I take a deep breath of the night air and look around. “Over here,” Peter calls to me from next to a small single-story outbuilding used for storage.
I cross the grass and grab him above the elbow. “Wait,” I tell Blue before pulling Peter around the side of the building, into the shadows, away from the view of the dining hall. I don’t know why I don’t want us seen, why I want Blue to warn me if anyone approaches. Maybe it’s because I don’t want it to be real that Peter is here. Or because shame is mixing with adrenaline, scaring me into believing I need to hide.
It’s dark back here, the air thick with humidity and loud with the sounds of the jungle—insects in the trees and foliage are laying down a soundtrack that rises and falls like an orchestra of millions.
I drop my grip on Peter’s arm and turn to him. “Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning that you were not in touch with Maxim, why didn’t you just say that? Why play along with Robert’s game on the phone? Why do any of that?” I want to push Peter. I want to put my hands on his chest and shove him—shove him into the past and change everything there ever was between us.
“I didn’t want Robert aware of the nature of our relationship. And you were in no place to hear me.”
“Oh Mr. I’m so Emotionally Intelligent—”
He cuts me off. “I am emotionally intelligent, Sydney, it’s how I’m so good at slipping into roles, convincing people I am who I say I am.”
I take a step back, shaking my head. My instincts are flipping. I can’t go back, but I can get away.
He follows, some new look coming over his face, some new expression I’ve never seen before. His eyes are bright—not anchors but storms. “I understand that I betrayed you. That what I did is unforgivable, and I also know that if you could forgive me, you could actually be happy.”
“You think you know me so well.” I shake my head, my top lip pulling up into a snarl.
My back hits the wall of the storage building and Peter keeps coming. I put my hands up, and his chest pushes into them but I don’t shove him away. His heart thumps under my palm.
This is a dangerous position. For him. But I don’t bring my knee up, I don’t stop him by obliterating his manhood.
He moves even closer, my hands pressed between us. His arms come up, palms slapping the wall on either side of my head. Peter’s anger is showing. He hates to be out of control…
“Everything I’ve done was for James. For you. For us.” His eyes are so bright, so close.
“The funny thing about an us is usually two people are making decisions together. You lied to me. Whatever reasons you had: I. Don’t. Care.” I shove him, and he steps back but not nearly enough. Not through time, not into the past, not far enough back to rewrite our lives into anything new. Not even far enough away for me to get a good breath, to suck fresh air into my starving lungs.
Peter comes back, one hand gripping my waist, pulling me into him, forcing our bodies together. His arms tighten, pulling me closer—refusing to let me create the distance I crave. The scent of him overwhelms me, yanks me back, dragging me through the jagged truth of our past, and his heart beats loud in the silence of our embrace.
I don’t pull away. Hope flutters in my chest, the perfume of our history, of James’s first year, of everything Peter gave me—security, support, and a trust I’d never known—all desperate to believe him. To forgive him. Let him back in. Pick up the past and repeat it again. Hope that this time we can do it differently. This time...
“Sydney.” His voice in my hair, his breath on my skin. “I love you. You know that.”
I swallow words bubbling in my throat. They don’t make sense. They can’t be true. The words escape. “I do.” His body relaxes, as if laying down a great weight. “But it changes nothing.”
“It changes everything,” Peter promises.
“What’s your name? What did your mother name you?”
“Simon.”
I cough a laugh that hiccups into a sob. “No she didn’t.”
“Yes.” His voice holds humor. “It was her father’s name. He was a professional nerd.”
I laugh harder this time. Peter…Simon’s lips brush my hair. “You can call me Si.”
Shaking my head, I pull away. I press my lips together and shake my head again. “I might believe you love me. But that doesn’t mean I’ll trust you.”
His face doesn’t fall, it sets into lines of determination. “Then what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to lock you up.”
His brows raise and his lips twist in amusement. “Lock me up?”
“I can’t trust you running around here,” I say.
“Even after I gave you back the fob with Dan’s zero days, freed Mulberry, provided you with everything you needed to escape…”
“I don’t know that you didn’t make a copy of the zero days. I don’t know what you’re up to.”
“Why would I come here if I made a copy of the zero days? I could easily evade you, Sydney. I’m here to win you back. To prove that you can trust me.”
I cough a laugh. “Never going to happen.”
“Never say never.” He holds his wrist out to me as if to cuff them. Of course, I don’t have handcuffs on me. I’m not even sure we have a place we can lock him up. “I’ll always love you,” he says quietly. “And I won’t give up.”
I meet his gaze. I have no response. It’s not that it doesn’t matter, it’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I won’t ever trust him. Every man I’ve loved has betrayed me in some way. Mulberry has lied. Robert has…what hasn’t he done? But no one hurt me like this man I now need to call Simon. Because I never believed them the way I believed him.
I believed in us. Emotion chokes me and I take a step back. “Just follow me,” I say. I don’t want to touch him. Shame floods my body as I turn away. His footsteps follow.
We round the storage shed, and I glance into the dining area to where James is happily eating pasta, Anita sitting next to him. Frank by his side, a loopy grin on his face.
“He’s bigger,” Peter, I mean Simon, I mean that asshole says, his gaze following mine.
I don’t want James to see his Baba, but I’m not sure what to do with him. “Wait here,” I say.
“Can’t I say hi to him?” The asshole asks.
“No, I don’t want him to see you.” I don’t turn to look at Simon, but my imagination paints the disappointment on his face…then it throws up memories of James and Simon together, laughing, playing…being father and son. No. I start toward the dining hall, leaving Simon out in the dark with Blue watching over him.