Page 62 of The Version You Hide

“Will you let me show you?” It sounds like such a simple question, but it carries with it a cathartic undertone. He trusts me with whatever he has in that warehouse.

“Okay.”

He turns, moving toward the building where he slips the key inside the padlock. The doors squeak loudly as they slide along their tracks, revealing a vast black space. He beckons me to come forward, holding out his hand despite the pitch-black darkness inside.

Hesitantly, I step forward and slip my palm into his again, ignoring the wave of electricity that shoots through my core. He pulls me into the shadows, drawing me into his warmth as his other hand searches the wall for the light switch.

A few seconds later, a fluorescent light flickers above before bathing the whole space in bright light. The warehouse is huge, taking up twice the amount of space as Kristen and Henley’s house would. A pitched roof hangs high above us and there are random pieces of hardware scattered on its outskirts. Tools, paint cans, buckets full of various cleaning products, and there in the centre of it all, a work in progress.

A passion project.

A boat propped up on stands.

“Wow,” I whisper, my mouth gaping open as I take it all in. I wander toward the huge vessel, trailing my fingers along its paint-chipped hull. I don’t know much about boats, but I can tell this one needs a lot of work. “Is it yours?”

“Sure is.”

He motions for me to follow him around to the stern, where a ladder rests up against it. He swiftly climbs it, jumping into the back, then he leans forward to take my hand as I follow him up.

I clamber aboard, looking around in amazement. There are several seats at the back and a few at the front, a cabin in the centre where a steering wheel sits on a dash that looks a little worse for wear.

“You bought a boat? How?” The second I ask the question I realise how silly it sounds. “Oh, of course. You’re rich.”

He lets out a laugh. “Was rich.”

“Sure. Okay. So you bought this back when you were rich?” I smirk.

“If I’d have been loaded when I bought it, I would have bought one that didn’t need so much work.”

I contemplate this. “Fair point.”

“Actually, that’s probably not true.” He tilts his head to the side in thought, a hint of aversion in his tone as he continues. “My whole life I’ve had people there to do everything for me. Clean my house, cook my food, dry-clean my clothes. I mean, I’ve grown up with a mother who pays people to organise her closet and a father that has someone drive him to his meetings. It’s kind of sickening when I really think about it.”

I quirk an eyebrow, absorbing his words. It’s moments like this that make me realise how vastly different our lives have been. “Does this little diatribe of yours have a point?”

He aims a smile my way, then he turns and runs his hand along the edges of the boat. “I know. I know. I sound like an ungrateful asshole. It’s just that, in all honesty, I grew tired of paying people to do things I’m capable of doing on my own. That’s why I chose this boat. I wanted to take something that needed some love and make it my own. Rebuild it from the ground up. Does that make sense?

“Yeah. It does.”

“When I first told my father that working for the company wasn’t working out for me, I had my suspicions that he might try something extreme,” he explains. “And I was right. I was supposed to receive my trust fund when I turned twenty-one, but he pulled some strings and had the funds withheld until I turn thirty.”

“He can do that?”

“Sure. It pays to have friends in high places, I guess.” He huffs out a sour laugh. “I knew from that moment that this was the way he was going to control me. With money. And that was the same moment I decided I didn’t care. I just wanted to do something worthwhile. Something that made me happy. So, I worked for him for a bit longer. Then I took what I had left in my account, paid upfront for a couple of years to lease this warehouse and I bought this boat.”

“You did all of this before you even moved to Cliff Haven?”

He nods. “This is it. This is my dream.”

“To have your own boat?”

“To have my own charter boat,” he corrects. “I want to start my own company. To specialise in taking people out to see endangered species and educating them on conservation.”

“Endangered species, huh?” I say, quirking an eyebrow. “Like the one you tried to show me?”

His chuckle reverberates off the warehouse walls. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Probably not.” I fight to keep a grin contained.

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