Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (79 page)

She set her fork down and laid her napkin on her plate. She wasn’t Arielle, with long, blonde hair and stunning good looks. She was Sabrina, plain and awkward.
Imagine what he’d think if you told him who you are. Imagine the disappointment. The confusion.
And that was just for starters. Eventually he’d find out what she’d done and the relationship would be set on a course for disaster.

She couldn’t tell him. To do so would risk everything. She swallowed against the ache in her throat. “It’s obvious she doesn’t want to meet,” she said as gently as she could.

“I’ve never been one to give up easily.”

He was downright stubborn about some things. “What did she say the next time you asked?”The words escaped before she realized her mistake. How could she know he’d mentioned it again? “I’m assuming you asked more than once.”

“She insisted she wanted to keep the relationship the way it was. She said it worked for her that way.”

“But it doesn’t work for you.”
What are you doing, Sabrina?

He pushed back his plate and folded his arms on the table. “I want more.”

Her eyes locked on his. She couldn’t pull them away if she tried. And truth be told, she didn’t want to try. He was looking at her as if . . . as if he
wanted
to look at her.

You’re misreading the signal.

He was looking at her like Jared had when he walked her to her apartment at college. When the night was over, but he didn’t want it to be. Tucker was looking at her the way Jared had right before his lips found hers.

Ridiculous! Tucker had feelings for Sweetpea, not her. So they were one and the same—he didn’t know that. He couldn’t be making eyes at her when he thought he had feelings for someone else.

Could he?

“Why do you think she doesn’t want to meet?” Vulnerability weighted his eyes.

What could she say that wouldn’t hurt him? “Maybe, for whatever reason, she’s comfortable with the status quo. Maybe she can’t risk losing what she has for the mere possibility of something more.”

“Isn’t it worth the risk?”

“Not to her, maybe.” She was getting perilously close to the cliff ’s edge. She tore her gaze away, twisted the watch on her wrist. “Or there could be some other reason. Who knows?”

“You think she’s married, don’t you?”

Sabrina looked up, surprised. “What? No.”

“’Cause she’s not.”

“I never said she was.”

“What, then? Locked in someone’s attic? In a women’s penitentiary? What possible reason could she have for not meeting?”

“I doubt her reasons are so concrete. People are motivated by numerous things, many of them internal and intangible. We could sit here and speculate all day and still not come close. In the end, what does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

“Why? What if you find her and she didn’t want to be found? What if she’s not who you think she is? How would that affect your relationship? What if it changed everything? What if it ruined what you have now?”

He took that in, staring over her shoulder. The sun had disappeared and the sky had darkened as if someone had twisted a dimmer switch. “It won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

He looked at her, his eyes glittering. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Well.” Sabrina clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Maybe she’s not.”

Sweetpea: There’s nothing like running to pound out your frustrations. After the episode with Jaylee and Jared, I was fit for a marathon.

Chapter Twelve

Sabrina’s feet pounded the vacant cobblestone street. In the distance, dawn’s fingers curled around the horizon, nudging the sky awake with shades of midnight blue and periwinkle.

She liked this time of day, before the island awakened, before the chatter of birds roused the tourists. This time of day she could be alone with her thoughts and enjoy the quiet island sounds that were swallowed by the daytime bustle. The whisper of sea oats brushing together, the sound of the leaves shimmying in the wind.

When the street opened to the wharf, she turned and made her way toward Brant Point Lighthouse and Jetties Beach, where her calves would get a good workout on the sand. Her breath came in shallow puffs, and she welcomed the salt-laden breeze that blew in off the harbor.

Her thoughts turned to the message Arielle had left on her voice mail the day before. How many phone calls would Sabrina have to ignore before her cousin would give it up? Maybe after the wedding, things would settle down and everyone would go back to their lives and leave her alone.

She turned onto Easton Street, realizing her feet had carried her to the route she tried to avoid. She picked up her pace; the sooner she passed it, the better. The White Elephant stood to her right, the hotel’s lights still glowing in the early morning hours. But she didn’t look. Wouldn’t look.

