by Emily Bishop
“Ah. Okay, but just so you know, being in Mystic is very real to me.” I took a deep breath. “In Houston, I work my butt off and hadn’t so much as thought about fishing for years.”
“Why not?” she questioned but it wasn’t in the judgmental tone that her father had taken the night before.
“Too busy. Running a business the size of my family’s takes everything you’ve got.” Not to mention that I had to concentrate on turning our reputation around.
“Yeah? Why do it then?” Her chin jutted out.
“It’s my legacy,” I answered simply.
Her brow furrowed. “That’s what you want people to remember you for?”
I was a bit confused about her hostile tone but explained as best I could. “Of course. I love the business. It’s been in my family for generations.”
“You’re proud of it?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah, I’m helping to build something that will last for generations and will ensure that my children have a secure upbringing.”
“You have children?” Her eyes widened.
I laughed. “Not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe not. My family will always be well taken care of, either way. And I get to make a difference in the world.”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “What kind of difference, though?”
“A positive one,” I insisted.
Her answering laugh was wry and disbelieving for some reason. “How do you figure that?”
“We’re in the...” I trailed off. We were getting dangerously close to my lie. “Energy business. I’m investing in more sustainable solutions than oil.”
There. That was a safe answer. No way anyone would think that an oilfield tycoon would have an interest in that.
“More sustainable than oil?” A thoughtful expression crossed her delicate features. “My dad was interested in that before he… Before everything happened. It made me live a greener life.”
She was right. I’d noticed solar panels on her roof before and a water tank in her tiny backyard through the window in her kitchen that morning.
“Yeah, more sustainable than oil,” I confirmed, though I didn’t want to say much more than that.
Fiona changed the topic abruptly. “My father made me more aware of the environment, made me want to live green and support earth-saving initiatives. What is yours like?”
Fuck, she wasn’t a tree hugger or anything, but she did seem passionate about it. What would she say if she ever found out who I really was? The troubles of our fathers aside, it was bound to be a fuck-up.
“My father is driven, even in his retirement. He won’t let go of what he wants. He’s ruthless like that.” Thunderclouds drifted into Fiona’s eyes. I overcorrected. “But he wasn’t a bad father. He gave me the best of everything. Always.”
“The best, huh?”
“Always. I remember when I was eight, he came home one day and told me that the deal he closed that day was buying us a new yacht.” I was lost in my memories. I hadn’t understood why we needed a new yacht. I also didn’t mention that the same yacht had been moored in Mystic for years before my dad got rid of it because it wasn’t large enough for him anymore.
“You got a new yacht when you were eight?” Lightning crackled in the thunderclouds in her eyes. “So, the yacht that you already had wasn’t good enough?”
For the second time in as many days, I had no fucking idea what was going on. It was disconcerting, since I exercised control in all things and had for as long as I could remember.
I treaded carefully. “I don’t know. I mean, I was eight. He made a business deal that paid off and thought that the family should be rewarded with a sailing vacation.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Of course, a sailing vacation. What was the deal?”
It was one of the fucked-up ones that had probably led to her dad losing his contract with Perkins Enterprises, so I wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole. “I don’t know exactly. Like I said, I was eight years old.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “You were. Do you remember what the rest of that year was like for you?”
“When I was eight?” I searched my memory as my mind raced, trying to put together why she would ask. “It was fine. We moved into the house that I would grow up in. My mom and I went to Disneyland in Paris, I think.”
She stared at me wordlessly, the expression on her face one of gut-wrenching pain. That was when it hit me.
When I’d been eight, she would’ve been six. It was the year that her dad had lost everything. It was probably the worst year of her life, and there I was, throwing Disneyland in her face.
I was such a fucking asshole. “Fiona, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize until just now—”
“I think you should leave, Shane. I thought that I could do this, but I just can’t.” She stood and gestured toward the door, storms still raging in her eyes.
I reached up to take her face in my hands. She had to understand. I had to make her understand. She swatted my hands away and stepped out of reach.
“Please, baby.”
“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that ever again.”
I could understand that she would be hurt about the stark comparison between our lives that year but I didn’t get the pure, unbridled anger in her voice.
I threw my hands up in surrender. “Fine, I’ll leave, if that’s you want. I am sorry, Fiona, but I don’t understand what just happened.”
“You have everything else in life. You don’t need an explanation from me.” She practically pushed me through the door, only so that she could slam it in my face.
What. In. The. Actual. Fuck. What just happened?
Chapter Thirteen
Fiona
“What’s up, baby girl?” Drew drawled, answering his phone on the first ring.
“Drew,” I said. “I made a mistake.”
“What’s wrong, Fee?” His voice was instantly deathly serious when he heard how I sounded. “Hang on one sec.”
I heard the muted sound of a girl yelling before I heard his door slam shut. I knew that he would be at my place within minutes. Drew was as protective of me as my dad, if not more so, since he was present for most of the lewd overtures that were made to me whenever we went out.
