Last Summer: A Novel Page 20

  “Something unexpected.” He opens his eyes, letting his hand flop onto his belly. “I fell for you. I invited you to my place, and you helped me work through my guilt.”

  “Yeah, I got that, but I feel like there’s something here I’m missing. Did you pull the article because we were involved?” she asks, holding his hand in her lap.

  But that doesn’t explain why he came back to Luxe Avenue with the exclusive.

  Nathan rubs the side of his nose, glances at the ceiling.

  Ella feels a twinge in her chest. Something’s off here. Nathan must sense the moment her mood shifts, because his grip on her hand tightens, brutally so.

  “Don’t leave,” he rasps.

  Any other time, that rasp in his voice would have her mentally undressing him. Not today, though.

  “Let go, please.”

  “I love you, Ella. Don’t leave me.”

  I don’t want to lose you again.

  His words to her two days ago.

  Clarity rings clearly.

  Ella never was going to leave Damien for Nathan. She left Nathan.

  Suddenly, everything comes together. Nathan fell for her. She might have cared for him. She was extremely attracted to him. But she doesn’t believe she fell in love with him. Her plan from the beginning was to return to San Francisco, write the article, and submit it to her editor. To be with Damien and to leave Nathan.

  Nathan had only been a fling for her, hadn’t he?

  Ella recalls Nathan’s interest in Damien.

  How’s Damien handling this?

  This has nothing to do with her miscarriage. It has to do with Ella spending time with Nathan. Because Damien knew about last summer’s affair. And Nathan knows he knows. How?

  “You blackmailed me.” Nathan’s eyes flare with heat as Ella yanks free her hand. She scoots back on the bed. “The only way you’d let the article run was if I agreed to leave Damien. But I didn’t, so you threatened to tell Damien about our affair unless I killed the assignment. That’s how you convinced me.”

  She shakes her head. “No, there’s got to be more,” she thinks out loud, gasping when it hits her. “You threatened to tell my boss about us. That’s how you convinced me.”

  If Rebecca knew she slept with Nathan while on the job, Ella would have lost more than the exclusive assignment. She would have lost her position at Luxe Avenue. Blacklisted from getting hired at any credible publication.

  Then why is she back on this assignment?

  “If you weren’t going to let the article run, why’d you call Rebecca again?”

  Nathan snickers. A low, disrespectful noise that heightens the chill Ella felt a moment ago. He then grimaces because his ribs hurt and slowly rolls to his side. He leans up onto his good elbow. “I didn’t plan this.” He motions between them. “It sort of happened. To say I was shocked you agreed to see me is an understatement. I swear to god I didn’t know about your memory loss.”

  But he took advantage of it. If he could woo her, appeal to her on the grounds of their common losses, she might fall for him, and this time, she’d stay.

  She almost did fall for him.

  “Why did you call Rebecca?”

  “Because, Ella . . .” He takes a long beat. “I’ve been worried about you since you lost our son.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Whoa.” Ella backs off the bed, pointing her finger at Nathan. “Stop right there. Not. Cool. Simon—”

  “Was mine.”

  A sinking, drifting sensation floods her. She stumbles back, hand pressed to her stomach.

  “Did I tell you he was yours?”

  “No. I ran into you by accident in Reno last October.” He sits, protecting his ribs with one hand, supporting his weight on the bed with his good arm. “It was obvious you were pregnant. You told me you were nineteen weeks along. That put you with me in Truckee, so I asked.”

  “How presumptuous of you. I’m married.”

  “You sure aren’t acting like it.”

  Ella sees red. “Bastard.” Like he’s one to talk.

  “My question was valid, but you never answered me. I had the right to know. I still have that right.” He pushes off the bed and slowly stands. He hisses through his teeth, his muscles tight and sore from yesterday’s fall. “I kept calling you. I wanted a paternity test, but you blocked me.”

  “You stalked me?”

  “I loved you. I wanted to be involved in Simon’s life. My son’s life,” he says. “Tell me, Ella.” He makes a move toward her. “Was he mine?”

