Page 53 of Lair

One time, I try. I try to get the words out. “Why do you have to—”

“What?” He looks at me, blue eyes piercing.

But I can’t. The sudden, diminishing attention brings on a familiar sweat of anxiety.

“Never mind.”

I go to the rail on the main deck as I mull this over, the midday sun beating on my face. Was it fair for him to have said that? To say things like that. But then I think of where this is coming from. The roses. The piano playing. The stuffy, exacting standards of presentation. It was all him honoring her, wasn’t it? His wife. Honoring their old life together. Was that so wrong?

Or am I making excuses again? Should I be putting up with this when I’m the one in his life now?

As Cailee would say, Dafuq is this nonsense?

I have to remind myself, though: It’s not personal. This is Adrian here; it’s nothing new. He treats everyone this way, doesn’t he? What pampered and psychologically damaged billionaire wouldn’t?

The voice at my shoulder agrees. “I know how you feel.”

It’s the captain. Captain Redfearn has joined me, thumbs hooked into his belt as he squints out at the sparkling water. I’d almost forgotten he’s on the boat.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “You get used to it. Sort of.”

“Sort of.” We sneak a glance at each other, cracking sly grins. Uh-huh.

After a while, he sobers. His voice distant with thought. “We don’t choose how we deal with our grief. But we can choose how we let it go.”

The statement is like a wire zinging through my whole body. I glance at him. I hadn’t seen this. I hadn’t seen this side of Arnold Redfearn. I had conveniently tucked him away in my mind as a man who lived in fear of his boss, not as a man who had chosen to stay on as captain of the Lair out of his own free will, and who had his own reasons for doing so.

He peers at me, years of mysterious experience wrinkled into the skin about his gray eyes. “I hope you help him find a way, Miss Strand.”

And he wanders off, back to the bridge deck and his duties.

I hope you help him find a way.

I have that to think of as I walk the boat’s main deck, admiring its sparkling perfection and knowing Jason must have been up hours ago to have it washed down in time before the guests (which would now include me) got up. What had the first mate glimpsed, over the years, in those dark hours before the sun’s rising? What nocturnal happenings had led him to suspect Adrian’s nature?

A sudden moment of déjà vu as I stop to stare. The panels. The panels of the pool roof are open. But this time, during the day.

I step to the edge and peer down.

Floating in the pool—luxuriously floating and basking in the sun that never invades that space—is Jason.

He’s only in swimming trunks, golden and glistening, his abs like smooth stones under his radiant skin. My God, he is cut.

A sickening disgust wells up in me, which is quickly replaced by the anger blaring in my skull like alarm bells.

“Hey!”

Jason opens his eyes, almost lazily.

“You can’t be in there! That’s Adrian’s spot—”

“Not during the day, it is,” he drawls and shuts his eyes, tipping his head back again.

Steam comes out of my ears. Does he know? Is he making a joke?

I don’t really care.

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