Her lungs protested the sprint, but she kept on. Sweat trickled down her neck and between her shoulder blades. She pushed herself harder, lengthening her stride until she was past the property. Only then did she slow her pace, letting her speed taper to a walk as she neared the end of the road where the beach met the pavement. Her lungs worked to keep pace with her pounding heart. She drew her wrist across her forehead, across her eyes, trying to wipe away the sweat, the thoughts. But still the memory came. The memory of the night that had started it all. Had started a cataclysmic chain of events that changed her life forever.

The restaurant had been slow, and her boss let her go home halfway through her shift. “You’ve been working so many hours, kiddo. Besides, I’m sure you have last-minute wedding things to do.”

Sabrina was grateful. She’d been unprepared for the hundreds of details involved in planning a wedding, and even though Aunt Bev had helped, Sabrina wanted everything to be perfect. She smiled, checking the date on her watch as she drove home. Six more days. She considered stopping at Jared’s apartment, but she needed to decide on seating arrangements for the rehearsal dinner, wrap the wedding party gifts, and start packing for their honeymoon. Neither of them had been to Nantucket, but she’d heard it was the perfect honeymoon destination. Quiet and quaint, slow paced. She and Jared could rest after the hectic months leading up to the wedding. She needed to remind him to confirm their reservations.

She pulled into her apartment’s drive. Jaylee was home, no doubt resting after a long day studying for her bar exam. Sabrina had been helping her between the hours at the restaurant and the wedding preparations.

She grabbed the bag from the passenger seat. She’d finally found something blue and wanted to show Jaylee. She found the silver pendant earrings with tiny light-blue stones in a small boutique that afternoon, and they were perfect.

The parking lot light buzzed overhead and cast a faint yellow tint on the graveled lot. On the second floor of the building, her apartment was dark behind the thin sheers. She entered the building, dashed up the carpeted stairs, then fished for her keys in her bag. The smell of garlic and onion filled the hallway, and she knew Mr. Figliono had fixed a big batch of lasagna again.

She shifted the bag to her other hand and unlocked the door, stepping through it and closing it behind her. Country music blared from the speakers, a male voice crooning about lost love.

Already Sabrina was considering the rehearsal dinner and wondering what she would do about Aunt Linda and Aunt Cathy. They didn’t get along and, in fact, had not spoken since Christmas two years prior when Aunt Cathy bought presents after agreeing on no gift exchange. Words had flown, loud ones. A door had slammed; then tires had peeled from the drive, leaving a roomful of awkward silence.

It hadn’t been the first family argument between them, Aunt Bev had said. Sabrina couldn’t imagine anything significant enough to divide two sisters.

Since that Christmas, holidays had been comprised of one aunt or the other, but not both under the same roof, and certainly not in the same room. Sabrina wondered how she could arrange them in a room with a U-shaped table. Maybe one or the other wouldn’t show, but they’d both agreed to come.

She set her bag on the foyer table and kicked off her shoes, setting them out of the way. Her middle toe poked through a hole. Time for new socks. One more thing for her to-do list. It could wait until after the wedding. She would only need sandals on their honeymoon.

She rounded the corner where the hall opened to the small living room, her hand reaching for the light switch. But a noise, a groan, sounded over the country crooning. Through the sheers, the parking lot light shed a yellow glow over the space. Two people embraced on the couch. A man was half on top of Jaylee. Sabrina wondered if she should grab a blunt object or call 911. As her eyes adjusted, she realized her cousin was stroking the back of his head, not fighting him off.

Jaylee didn’t have a boyfriend, and she didn’t sleep around. Sabrina felt like a Peeping Tom standing there, watching. She stepped backward, wondering where she could go.

Her foot connected with the tall metal pail holding a cluster of artificial sunflowers. It scraped backward on the wood floor and clanged against the wall, an awkward percussion over the slow country verse. Jaylee and the man jumped apart.

Sabrina felt her face warming the instant before she saw his face. In the dark, his features were obscured. It was his silhouette against the pale wall behind him. It was the way he hunched slightly, the way he cleared his throat.