  “Enough!” Ella cuts her hand through the air. “I’ve heard enough.” After everything she’s been through. After the loss he’s suffered, grief has him grasping at straws for anyone he can claim as his own. It certainly won’t be Simon. The nerve of him to assume her baby was his.

  Ella looks wildly around the room. The dull morning light between the cracks of the curtain panels. The rumpled bedsheets.

  Oh, my god. What has she done? What is she doing here? With him?

  Going to her luggage, Ella yanks on a pair of jeans.

  “You called me right before your accident.”

  She stills.

  “I think you were about to tell me but we got cut off.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut to block out his words. But she can’t. They’re there, and they want to be heard. Mulled over. Considered.

  Ella lifts off her sleep shirt and puts on her bra. She tries to put on a clean shirt but her arms shake so badly she keeps dropping it.

  Nathan’s voice lowers. She can feel him standing right behind her, the disturbance of air when he says, “I tried reaching you for days after you called. I was worried about you. Rebecca told me you had an accident. I called her when I couldn’t get hold of you. I visited you in the hospital.”

  “What?” Ella finally pulls on her shirt and swings around. Her mind stumbles back to her last day in the hospital, to Nurse Jillian, who told her about the commotion the previous day. To the argument between Damien and her that Andrew had mentioned. That argument must have been over Nathan. That commotion must have been between Nathan and Damien. Damien wouldn’t have allowed him to visit her.

  Stuffing her sleep shirt into her bag, Ella packs furiously. She’s tough. Usually she can handle the worst sorts of stories about human nature. But this reality, her reality? What Nathan’s done to her? What she’s done to Damien? It’s too much. She has to get out of here.

  “What are you doing?” Nathan asks. He winces, his hand still clutched to his ribs.

  “What does it look like? I’m leaving.”

  “You can’t do that,” he says.

  “Watch me.”

  Nathan’s expression darkens. The temperature in the room nose-dives.

  “You. Bitch.”

  Ella snaps to attention. “Excuse me?”

  “You got your story and now you’re bailing.”

  “That’s not why I’m leaving and you know it.” She zips her luggage closed.

  “Why then? You didn’t like what you heard? Not what you expected?”

  “I don’t know what I expected. Certainly not this.”

  “Then try this on for size,” he says, following her to the bathroom. “Screw and ditch is your MO. That’s how you get your interviews. You did it with me last summer, and you did it with that actor Michael Leed. You got him to spill about his affair with his male costar. You met Senator Burmeister at a fundraiser, a man you’d been trying to nab an interview with for months, charmed the shit out of him, and fucked him. Next thing you knew, his secretary is calling to set up an exclusive with Luxe Avenue. And Damien! Of course, you stayed with him, but you fucked him the night you met because you wanted his story. You told me a lot last summer, Skye, and it wasn’t all pretty.”

  She slaps him, the crack of bone on flesh startling. She’s never hit anyone. But then, she’s never been as angry as she is with Nathan. He barely flinches, but the blue in his eyes cools, two icebergs that chill her to the
bone.

  “I’d say that’s the meds talking, but you didn’t take any this morning.”

  “That’s the truth talking.” He growls the words. “I’m only repeating what you told me last summer.”

  “Why on earth would I tell you any of that?” His words burn.

  “Beats me, babe. We got real close. Maybe you felt compelled to confess all your shit.”

  His accusations are insulting and demeaning, designed and delivered to hurt. But what hurts more is that Nathan is telling the truth, as disgusting as he’s made her sound. Ella remembers the interviews, but they were pre-Damien.

  As for Simon, Ella doesn’t know what’s the truth and what are lies. What she does know is that she can’t trust Nathan. She made a horrible mistake coming to Alaska.

  Scooping up her cosmetics and toiletries, she pushes by him and dumps them in her luggage. She’s still shaking so badly that she almost drops her laptop when she picks it up.

  “Didn’t you find it easy getting into bed with me? Guilt-free, I might add. You’ll do whatever it takes to get your story.”

