by Peak, Renna
He continued that gaze that brought me to my knees every time. "I know I don't deserve another chance with you, Jen. What I do deserve is a chance to tell you my side of what happened."
"You don't need to tell me anything. I believe you—that you didn't know who I was. I'll be okay."
"I won't, though." He narrowed his gaze. "You gave him a chance to tell you his side—I deserve at least that much, too."
"I shouldn't. I…" I stopped myself. How was I supposed to tell him that my father didn't want me to see him? That I was a grown woman, but I still wasn't allowed to make my own decisions? "No—you know what? Give me an hour. I'll meet you at the restaurant."
His gaze narrowed but didn't let me go. He cocked his head to the side. "Are you sure?"
I nodded. "Yep. Just let me get the sand out of my hair and my ass crack."
His face was taken over by the smile that came to his lips, like he hadn't expected I'd agree. His eyes brightened and I could see he was trying not to laugh. He reached out to touch my hair. "It's pretty—the whole sand-in-the-hair look. Very mermaid-y."
I took a step back before his hand could touch me. It was more of a defense mechanism than anything. I raised an index finger. "One hour. I'll be there."
His grin widened and his eyes twinkled down at me. He only nodded in response. There was something happy, even eager in his response. But it wasn't just that he was happy, there was something else in his eyes.
Hope.
9
I showered and changed into the sundress I had brought with me for the date I had expected to have with him all along. He was supposed to be showing me around Tokyo this weekend, after all, I reasoned with myself. It felt wrong to be going against my father's wishes, but I needed answers. I also couldn't deny my attraction to him, even after everything that had happened.
I walked into the restaurant an hour after I had left him in the lobby of the hotel. I could see him already seated at one of the tables. He had been watching the entrance and had seen me as soon as I walked in. The smile on his face made my heart skip in my chest.
I sat down and he pushed a menu at me without speaking. I opened it and glanced through it, then closed it almost as fast as I'd opened it. I still didn't have much of an appetite for food, but my appetite for answers was almost killing me.
There were only a few other patrons in the restaurant and the only sound in the place was their muted conversations and some elevator-type music that people only notice if they go out of their way to listen for it.
I looked down at the table without saying a word to him. I ran my fingertip along the smooth tabletop, tracing the grain of the dark wood. A waitress appeared from nowhere and asked if I wanted something to drink. I looked up at her. "Iced tea. And I'm ready to order."
She looked over at Brandon. "You ready, too, honey?"
He shrugged and slid his menu to the side of the table. His gaze met mine and he pinned me in it.
She looked back at me. "Do you want to start with an appetizer?"
"Yes. A hot fudge sundae. Then a cheeseburger and fries, medium, no mayo." I slid my menu toward her.
She raised an eyebrow. "You want the sundae first? Are you sure?"
"Yes." I held his gaze, almost challenging him.
She shook her head and wrote on her order tablet. She looked over at Brandon. "And for you?"
He cleared his throat and continued looking into my eyes, accepting my challenge. "I'll start with the lemon meringue, and can you put some raspberries on top, please?" He continued without missing a beat. "Then I'll have the filet mignon, medium rare, with whatever side it comes with." He reached his hand over to the menu and slid it at her, too, without even blinking.
She sighed. "You're sure you both want dessert first?"
We both nodded in unison. The staring contest continued.
The waitress left us alone at the table and returned a moment later with my tea. I didn't break my gaze with him and took a sip. I set the glass on the table and traced a drop of water down the glass. "So, what's the deal with the water?"
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"The fear of water. Where'd that come from?" I caught the drop and sucked it off my finger.
He looked down toward his lap. "Pass."
"Pass? You can't pass. You said you'd tell me anything." I caught another drop of the condensation and licked it from my finger.
"Will you stop doing that?"
I cocked an eyebrow at him. "Why?" I did it again, this time exaggerating the movement. I pulled my finger out of my mouth with a loud pop.
He shook his head and looked at his hands. "Just stop it, okay?"
I smiled. It was driving him crazy and I loved it. "Tell me about the water."
"You can ask me about anything else."
I pulled the straw out of my tea and sucked at the end of it and pulled it out of my mouth with a smaller pop than before.
He shifted in his seat. "I asked you to stop, Jen. Please. Ask me anything. Anything else."
I plopped the straw back in my drink and folded my hands in my lap. "When did you know?"
He worked his jaw for a long moment then ran his hands through his dark curls. It took him forever to answer. "When he called you 'Jenna.'" There was something else there, but I wasn't sure what. Something about the way he said it didn't mesh with the words he spoke.
"You're lying." I shook my head and looked down at my hands. "I know you're lying."
"I swear to God, Jen. I felt like someone punched me in the gut when he recognized you, when I saw the two of you. I went back to our hotel room and puked."
It was the same reaction I had when I recognized Daniel. I supposed that it was plausible that he hadn't known. Just unlikely. Very unlikely. I fidgeted with my fingers. "You weren't stalking me in San Francisco?"
He shook his head. "Everything I did for him was on the phone. It was a coincidence that I was in San Francisco."