Her fingers felt for the light switch on the wall and stumbled across the protrusion. She flipped it up.

Jared blinked against the glaring overhead light.

Jaylee jumped to her feet. “Sabrina!” She straightened her shirt. The top two buttons of her favorite pink blouse were undone.

Sabrina looked at Jared. His hand covered half his face, his elbow protruding outward.

Jaylee took a step toward her, reaching out.

Sabrina moved away. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice was a deep snarl.

Jared stood, looking at her, uncertain. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Sabrina.”

Sorry?
She looked at the two of them. Their expressions, a mixture of shock, horror, and guilt, might have inspired laughter if the lump of pain in her throat hadn’t choked it out.

“We didn’t mean for it to happen,” Jared was saying.

“We were going to tell you,” Jaylee said.

How long had this been going on? “After the wedding?” She turned on Jared. “We’re getting married in six days!
Six. Days
.” How could he do this to her? How could he sit—no,
lie
—with her cousin on her couch? The couch she’d bought and paid for with her own money.

“We didn’t mean for it to happen—didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” Jaylee said.

“How did you mean for me to find out? And when? Why are you doing this?” Sabrina turned, disinclined to see them standing together like a—like a couple. Jaylee and Jared weren’t the couple. Sabrina and Jared were. They were engaged.

“I’m sorry.” Jared’s voice sounded from behind her, close. The picture on the wall blurred in front of her. It was just like high school. Just like when Ethan Sterling had pretended to like her only to get invited to her house so he could be near Jaylee. Just like when David Ellenburg had befriended her only to pick her brain about Arielle. Just like all those times. Only worse. Much worse.

Jared’s apology felt impossibly inadequate. How did an apology rectify the damage her heart suffered? How did an apology justify the pain they’d caused?

Was it only physical? Jaylee was so beautiful. She’d won most of the pageants she’d entered for a reason. Had she been too much for Jared to resist? Could Sabrina bring herself to forgive him?

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Jaylee was saying. She slid past Sabrina and slipped out the door. She didn’t want to think about her cousin right now. One betrayal at a time.

The music died midsentence. Jared must’ve turned it off. The quiet was alarming, because now she could hear her heart thudding in her head, hear Jared’s ragged rasps. Was he winded from the make-out session or from the distress of Sabrina’s appearance?

“Come and sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.” If he was going to beg her forgiveness, he could do it with her standing, face-to-face. She turned around and met his gaze.

He looked at the floor. “We need to talk.”

“You think?” Was this the kind of man Jared was? The kind who was seduced by a pretty face? It was so contrary to her previous convictions it made her head spin. She couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d arrived home to find her apartment upside down.

“We didn’t mean for it to happen.”

We
. It was a couple word. But they weren’t a couple. Sabrina and Jared were a couple. If she said it enough, it would be true.

“I should’ve told you. I’m sorry you found out like this.”

A weight hung heavily in her middle, sagging downward, dragging her with it. She fought to keep her legs under her. “Should’ve told me what?” She nearly put her hands over her ears. Instead she steeled herself for his answer.

“It’s over, Sabrina.”

What was over? He and Jaylee? It was a quick, cold-feet thing, right? One last escapade before he settled down.

“What’s—” She cleared her throat. “What’s over?”

He looked at her now, but she wished he hadn’t. His eyes were laden with guilt and pity. “Us.”

She looked deeply into his familiar green eyes. There was nothing familiar about them now. She’d never seen this expression. Never wanted to see it again.

“We’re getting married in six days.” They had two hundred and forty-six RSVPs, two thousand dollars in flowers, and a three-thousand- dollar dress to prove it.

“I’m in love with Jaylee.”

Each word was a nail in her heart. Everything in the room stopped. Everything in the world came to a screeching halt. Everything but the pain.

“What?”
You need to hear it again for torture’s sake?

“We didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“So you keep saying!” She ran her hand over her face. It was wet. She pushed at his chest with the palm of her hand. “How long?” she demanded.