have a beer at the same time.”
I hesitated. “I’m still on the clock.”
“What if I promise not to tell on you?”
I walked to the front door already knowing that being around Serena turned me into a damned fool. But there was no denying in this moment that I wanted it—wanted the warm lights of our house, wanted to drink a beer at our kitchen table, laughing with the woman I wanted most of all.
I took the beer she offered and brought it to my lips. “If you do tell on me, I’ll get in trouble. Just keep that in mind.”
I slipped past her and tugged open the first few buttons of my shirt.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve always been trouble,” she said. Grabbing her own beer, she hauled herself onto the island, bare legs dangling. She held my gaze as she drank, her dark eyes bright with mischief. I recognized her reaching for comfort here—it had been an exhausting, scary, and confusing day, and with the music and the alcohol, it felt like a stress relieving reset.
But this wasn’t any reset after a hard day. This moment had the markings and texture of our married life, so similar my head swam with déjà vu. She must have felt it too, setting her drink down as our eyes stayed leashed together. Years of unfulfilled yearning hung heavy in the air between us.
The knock at the door startled us both. I held my hand out and a finger to my lips.
“Cope, don’t worry, it’s—”
I cracked the door open half an inch. “Oh.”
“—just our food,” she finished. Sliding off the island, she stepped in front of me, tipped the delivery guy, and returned with a white bag smelling like heaven itself. With a sly grin, she pulled a Styrofoam container out and handed it over.
“For me?”
“Yeah, for you,” she said, laughing a little. “It’s to say thank you. For everything that you did for me today. You helped me focus. You threatened to punch the ocean in the face when I lost. And then I got to see you tell Kyle, who I fucking hate, that you planned on feeding his face to a pelican.”
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