Sure enough, there was a knock at my door. Drew and I had briefly considered moving in together but we’d agreed that we wanted to try living alone at least once. So, we settled for being neighbors. It worked like a charm.
I threw open my door and flung myself into my best friend’s strong arms. He wrapped them around me without hesitation.
“Fuck, Fiona. What the hell happened?” Drew walked us to the couch, his shaggy hair wet from a recent shower.
The pair we must have made. Pajama-clad, hair wet, and both of our lips slightly swollen from a night of wild kissing. I would have laughed but I felt like my heart was splintering in my chest.
Shane had been going yachting and to Disneyland with his mom. At the same time, my dad and I had still been grieving for my mother and then had our livelihood yanked from underneath us when Shane’s ruthless father cut my dad off.
I was living in a fucking nightmare. One where all the memories from the time resurfaced and stung all over again. Yet I could still feel Shane inside me.
Having been so wrapped up in Shane for the last few days, I hadn’t spoken to Drew much about what was going on. I brewed us a fresh mug of coffee each and watched as he wrapped his long legs underneath him, mirroring the way that I sank into my sofa.
“What the fuck, Fee?” he asked again, carefully raking his eyes over my body from top to bottom. As if he were surveying me for physical damage.
“It’s nothing like that,” I breathed.
Drew visibly relaxed. “So, what’s it like then? Why have you been crying?” His brows knitted in concern.
I contemplated my answer, trying to determine where to begin.
Just start at the very beginning. My mom’s faint voice sang the
bar to the familiar song from one of my beloved childhood movies.
I inhaled a deep breath and did just that. “Do you remember when we first moved here?”
Drew’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. My dad couldn’t shut up about his best friend coming back to Mystic for days.”
“Do you remember why we moved?” I knew that he did but it seemed important to remind him.
“Sure. That Perkins oil magnate fucked him over, wasn’t it?” Drew raised a brow, wondering where I was going with that line of questioning.
“Shane’s last name is Perkins.”
Drew’s eyebrows shot almost all the way to his hairline. “As in, Houston’s oil millionaires?”
I nodded. “Billionaires, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
“As in, Shane, the hot customer you’ve been swooning over, is related to the guy who bankrupted your dad’s company?” Drew leaned back on the sofa, looking at me like he’d never seen me before. “Are you okay?”
“Not only related to him. His son.” I spoke quietly, the magnitude of the situation hitting me again. “I don’t know if I’m okay.”
“Did you know before you fucked him?”
“How did you know?” I was horrified at my own actions, though I should have known that Drew would know immediately.
“Are you kidding, baby girl? It’s written all over your face.” He voiced my suspicions easily, knowing that he was right.
I buried my face in my hands. “I knew. Even my dad knows.”
“What?”
I couldn’t bring myself to face him. So, I talked with my head in my hands, and my voice came out muffled.
“Shane and I went over there for dinner last night,” I admitted.
“Are you fucking serious? Why?” Drew stood and squished himself into the single person sofa with me, pulling me in for a long hug.
“Shane asked me out on a date the other day. I told my dad what his name was, and he remembered that Evil Perkins had a son named Shane. Shane had told me that he was from Houston. His family’s in the ‘energy industry.’ It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put it together.”
“Shit,” he breathed, tucking my chin into his chest. “What did Shane say when you told him what happened between your dads?”
I kept quiet, not wanting to admit the truth. Finally, I answered him, my voice almost impossibly small. “I didn’t.”
Drew’s body stilled. “You fucked him without telling him that you knew?”
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I’m a fucking terrible human being. I know that. It’s just that when we’re together, Drew, it’s like nothing else matters. Like nothing in the world exists but us.”
Drew was silent for a beat but one arm tightened around me while he reached for my face with his free hand, taking my chin in his hand and forcing me to look at him. “You are the furthest thing from a terrible human being, Fee.”
I took comfort in the fact that Drew and I had a strict no lying, no bullshit policy between us, and had never broken it. Even if I didn’t want to believe what he was saying, it meant the world to me that he did.
“In fact, I’m surprised that you didn’t claw his eyes out after what his family did to yours,” Drew continued.
“His eyes are too pretty,” I pouted.
Humor sparked in Drew’s eyes. He was already moving on to Operation Make Fiona Feel Better. “So, I’m assuming that his junk is also still intact?”
“You know me too well.”
“He’s a lucky guy,” Drew said. “If his gene pool hadn’t made him hellishly hot, he would be missing his eyes and his dick after meeting you.”
I groaned. If only it were that simple. “It’s so much more than that, though.”
“Okay,” he said, immediately accepting my truth. “If it’s more than that, what is it?”
“I don’t know! There’s just something between us. Something that I can’t explain.” No matter how hard I searched for a way to explain it, it just didn’t come.
“Are you in love with him?” Drew’s eyes grew somber.
I answered without hesitation. “No. In lust, maybe. Love? Not in a million years.”
“Lust we can deal with. Especially since it looks like he worked you over pretty good last night.” The humor was back in expression.
“Fuck you, revered and beloved best friend,” I shot at him but he just laughed.