  She slams her laptop into her bag.

  “I honestly thought I was different than your other lays.”

  There’s so much venom in his voice that his words stop her on her way to the door. “For what it’s worth, you were different. I did care about you. But I also fucked you to see if it triggered my memories. Clearly it didn’t work.”

  Partial truth. She wants him hurting as badly as he hurt her.

  Nathan stumbles back, sinking onto the bed.

  She grips the doorknob.

  “Ella.” He speaks her name quietly.

  She stops at the door but doesn’t turn around.

  He sighs. “I’ll call the airline for you. Get you on the next flight out of here.”

  “Thank you,” she says and leaves.

  After a long flight to Reno with two layovers, a Lyft to Nathan’s house to get her car, and a four-hour drive down the mountain and into the bright lights of the city, Ella arrives home shortly before dawn. Damien’s standing in the hallway when she enters, drawn to the door by the sound of her key unlocking the bolt. His hair stands on end from the repeated abuse of his hands raking through the thick locks. His clothes, a navy shirt and gray sweatpants, look like they’ve been slept in for days. He tightly grips his phone, watching her through bloodshot eyes as though his entire world just walked through the door.

  “You’re home,” he says, relieved.

  “So are you,” she says, unable to contain her surprise. “When did you get here?”

  “Saturday morning. I would have flown to Alaska, but . . .” He takes a cautious step toward her. Stops. Looks at the phone in his hand, then at her. “I didn’t know where you were.”

  Because Nathan kept their travel arrangements under his name and credit card, at his insistence, which Ella agreed to, thinking nothing of it. Otherwise, Damien would have been able to track her through her purchases.

  The knot in her stomach tightens. She’d been so gullible and trusting in her desperation for answers. Her desire to feel what it was like to carry and lose Simon so that she could mourn with Damien.

  And here he is, home for her, when he should be in London, working to save his company.

  “What about the investigation?”

  “You’re more important. I was going to call the authorities.” His expression is pained. “You weren’t answering my calls.”

  Shamefully, she ignored them. He’d hear her voice and then he’d know. She betrayed him.

  Tears well and then spill over. The guilt that was absent when she followed Nathan to Alaska, joined him in his bed, and started feeling something for him arrives with a vengeance. It claws to the surface, digging and scratching. This must be how Grace’s father felt when he confessed his affair to her mother. And in this moment, she can understand why he did it. It’s suffocating.

  “Ella.” He speaks her name with reverence.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she stutters, her lungs shuttering on the exhale.

  She drops her luggage. He drops his phone. Then Damien has her in his arms and his mouth is on hers. He threads both hands in her hair and cradles her head. He kisses her. A possessive, powerful, breath-stealing kiss. Words are impossible. Her confession disappears in a muffled whimper.

  Damien’s hands move to her hips and his fingers dig into her flesh. He keeps her flush against him and they do what they do best when there’s too much to say and they don’t know how to say it. They fuck. Rough, angry sex. Against the wall. Bent over the couch. In the middle of their California king, where their bodies mellow into tender lovemaking. Until finally, in the golden hours of dawn, they crash into slumber, limbs entwined.

  CHAPTER 27

  Three Years Ago

  “What an epic day,” Ella said, following Damien into their suite. California had been in its fourth year of drought and the mountains were dry. Damien had surprised her with a spontaneous trip to Vail. It was their first Thanksgiving holiday together and Ella was more than fine with getting out of the city. Anything so that they wouldn’t have to celebrate the gluttonous holiday.

  “I haven’t skied on snow like this for years.” Damien took Ella’s boots from her hands and set them on the floor beside their skis that he’d carried up to the room.

  “Where should we go for dinner?” Ella asked, shedding her jacket. She tossed it on the bed along with her knit cap and ski gloves.

  “I thought we’d order in.” Damien slowly unzipped Ella’s hoodie and skimmed the backs of his fingers down her sternum. Ella’s breath caught. “You know, just the two of us, some candlelight, a nice bottle of Zin.” His hand trailed lower and cupped her breast.

