Page 109 of Power Play

She laughed, tears pouring down her face. “I know you think that,” she whispered. “And that’s the worst part.”

She left the patio, walking towards the beach, maybe giving us privacy or taking it for herself, but the sinking sensation in my chest, the one I tried really hard to never feel but was somehow always aware of, was worse than ever.

26

Kit

The conversation I had with Janice in the lobby of the urgent care went like this:

“I swear I never meant to keep this a secret. I’d only wanted some time, but it just got bigger and bigger until I didn’t know what to do.”

This, incidentally, was similar to what my father said to me the night I found out about his gambling.

“Tess is his, isn’t she?” I’d asked, and then in the heartbeat of silence after my question, I knew the truth but didn’t want confirmation. Of course she was. But it wasn’t my business to know that first. None of this was my business. Loving Tess and sleeping with Liam didn’t make me a part of the family. “Never mind. You need to tell him yourself.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m…I’m so sorry.”

It felt like there was a whole lot of sorry to go around.

This was supposed to be a vacation fling. I knew that. I’d proposed it.

Then I went and fell for the fucking playboy. The charming flirt who kept everything casual so he would never have to feel another person’s pain.

I was such an idiot.

I walked down the beach, out of the cove, into the big wide public beach across from the Calico Cove town square. The smart thing to do was to turn around, pack up my stuff, say a terrible and tearful goodbye to Tess and get the hell out of this nightmare.

But I wasn’t feeling smart.

I was feeling self-pity and anger and heartbreak.

Only one thing for it. And it wasn’t a double scoop of mint chip from the ice cream parlor.

It was a double scoop of tequila. I walked towards town and went into the first bar I found that was open before noon on a Saturday.

The One-Eyed Gull. It looked like a proper dive bar and I loved everything about it.

Perfect.

There weren’t many people inside, probably because it was before noon. I took an empty seat at the bar, ignoring two men who were deep in conversation at the other end. No one was behind the bar so I looked around for wait staff serving people at the tables behind me, but there weren’t many of those either.

In the back there was an argument and a tall dark-haired woman with wide shoulders and thin hips stepped out from the kitchen behind the bar. “No, brother dear, the answer is, you do it. It was your idea. You do it.”

She turned, saw me and smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “What can I get you?”

“A margarita?” I said. “A big one. A double?”

“That kind of day already?” The woman asked with a sly wink.

“You have no idea.”

“Oh,” she said, pouring all the ingredients into a shaker with ice and giving it all a good shake. “I do. My brother, the genius, wanted to teach all four of our kids how to make breakfast this morning.”

“Didn’t go well?”

“There is pancake mix on the ceiling,” she said. She salted the rim of a bar glass, poured in the margarita and handed it over. “What did-”

From the kitchen came four kids looking to be between the ages of ten and fourteen. Behind them was a handsome dark-haired man wearing a t-shirt with a Serbian flag. And behind him was Dillon Le Coeur.