James makes a rough noise of despair in the back of his throat. Words gush into his mouth. He wants to explain why he followed Phil to Mexico. How Donato Enterprises would go under if Phil continued to pour drug money into the company’s accounts. The Feds would confiscate their assets. James would lose everything, including his own dreams. With his investments depleted, he wouldn’t be able to open his gallery, and he wouldn’t be able to support the life he believed his future wife deserved—not on an artist’s salary. Phil didn’t have to assault Aimee to get to him. The trade laundering would have been enough to destroy him. It almost ruined Thomas.
But those aren’t the words that tumble from him. He kisses Aimee’s forehead, her temple and cheekbone. “I’m so sorry I left you. I never should have left you,” he says, and Aimee sobs harder. “I’m sorry for so many things. I should have told you about Phil. I should have been there for you, helped you heal—”
Aimee cries out, and before James can comprehend she’s gone, she’s back in her seat and buckling her seatbelt, leaving behind a cold and empty space where her body had been pressed against his. James feels just as frigid and hollow inside.
Tears cling to her chin. He wipes one off with his finger and she flinches. She grips the steering wheel with both hands and starts the ignition.
“Aimee?” He hesitates over her name. He feels her pulling away from him and she’s taking his heart with her.
“I love you, James,” she sobs without looking at him. “I will always love you.” She lifts her Caribbean blues and locks onto his brown eyes. “But I love Ian. I love him so much. We have a beautiful daughter. We named her Sarah, after Ian’s mom. We’re a family, a very happy family.”
His heart lands on the floorboard. She’s killing him. He knows deep down inside they will never be together again, but hearing her say the words knocks the wind out of him.
He can’t breathe. He has to get out of the car.
James snaps the latch and shoves open the door. He unfolds from the car before he does something stupid, like yank her back to his lap or switch seats and steal her away into the night. He quietly shuts the door and stares down the street, unsure what to say next, or what to do.
Where to go.
He doesn’t want to return inside. The house doesn’t feel like his. It will never feel like home, not like the house he once owned with Aimee.
The passenger window slides down. “James?”
He forces himself to look at her one last time, because this may truly be the last time. He’s come to realize he can’t live near her and not have her.
She leans toward the passenger seat to look up at him. “I forgive you.”
His soul withers. He nods tightly.
She releases the brake, shifts into gear, and drives away. James dips his hands into his front pockets and watches her until the taillights flash and she’s disappeared around the corner. Disappeared from his life. His fingers curl around the engagement ring he’s kept with him since December. The ring she’ll never wear again.
He wants to curse the world.
He wants to beat the crap out of Thomas.
His phone vibrates with an incoming text. Thomas has been buzzing all evening. What the hell does he want? He digs out his phone. Four text notifications light up the screen.
Phil’s release date is confirmed for next Tuesday.
Talking on the phone with him now. He wants to move back into Mom’s house.
Damn, James, I swear I didn’t tell him, but he knows you’re alive. How the hell does he know?
He wants to see you. He wants to talk about what happened on the boat in Mexico. What did happen?
CHAPTER 10
CARLOS
Five Years Ago
June 25
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
Se?ora Carla showed up at El estudio del pintor this afternoon. She’d seen Julian at the beach with his friends and he told her where to find my gallery. She said she wanted to see my work, but I think she was lonely.
“Your work is so different,” Carla said with fascination. She wore white cropped pants and a pink blouse, tailored and expensive-looking. Several bracelets dropped from her sleeves, landing on her wrist bone when she lowered her arm. Diamonds glittered as she moved.
“Different from what?” I asked, rolling my sleeves as I approached her.
She lifted an angular shoulder. “From what I expected. They’re bright and dynamic.”
I glanced at the painting she admired, a surfer riding a colossal wave. I’d taken an impressionistic approach, using palette knives. The canvas was a study in blue, the surfer a weightless body as though he were flying down the wave’s glassy surface. Which was the feeling surfers described when they caught the ultimate wave, and what I set out to achieve in my painting. That feeling of floating on air.
She moved to the next painting, another rider skimming the crest of a smaller wave ahead of the fold, his body a silhouette against the setting sun. “The unity of your scenes and hues . . . the approach you take . . . your perspective . . . the overall tone . . . they convey . . .” She tapped a curved finger against her chin and looked askance at me. “I’m trying to find the right words.”
I rested my hands on my hips. “Try this. How do the paintings make you feel?”
“Make me feel?” Lips, tinted the color of the pink lemonade Julian loved to drink, parted. She swiveled her neck back to the painting. She was quiet for a moment. “It makes me wish I’d joined my sons when they surfed.”
I glanced down at the glazed concrete floor, hiding my smile at the image of Carla on a surfboard. I cleared my throat behind a fist, my brows rising. “You want to surf?”
She looked appalled. “Goodness, no.” Her shoulders rose and fell on a resigned breath. She plucked a promotional postcard from the holder beside the painting. “I had no interest watching them. It’s not as though they’d do anything productive with it.”
Like compete at master-level tournaments. I bit into my lower lip, trying not to pick apart Carla in the way she analyzed my paintings. Every interest and activity of Julian’s fascinated me, and it would be the same with Marcus as he grew older.
She flipped the card over, read the painting’s description, then tucked it back into its slot. “You have a bold and fresh style. Your brushwork is very skilled.”
“You sound like an art critic.” And critical of her sons, which might explain why she vacationed alone. She said she’d once had three sons. She hadn’t said they’d died.
She smoothed a hand over cool silver hair and patted the flyaway pieces into place. Tied at the nape, her hair fell in a straight line parallel to her rigid spine. Carla’s posture and refined features spoke volumes. As cliché as it sounded, she came from money.
“I’m not a critic. I try not to be.”
My eyes narrowed slightly as a thought occurred to me. Assuming she did come from money, her youth would have been filled with dance recitals and music lessons. Art lessons. I looked at her fine-boned hands. “You’re an artist.”
She laughed as though my statement were ludicrous. She slowly shook her head. “Not for a long time. Not since before—” She stalled and walked away.
“I bet you used to paint.”
“In another life.” Her hand fluttered over a driftwood carving of a fishing boat. She lifted her face to look over at me. “I haven’t painted since I was younger than you.”
“Why did you stop?”
She shrugged a delicate shoulder.
An idea formed and I grinned broadly. I clapped my hands, the noise a loud echo in the gallery. She startled. I thrust a finger in her direction. “You have to paint again. Right now.”