chapter 23

Brighton stood in the foyer, arms crossed tightly over her chest, and waited for what felt like an eternity.

When Jake entered, he looked grim and detached. “Let’s talk.”

She looked out at the blurred blue line where the ocean and the sky came together. “Let’s.”

“But first, let’s have a drink.” He led the way to the living room and pulled two highball glasses out of the cabinet by the wet bar. “Scotch?”

“You know my feelings about scotch.” Brighton sat down on the couch, then stood up again. “Am I going to need it for the conversation we’re about to have?”

“You should probably have a double.” He poured amber liquid into her glass. She took care not to brush her fingers against his when she accepted the glass.

“Is she gone?” Brighton asked. She couldn’t bring herself to say Genevieve’s name aloud.

He took a sip of his scotch. “For now.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’ll be back.” Jake tilted his chin toward her glass. “Drink.”

She did, expecting to retch at the taste of the smoky liquid. But the dark burning gave way to a hint of sweetness as she swallowed. “Was she telling the truth when she said she used to be your wife?”

He sat down on the sleek black sofa that offered a floor-to-ceiling view of the sea. Whitecaps were rolling in, crashing on the sand, but the insulation in this house was excellent; Brighton couldn’t hear anything from outside. All she could hear was her own breathing and the clink of the ice cubes against glass.

“Depends on your definition of ‘wife,’” he said.

Brighton put her drink down on the gleaming wood side table with no coaster. “This is not a difficult question. Did you get married or not?”

“We signed a marriage license. Fourth of July weekend. I was twenty-one; she was nineteen.”

“But you told me you’d never been married before.” She racked her brain, trying to remember the details of that flight to Vegas. “Didn’t you?”

“The marriage was annulled by Halloween. From a legal standpoint, it never happened.”

She picked up her drink again. “It doesn’t matter what the legalities are,” she said softly. “That was a real marriage, wasn’t it? You were in love.”

“I was twenty-one.” His expression hardened. “I was an idiot.”

Not a denial. “Where did you meet her?”

“How is that relevant?”

“Jake.”

He gazed out at the horizon. “We met at the beach. The private beach by one of her family’s hotels. I was working there for the summer.”

Brighton looked at him. He looked back at her.

“And?” she finally prompted.

“And there was a marriage, an annulment, and a whole bunch of adolescent drama. The end.”

She forced down another sip of scotch. “You skipped a few details. What does she mean to you? Why is she showing up at your door introducing herself as ‘Jake’s Genevieve’?”

He gave a harsh laugh. “She was married to me, but she was never mine.”

“You still love her,” Brighton breathed.

“No.”

“Then tell me what happened.”

“Here’s the short version: When we met, I was poor; she was not. Her last name is Van Petten.” He looked at her expectantly.

“Genevieve Van Petten,” Brighton marveled. “Sounds like a character from Melrose Place. Not that I have any room to talk, but still.”

“Her family is like the Kennedys of Delaware.”

“Why did you decide to get married?”

“Why do twenty-one-year-olds do anything?” he countered. “She did it to piss off her parents. Mission accomplished.”

“Why didn’t her parents want her marrying you?”

“I was dirt poor, Brighton. I didn’t have any of this.” He gestured to the house, the ocean, the art and antiques. Then he gestured to his face and his body. “All I had was this. I was a novelty for her. She had a huge fight with her parents one day and we ran down to the courthouse to get married.”

Genevieve married him for spite, Brighton realized. Just like I did.

“When she moved into my apartment, she said it was like camping.”

Brighton blinked. “Camping?”

“I was renting a room right by the highway with no kitchen and iffy plumbing. After a few weeks, she got tired of eating cold SpaghettiOs for every meal and her parents threatened to cut off her trust fund if she didn’t go back to college.” He looked pointedly at Brighton. “She had to get back to her real life.”

Before Brighton could reply, he continued. “She moved out and petitioned for an annulment.”

“On what grounds?” Her actuary brain kicked in. “Isn’t it pretty difficult to be granted an annulment?”

“Not if you’re the Kennedys of Delaware. Her father made one phone call to a judge and it was like the whole thing never happened.”

“And now you still have that.” She indicated his body and face. “Plus you have this.” She indicated the luxury goods. “I bet she’s kicking herself for letting you go.”

He shook his head and swirled the scotch in his glass. “No.”

Brighton raised her eyebrow and waited him out.

