Page 65 of Last Summer

She ends the call with Rebecca and calls Damien. He answers after the second ring.

“Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.” Gravelly and urgent, Damien’s voice rumbles over the phone. She knows he won’t be happy with what she has to tell him, but it’s such a relief to finally hear his voice.

“Still in Truckee with Nathan Donovan. The coverage is really bad up here. I only just got Wi-Fi again a few minutes ago.”

“I’ve been worried.” Ella feels the impact of his words. It pulls at her. His frustration that she’s far from him and unreachable.

She could say the same about him. She hasn’t heard from him since his cryptic text message yesterday morning.Everything’s going to shit.

“How’s the internal investigation coming along?”

He sighs, and she pictures him standing by the large front window in the bedroom of their darkened London flat, staring out into the night sky. Scrubbing a hand over his mop of hair, the city lights reflecting in his eyes, his sleep pants riding low on his hips, the perfect V of his lower abs disappearing beneath the waistband. They can see Buckingham Palace from their Kings Gate apartment. To the east, the Thames glitters under the lights of the London Eye.

“Legal department’s casting a wider net and we’ve brought in our IT security team,” he explains. “This is bigger than we thought, El. It doesn’t stop at the client list or with one employee.”

“Do you still suspect your dad’s behind this?”

He takes a beat. “My gut tells me yes but the employees involved that we’ve identified aren’t talking yet. We’re keeping this on the down-low until we’ve collected as much evidence as we can. I can’t get into specifics, you know that. My attorneys will shit if they find out I’ve told you anything. But I trust you’ll keep this between us. The last thing we need is for the media to catch wind of it. When’s your flight? I miss you, and...we need to talk.”

“Of course, you want to talk now,” she snaps, the words escaping before she can lock them down. “So here’s a question for you: Did I sleep with Nathan?” She swears he knew she had an affair with Nathan and he didn’t tell her. He didn’t stop her. Yeah, he tried, but looking back, his efforts were weak. Doesn’t he care about her? What about their marriage? Anger pours through her.

“I’ll answer that but not over the phone.”

Ella lets the arm holding her phone fall into her lap.Are you freaking kidding me?

She puts the phone back to her ear. “Do you know how pissed off I am?” she asks. “Why now? Why didn’t you tell me last November or every other time I’ve asked what happened?”

Say it, Damien,she silently wills. She wants him to admit it out loud.Say, “You fucked Nathan.”

“Not. Over. The. Phone,” he clips, irritated. “I’m not getting into this with you when you’re with him and eight time zones away from me.”

“If you can’t give me a straight answer, I mean...fuck.”

What kind of marriage do they have if they can’t talk?

Reality check. The kind where she cheated on him. Self-loathing is a rusty weight in her stomach, making her queasy.

“You won’t like what I have to tell you. I don’t know how you’ll take it and I want to be there with you when you hear me out. I can’t risk—” He takes a few beats before he speaks again, and when he does, he sounds so forlorn that Ella wonders—not for the first time—exactlywhathappened between them before the accident.

“We weren’t supposed to find ourselves back here.”

Back where? Pissed off and uncommunicative?

If he’d been straight with her from the beginning, they wouldn’t have found themselves in this predicament in the first place. Him in London, finally willing to talk, and her on a mountain half a world away. With her ex-lover, apparently.

“I blame you, Damien. Whatever happens with Nathan, I blame you. You got us into this mess.”

Had she known she had an affair with Nathan before Rebecca called about the assignment, she would have declined it on the spot. Fuck her job. Not when it interferes with her marriage. But it’s too late. She’s committed. Her boss’s job is on the line. Her job is on the line. The Jordan Talbots of the world are pining for her assignments. Nathanisthe one with the key to unlock her mind. She’s sure of it. Only he can tell her exactly what they did together. Only he can show her what they meant to one another and why. Only then will she be able to figure out why she’s forgotten him.

“Ella.” Damien says her name in warning.

“Nathan leaves for Alaska tomorrow, and if I can convince him, I’m going with. I need another day or so to wrap up this assignment.”

“You what?” he bellows.

“My deadline’s Thursday. I’ll catch a flight to Heathrow when I put the article to bed.”

“Goddamn it, Ella.”

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