Page 21 of The Engagement Party

“Listen to me.” She sounded stern and half pissed off, but fully back in control. “Do not go looking for trouble. This, whatever the hell is happening here, isn’t about us.”

She could not wish or order this away. No matter how angry she got they had to talk this out. “The players in this twisted game—”

“No.” She put her hand up as she always did to let him know his job was to back down. “The body, the notes. They’re about Mitch and his horrible mother. We don’t have anything to do with any of that. We did what we had to do back then and now... we’re fine.”

The bobble in her voice as she talked meant trouble. He waded through her words and all that feigned self-confidence to her panic. It pulsed off her, blanketing the room with claustrophobic levels of tension.

“Okay.” He stepped carefully because he hadn’t seen this combination of conflicting emotions battle inside her in years. College graduation weekend and then years later when she started bleeding while pregnant with Zara. And now.

“Good.” She exhaled. “Conversation closed.”

But it wasn’t that simple. The darkness always lingered, just out of reach, waiting for one wrong word, one exhausted moment when the wall between them bent to the point of breaking.

“I knew we shouldn’t have come this weekend.” He forced theI told you sobitterness from his voice because they couldn’t afford to turn on each other.

She ignored the comment. “The only way to get through this is to stay focused on Mitch’s family.”

Family. Not Cassie’s favorite topic. She viewed her upbringing as a burden. Instead of celebrating how far she’d come and understanding the limits and pain her mother tried to fight through, Cassie ruthlessly hid her past and maneuvered around any question about it. She didn’t want praise or admiration. She despised stories about people outdoing expectations. Any talk of childhood smacked of oversharing, and she shut it down.

He knew pieces of her history, all carefully curated and shared under duress. After waking up screaming one night, she told him about being left alone as a little girl to watch over her baby sister and fighting off a shitty landlord. She’d shared tales of stealing other kids’ lunches because her mom forgot to buy food, or pay the bills, or do any of the grown-up things required of her. Cassie hated all of it and used her scholarship to Bowdoin to escape it and never look back.

The lack of everything. The instability and fear. The sister who, even as a teen, bounced from man to man, picking theworst and having babies but no resources to care for them. Cassie was very judgmental on this point, holding poverty and a lack of ambition in equal low esteem, refusing to hear any argument about them being very different things. She planned every aspect of her life to avoid what she referred to without any empathy as her childhood “pitfalls,” a term stretched to cover and dismiss even her mother’s mental health issues.

Like so many people, he’d gone to college focused only on those four years and maybe having fun, and drinking too much beer, and playing soccer. He met Cassie and got swept up inherdrive andherfocus and, eventually, sucked into her big plans not to be like her mother, going from boyfriend to presumed husband in a blink.

But they both needed to stay in the present. “Mitch’s mother wouldn’t have waited this long to seek revenge. I mean, how would she know Mitch is even on this island?”

Something sparked inside Cassie. A renewed energy that had her standing straighter and wearing that smug expression that warned of impending destruction. “I think one person knows all the answers to your questions.”

Uh, okay.“Who?”

“The person who arranged all of this.” Cassie smiled. “Ruthie.”

Chapter Sixteen

Sierra

Sierra stomped up one flight of stairs then started on the next one. She’d hoped the pounding would drown out the fear that held her in a stranglehold. It battled with the gnawing sense of betrayal that Mitch had kept one more part of his life from her.

Savior complex.That’s what her very practical mom had called the intrinsic need to shelter the underdog and rescue people who never asked for help. A need Mom warned could lead to heartbreak and disappointment. She hadn’t been wrong.

Sierra tried to hum. To tune it all out, but her mind clogged with unspent shouts of anger and a bone-shaking anxiety that came with being hunted and not understanding why.

That damn invitation.

“I know you’re furious.” Mitch made the comment from one step below her. He’d followed, wisely not saying a word until right then.

At least he recognized emotions in others. She guessed that was some sort of progress. “I want to get out of here and never see your friends again.”

“That won’t resolve the problem of Tyler and the car.”

“Problem? That word is too tame.” Even for him and all the pain he’d suffered, that was too flippant. She missed a step and almost splatted on the hardwood. Mitch’s hand on her ass balanced her. Any other time, she would have savored the sensation. “He’s dead, Mitch. He’s not out somewhere, driving around. He wasn’t in an accident, no matter what nonsense Alex told the police.”

“I’m aware.”

His touch mixed with the chaos threatening to overtake them and she quickened her step, skipping two stairs at a time. “But you’re not upset.”

“Stunned. Sort of empty, like my mind won’t go there. But don’t ask me to mourn for Tyler. The way he died and maybe the reason for it, if I knew what that was, might suck. But I can’t grieve. Not after what he did to my dad.”

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