“I saw her again when I’d just made my first million. I thought I was hot shit. I thought I had everything she wanted.”

Brighton cringed. “I’m guessing this story doesn’t end well.”

He refused to reveal anything more. He refused to even look at her.

“She must be amazing,” Brighton went on. “To be worth that kind of devotion. To be worth making a million dollars for.”

His smile was sardonic. “I’m guessing you’ve never been a smoker.”

She glanced at him, surprised. “You guess correctly.”

“I used to smoke.”

“You did?” She sat down on the far edge of the sofa. “I can’t see it.”

“I started right after the annulment.” He scrubbed the side of his face with his palm. “Smoked for a year and a half.”

“But not anymore.” She’d kissed him enough to say this with certainty.

“One day I woke up, decided I was sick of my taste buds not working, and quit.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah. I had half a pack left, but I tossed it.” He draped one arm along the back of the sofa. “Never had another cigarette.”

“That’s amazing,” Brighton said. “The odds were very much against you. Did you know that only twenty percent of smokers who attempt to quit will be successful over the course of their lifetimes?”

He regarded her with a trace of a smile. “Do you memorize these stats just to impress me?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m impressed.” His eyes warmed, and just for a moment, she wished she hadn’t left work early and met Genevieve on the porch. She wished she didn’t have to find out how very flawed and damaged and human he was beneath the fantasy she’d projected onto him. “And I’m surprised that it’s twenty percent. That seems high.”

“Twenty percent lifetime success rate seems high to you?”

“Clearly, you’ve never tried to quit smoking. The withdrawal was hell. It’s been fifteen years and I still crave cigarettes sometimes.” He turned away from her again. “As hard as it was to quit smoking, it was easy compared to quitting Genevieve.”

She waited for him to follow this up with a quip or a qualifier, but he had gone still. He was sitting with her, but his mind was with a woman who’d left him long ago. He’d forgotten to keep his guard up, and she finally glimpsed what was underneath all that captivating charm and wit and physical beauty.

Regret. Doubt. Loneliness.

“Have you ever wanted somebody like that?” he asked her. Even his voice sounded distant. “Like a drug? Like you’d do anything for one last hit?”

She blinked. “Well, actually . . .”

He straightened up, his vulnerability vanishing. “Of course you haven’t. You’re too smart for that. You’d never fall in love with someone who’s the equivalent of an addictive carcinogen.”

Brighton didn’t trust herself to say anything.

“And now she’s back,” he concluded. “The timing is interesting. I hadn’t heard from her in years, then she made contact last week.”

Brighton froze. “Before or after you met me?”

His gaze shuttered. “What?”

“Before or after I met you at the Whinery?”

He put down his drink. “It was that day. A few hours before we met.”

“I knew it.” Brighton got to her feet. “I knew there had to be a reason. I knew a man like you would never marry a woman like me unless . . .”

“Stop.” He sounded tired and defensive.

“You used me.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “You heard she was back and you used me as a human shield to protect yourself.”

“You used me to get back at your boyfriend,” he pointed out.

“I was completely honest with you from the first moment we met! I told you who I was, what I was doing, and why. And you . . . did not.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said flatly.

“How can you say that?” she exclaimed.

“What would you have said if I had told you about Genevieve the night we met? Would you have called it off?”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” she had to concede. “On the night we met.”

“Then why does it make a difference now? You can use me as a human shield, but I can’t use you?”

She knew he was right. He’d done nothing to her that she hadn’t done to him. Both of them had gotten onto that plane to Vegas with selfish, misguided motives. Both of them had been completely focused on themselves. Both of them had been running away from mistakes that they knew would catch up with them eventually.

The only difference was, he had played the game better. He had followed the ground rules they established.

And she hadn’t.

“Brighton.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.” The words were so simple; his voice was so stark. He got to his feet and offered her his hand. “Tell me what you want.”

She had no idea—what to do, what to say.

“Anything.” A deeper note of regret crept into his voice. “You deserve better than this.”

And in that moment, she realized she might as well be in this big, fancy house alone, because he was gone. Whatever tenuous connection they’d shared had been severed.

He would do whatever she asked because he wanted her to feel a certain way, while he felt nothing at all. He would give her anything she wanted, but he would never want her the way she wanted him.

He would never want her the way he wanted Genevieve.

“I want a divorce,” she said softly.

He nodded. “Done.”