I looked at him, tilting my head. "You really expect me to believe that was another coincidence?"
He shrugged and met my gaze. "With all of the others that have happened, how can you not believe it?"
How many coincidences had to happen before I would stop believing him? Before I would know he was playing me? I shook my head. "I don't know if any of them were. I don't know how to believe anything anymore."
"I wish I could tell you something to make you believe it. I didn't know. I was in the city on a family matter. I don't usually stay in one place that long."
The hospice. He was there because someone he knew was dying. I stared back down at my hands. "I just can't believe you wouldn't have known."
"You're not really that conceited. I know you aren't." He rapped his knuckles on the table in front of him. "I'm guessing most people outside of California don't know who you are. And most of them in California probably don't care."
His words pierced my heart and made me wince. And he was right, I was being a spoiled little bitch. "I didn't mean it like that…"
He shook his head. "I'm sorry. That came out a lot meaner than I thought it would." He let out a long sigh. "I can't blame you for this. I've been trying to put myself in your shoes for the past few days. Tried to think about what I would have done if I was you. I probably would have given you a fake name, too." He looked down at me to catch my gaze. "I know this has been unspeakably hard on you. I can't even imagine how hard. But you need to understand it's been horrible for me, too."
I nodded and traced my finger down my glass. I pulled some of the condensation onto the table with the tip of my finger and drew along the grain of the wood. I had to take responsibility for my part in this. It hadn't been mistaken identity. I had lied to him when I gave him the phony name. "I'm sorry." I couldn't even bring myself to look him in the eye.
He reached out and took my hand. "You have nothing to apologize for."
I had to look away from him. I hadn't thought about how hard it would be for him.
I'd on
ly been thinking about myself.
10
The waitress brought our desserts to the table. I pulled my hand from his and dug into my huge sundae. It was the best thing I'd had to eat in days. One taste of the chocolate and my appetite returned. I was starving. I put the spoon in my mouth and closed my eyes. I pulled the spoon out with another pop and took another bite. I grinned despite myself.
"I'm glad you like yours so much. Mine is disgusting. How do you eat this stuff?" He pushed his dish away from him.
"I hate meringue. I never said I ate that." I took another bite of my ice cream and grinned at him.
He shook his head and sank back into his seat. He folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his gaze at me. "I distinctly remember you being enthralled with all things lemon and raspberry."
I almost giggled. "Not all things. I guess you don't know me as well as you thought." I took another bite and then pushed the dish toward him. "Share it with me." I nodded toward the bowl.
He looked at me like he thought it was a trick. "You're sure?"
I smiled. "I'm not a selfish brat. Spoiled, perhaps. High maintenance at times. But not selfish." I pushed the dish further toward him and nodded at it again.
He picked up his spoon and took a bite from my dish. "I shouldn't have said those things."
I shrugged. "They're probably true."
He took another bite. "I guess I wouldn't know."
"I guess not." I took another bite and closed my eyes to enjoy the cold of the ice cream.
"I'm the one who owes you an apology."
"Yes." It was true—he did. I took another bite and stared down into the ice cream dish.
"I am sorry. Jen, if I had known…"
I snapped my gaze to his. "If you had known, we wouldn't be sitting here now. We've already established that." I looked back down into the ice cream and took another bite.
He set his spoon down. "I'm sorry, Jen. I really am." He tapped his fingers on the table. "What else?"
"What else what?" I looked up at him with a cocked eyebrow.
"What else do you want to know?"
"How do you know Daniel?"
He took a long breath in. "Prep school. We were just acquaintances, really. I didn't really know him back then. We met again when he started working in D.C."
"For my father."
"Yes, for your father." He let out a sigh. "I've seen your pictures. I know that's the next question."
I raised an eyebrow.
"We never met, though. But yes, I was aware of who you were."
I lifted a brow.
"They pictures I’ve seen—you were blonde. And you looked different."
"I was fat."
He smiled, but only a little. "You were never fat, Jen. You just looked different. I didn't recognize you in San Francisco, outside of the Beltway. It just didn't click; I swear I didn't recognize you. Not until after…"
I took another bite of ice cream and sighed. I tapped the spoon on the side of the dish. "You helped Daniel kill himself." It came out as a statement because I knew it. Somewhere inside of me, I knew it.
His jaw clenched and he balled his hand into a fist. "Against my better judgment."
I couldn't meet his gaze. I knew that he had to be somehow involved, but I hadn’t really wanted to believe it. I looked down at the dessert. "It destroyed me." I set my spoon down on the table and clasped my hands into my lap.
I saw him nod from the corner of my eye. "I can't even imagine."
I couldn’t even acknowledge him—I knew I would lose it again if I did. And I didn’t want him to see me cry again.
He shook his head. "Jen, you have to know that I would never do anything to hurt you. Not intentionally—I would never hurt you."
I finally looked up to meet his gaze. "But you'd hurt Jenna. And not just once, but twice."
He closed his eyes for a beat before he opened them and looked at me. "It wasn't like that. I convinced myself I was helping her. You." He let out a loud puff of air. "Fuck, this is hard."