  “Sounds heavenly,” Ella said, leaning into him. There was a two-person tub in the bathroom. They’d skied hard today. Her legs felt like jelly. She could use a good soak. And a good fuck, she realized as Damien’s hand dipped below the waist of her ski pants.

  But a knock on the door shattered the moment.

  “Later,” Damien promised, pressing a teasing kiss against her lips.

  “Who’s here?”

  “Room service.”

  “Dinner already? When did you order?”

  He just smiled and opened the door. A young man in the black-and-white hotel staff uniform wheeled in a cart. Ella saw a bottle of wine, glasses, and four metal domes.

  “Where to, sir?” the attendant asked.

  “By the window. We can watch the snow fall,” Damien said, looking at Ella, then frowning when he caught her expression. He came over to stand by her.

  “Everything all right?” he asked, his voice just loud enough for her to hear.

  Ella slowly shook her head. She held a hand to her throat, just above the knot she was having trouble swallowing past. She’d caught a whiff of the food under the domes when the cart wheeled by.

  “Would you like me to uncork the wine?” The attendant spoke quietly.

  “No, I’ll do it,” Damien answered, not taking his eyes off her. “Talk to me, El. You don’t look well.”

  “Of course, sir.” The attendant removed the domes and Ella peeked over Damien’s shoulder to see. On the table was a small roasted turkey, barely larger than a chicken, and all the dressings that came with a Thanksgiving meal at a five-star resort hotel. Mashed potatoes and savory gravy, cranberry relish, string beans with caramelized onions, and an assortment of root vegetables: parsnips, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Damien had gone all out. Steam rose from the plates and the smell of roasted turkey overwhelmed Ella. Warm, juicy, and nasty.

  Her stomach roiled and she gagged. Cupping a hand over her mouth, Ella ran to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet. What had to be less than a minute later, Ella heard the hotel suite door close, then felt Damien’s presence in the bathroom. He knelt beside her. His strong hands gently scooped her hair, holding it away from her face.

  Ella’s stomach had emptied and her throat was raw. She
felt like she’d been run over by a snowplow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, hoarse. She’d ruined the romantic meal he’d planned.

  “Don’t be.” He handed her a towel. She blotted her face. “Did you eat something earlier?”

  He thought she had food poisoning. She shook her head. “I don’t like turkey.”

  He smiled. “That’s quite a reaction for something you don’t like. Sure you aren’t allergic? I’ve heard that the smell of something can be strong enough to—”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t allergic to turkey, but she owed Damien an explanation. The smell of turkey was a powerful reminder of the worst day of Ella’s life. She hadn’t eaten turkey since she was six. She hadn’t celebrated Thanksgiving since then either.

  “My parents died on Thanksgiving.”

  “God, El, I’m sorry. I wish I’d known.”

  Damien knew her parents had died when she was a kid, but she hadn’t gone into details. She hadn’t seen a point. Damien was estranged from his parents and hers were gone. They just didn’t talk about them.

  But she now owed him an explanation as to why she despised the holiday, especially if they were going to spend the rest of them together. That dinner hadn’t been cheap, and she felt awful that she’d ruined his plans.

  He handed her a glass of water.

  “Thanks,” she said after swishing and spitting into the sink. “I hate Thanksgiving.”

  “I gathered that,” he said on a laugh. “Wait here, then we’ll talk.”

  Damien left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Ella heard the clang of dishes, the squeak of wheels, and the hotel room door open and shut. He returned a moment later, holding out a hand for hers. He led her into the room and Ella noticed the cart was gone. The window was also cracked and the heater circulating, diffusing the smell. Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She felt stupid and silly. She couldn’t believe she threw up. It had been years since she’d had such a strong reaction to the smell.

  “Don’t be. We’ll order steaks later. Feel up to having a glass of wine?” She nodded and he uncorked the bottle, pouring their glasses. Giving her one, he raised his in a toast. “Happy Un-Thanksgiving.”