“You’re too late, baby girl.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course, he’d gotten laid last night. Girls, guys. People found Drew irresistible. I was pretty sure that I was the only one who had been born with an immunity to his charms, a fact that I would forever be grateful for. It meant I would always have him as my best friend. My brother.
“You going to see him again?” he asked.
I didn’t need time to think about it. “No.”
“Okay then, we’ll deal with your lust by taking you out and getting you a rebound lay to warm your bed tonight. And I’ll buy you a whole stack of batteries for your battery-operated boyfriend until Shane leaves town.”
“How did you know the batteries of B.O.B were dead?”
“Have you even seen how tightly you’ve been wound recently?” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “No woman having regular orgasms looks like that.”
I punched his arm. “Asshole.”
“If that’s where you like it,” he teased.
I blushed but laughed. Only Drew could make me laugh in a time like this. Well, Shane, too, but it was best to not think about him for a while.
“You want to spend the day watching bad horror movies and getting day drunk before we head out tonight?” I asked, already heading to the kitchen for a bottle of tequila that I knew I had stashed somewhere after Drew’s last break-up.
“Don’t you know it,” he replied, flicking on the television and surfing Netflix until he found a movie we’d been saving for our next ‘crisis day.’
For the next few hours, Drew and I got lost in our familiar routine for whenever either of us underwent a crisis. We watched bad movies, pigged out on takeout, and drained a bottle of tequila.
Our first crisis day had actually been shortly after my dad and I had arrived in Mystic, although we’d only added the tequila years later. Drew had been watching movies in his room, eating pizza, when we’d gone over there one afternoon. I’d plopped onto the sofa with him, my eyes red from crying all morning. My dad had been so upset that our house in Texas had been sold.
Drew hadn’t said a single solitary word. He opened his arms for me to crawl into, hit the play button on the VCR, and eventually shared his pizza with me. Even as a seven-year-old, he’d known what I needed. Shane’s life might have been blessed with more money than you could count in several lifetimes, but mine had been blessed with a friend like Drew.
After several rounds of shots, Drew begged me to come out to a club with him. Normally, I would have said no, but I was just buzzed enough for that to seem like a good idea.
At the club, the bass pounded so hard I could feel it in my stomach. The lights flashed in dizzying patterns, and I was on my way from buzzed to drunk.
None of it was enough to drown out the tired lines of the boring, typical losers that kept hitting on me. I swore that those assholes could smell blood in the water when a woman was brokenhearted… Even if she had broken her heart herself by asking questions that she wasn’t ready to hear the answers to.
All their advances did was exacerbate my desire for something more. Something real. Someone who treated me with tenderness and respect.
Like Shane. Sure, he’d enjoyed getting a rise out of me but he respected me enough to back down before it made me feel bad about myself or went too far. I missed that.
The assholes in the club could take lessons from Shane. If only he wasn’t so busy building a legacy for a family who had hurt so many people over the years. Bile rose in my throat. I didn’t want to think about how proud he’d been of building that legacy that very morning.
&
nbsp; “This is the life, right?” Drew asked, sidling up next to me and motioning to the bodies writhing on the dance floor and the shots flowing as if from a fountain over at the bar.
“Sure,” I agreed flatly. Even if it really didn’t feel like any sort of life that I wanted a part of in that moment.
“Come on, Fee. We’re single. We can have as much fun as we want with whoever we want.”
All I heard was Shane’s voice in my memories, sounding hurt and confused when I demanded that he leave. I regretted the way I’d acted but I’d been so angry, at Shane’s lie, at what happened to my father, at everything. Shane had looked so helpless, fighting a fight he didn’t even understand.
“I guess but there’s no one here that I want to have fun with.” I didn’t know where Shane was or what he was doing but I knew that he was the only one that I wanted. Regardless of how much Drew tried to steer me in a different direction.
“No one you’ve found yet but the night is still young,” Drew said, pointing me at a preppy-looking guy dancing awkwardly at the edge of the dance floor.
I shook my head. Not that one either.
“You have to remember that he lied to you, Fee.” Drew had had a ball with that little tidbit of information earlier. “You gave him a shot to tell you the truth, and he lied without hesitation. Aren’t you all about honesty?”
My teeth sank into my lower lip. I nodded.
“Exactly, I remember very distinctly the day that you made me swear up and down that I would never lie to you, embellish to you, or bullshit you. Shane flat out lied. Not only that, he kept lying. Even after he met your dad, and after you slept with him.”
“Stop reminding me, Drewski. Seriously, I know what he did, okay? I know what he said.” As much as I hated to admit it to him, I knew that Drew was right. It was time to put Shane behind me.
Stop it! I chided the dirty part of my brain that instantly went to Shane pounding into me doggy style. That wasn’t happening.
As grudgingly as it might have been, I had to face the facts. Shane had lied to me, and he still hadn’t come clean. He was the guy who had taken over the company that had caused my dad’s downfall. I was a sick puppy for having spent even one night with him, despite Drew’s protestations.