"Yeah, I can't even imagine." It came out a lot bitchier than I'd intended. "Is this what you do? For a living, I mean?"
He shook his head. "No, not exactly." He picked up the napkin that had been on his lap and starting twisting it through this fingers.
That was a relief. I mean, I couldn't imagine that someone helped people fake their deaths for a living. I could only nod in response.
"I do a lot of different things. I own stakes in about a hundred companies, including Tomojii, which was how I was able to get you to Osaka."
I rolled my eyes. It was immature, but it was the best response I had. I didn't need to be reminded of the fake account. I wasn't going to have a job because of it.
"And then I have my relationship business."
My eyes snapped to his. "What the hell does that mean?"
He sighed. "I help people meet."
My brow furrowed. "Like a dating service?"
"No, not those kinds of relationships. Business relationships." He fiddled with his napkin and twisted it around and around his hand. "Say you have something. Some business or invention."
"Okay." I shrugged.
"But for it to make you a shit ton of money, you need something else, something someone else has. Another invention or another business."
I raised my eyebrow. I still didn't get it.
"I introduce you to person number two. For a fee. Usually a rather large fee."
"And then we both rake in our fortunes. Got it." I picked up my tea and took a long drink from the straw.
He nodded. "I don't usually get involved in personal relationships. Too messy."
I nodded. "But this time…"
"But this time I had fucked you over so badly when I helped Daniel get out of the country, I decided I owed it to you to get you two back together."
"I see." My throat went dry. I took another long sip of my tea through the straw.
"It kills me to say this, Jen. It absolutely kills me."
I raised an eyebrow at him and met his gaze. "What?"
"He loves you."
11
I shook my head. "Not like you think." If Daniel loved me, none of this would have ever happened. He'd be a congressman and I'd be married to him, teaching our babies how to play the piano. No, Daniel couldn't have loved me the way he thought.
"Well, you're wrong about that."
The waitress came to the table and set our food in front of us. The smell of the meat made my mouth water. It had been days since I'd had a decent meal.
I picked up my burger and took a huge bite. The juice from the burger ran down my chin and I grabbed my napkin from my lap to wipe it off. I started to giggle, but my mouth was still full of burger. I covered my mouth with the napkin as I finished chewing my bite then took a sip of my tea.
He grinned and looked down to cut into his steak. "You're amazing, you know that?"
"Yeah, amazingly ungraceful." I picked my burger back up and took a smaller bite this time.
He took a bite from his plate and smiled and just watched me. He took a sip of his water. "You have no idea how amazing you are."
I shook my head and picked the burger back up and took another bite. It was delicious. I dipped a fry into the small container of ketchup that was included on my plate and put the whole thing in my mouth.
He grinned and took another bite of his steak. He shook his head at me and took another bite after that.
"What?" I picked my burger back up and took a bite.
"You."
"Sorry, I was hungry. I think the last thing I had to eat was some disgusting sour lemon fro-yo." I stabbed another fry into the ketchup. "It ruined me for lemon, by the way." I shoved the fry into my mouth whole again.
He raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure you ate on the plane. It's a long flight."
I shoved another fry into my mouth, not caring at all that I was talking with my mouth full. My mother would have been horrified. "Maybe. Hard to rememb
er.”
He smiled and shook his head again, taking a bite of his own food.
"What?" I shoved another fry in my mouth.
He shook his head. "Nothing. I've just never seen a woman eat a burger in front of me."
"Oh, that has to be a lie. I call bullshit on that one." I picked up my burger and took another bite. I held his gaze the entire time.
"You're amazing." He nodded to himself. "I can see why he loves you." He sliced off a perfect sized bite of steak and put it into his mouth and caught my gaze again.
"Eating a burger does not make a person amazing." I bit off the end of a fry and pointed it at him. "And if Daniel loved me, he wouldn't have killed himself." I shoved the rest of the fry into my mouth.
"He didn't kill himself." He pushed some of his food around on his plate before taking another bite. He looked up at me and gave me a tiny smile as he chewed.
"He let me believe he did. I spent a fucking month in mental hospital because he let me believe he did." I shoved another fry in my mouth and talked as I chewed. "And he let me believe it was my fault. That fucker is lucky I didn't kill him myself when I found out he was alive."
I think he wanted to smile at my comment, but he covered it well. "I believe you promised a castration."
I pointed another fry at him. "I promised one for you, too."
He shifted in his seat. "That's right. I was hoping you would have forgotten that part.”
"I don't forget anything." I took a sip of my tea. “Did you plan the whole thing?”
"No." He looked down at his plate and frowned. "I only arranged to get him to Japan. I didn't really have anything to do with the rest of it."
I raised an eyebrow and put another fry in my mouth. If he hadn't done it, then who had? I wasn't even sure if I should believe him or not.
He didn't say anything and refused to meet my gaze after that. There was something I was missing. Something huge, but I had no idea what it was.
I took another sip of my tea and choked when I realized. How had I been so stupid? There was only one other person that would have been able to help Daniel fake his death and I didn't want to believe it.