Talk about a reality check. For a few minutes there when we’d been talking, I’d almost thought . . . I’d been foolish enough to hope . . . goddammit. I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. Cora Matthews was my weakness. My addiction. Everything I wanted and everything I had to let go of.
I’d known that for years, but I hadn’t accepted it until today. When I saw how broken she’d ended up as a result of what I’d done. When I realized how broken I was because of watching her fall in love with my brother.
I had to let her go. It wasn’t a choice anymore, it was a requirement. Before we fucked up each other’s lives any more than we already had.
Another call from Jacob popped up on my screen. If he wasn’t already en route, he was about to be. It would be better to take his call now than wait until we were within arm’s reach of each other and took out our emotions on each other’s faces via our fists.
Cora had left a few minutes ago, having nothing else to say. She didn’t want me—she wanted him. What else was there?
I didn’t say anything when I finally answered his call.
I heard my brother suck in a breath. “Did you fuck her?”
My hand curled around the phone. He’d missed the wedding. He’d missed the whole entire day because he’d been screwing some girl he’d met in a bar. And me having sex with Cora was the first thing on his mind?
“You fucked her over enough all on your own.” I didn’t recognize my voice.
From the moment of silence on the other end, I guessed my brother didn’t either. “You know what I mean, Matt.”
Yeah, I did. And I wasn’t going to tell him. Not until Cora made up her mind. If she wanted to tell him what had happened between us last night, I’d support that. If she didn’t, I’d support that too. This wasn’t about what I wanted to tell Jacob or what he wanted to know; this was about what Cora needed.
“Where were you?” I asked, rising from the crouched position I’d been in ever since she left. I couldn’t kneel while having this conversation with my brother.
“None of your damn business where I was,” he fired back. “Who the hell are you to think you could just slide into my spot when I wasn’t looking?”
“It wasn’t that you weren’t looking. You were fucking some tramp when you should have been exchanging vows with your fiancée.”
There was only the briefest beat of silence. “You don’t know what I was doing. You don’t know what happened.”
“Yes, I do. Because you’re you, and I’m me.” My jaw locked when I pictured Jacob with someone else on Cora’s and his wedding day. “Don’t try to lie to me. I’m not like her, happy to overlook your faults.”
“No, you’re just happy to make your play for my girl when you saw the chance. You’ve been trying for years. You must have shit yourself when you saw your chance had finally arrived.” From the sound of his voice, Jacob was drunk.
Trying to have a logical conversation with an illogical Jacob was a doomed endeavor.
“Do me a favor and call me back when you’re sober. We can talk then.” My thumb was hovering above the end button when Jacob laughed.
“I’ll do you one better by showing up and talking to your face in a few hours. How about that?” Jacob let me process that for a few moments. “My plane’s landing in St. Thomas at 3:25, so I’ll see you soon. We can ‘talk’ this whole thing out. Oh, do me a favor and let Cora know, would you? For some reason, she doesn’t seem to be answering her phone.” The tone in Jacob’s voice suggested exactly why she might not have been eager to answer his call.
I started heading back toward the cabin, needing to find Cora. If Jacob was going to be here in mere hours, I needed to find out what her plan was. I needed her to tell me what she wanted to admit to Jacob, if anything. As it was, he already knew I’d posed as him for the wedding and reception, and he suspected that I’d kept with the theme into the wedding night.
“Good, I think we could all benefit from a ‘talk.’ Cora has a few questions as to where her fiancé was yesterday when he was supposed to be at his wedding.” I gave him a moment to process that. “I have my suspicions, and so does she, but it will be nice to have it all cleared up once you get here.”
“Matt—”
“Oh, and those Ass Clowns you call friends might have let a few things slip about your whereabouts when we were chatting at the reception when, you know, they thought I was you.” I jogged down the beach, my emotions fueling my body.
“Matt—”
“Save it for later. When you have to look me in the eye and try to lie to me. When you have to look her in the eye and try to lie to her.” It probably wouldn’t make much of a difference to Jacob, because he’d been lying to Cora’s face for years now. From small white lies to the grand-scale version such as where he was on their wedding day.
He might have been about to say something else, but I hung up. That phone conversation wasn’t going anywhere—he had a reason to be pissed with me, and I had a reason to be pissed at him. No matter what we worked out on the phone, we’d have to work it out all over again when we came face-to-face. That was Jacob’s and my way.
As soon as the cabin came into view, I knew she wasn’t there. Whether it was that sixth sense or intuition, I knew I wouldn’t find Cora inside. It didn’t stop me from loping inside and checking though.
Housekeeping was there, trying to untangle the cyclone of sheets and blankets from last night. I didn’t miss that Cora’s purse and bags were missing. Even her clothes that had wound up scattered on the floor last night had been picked up and removed. It was like she’d vanished. Like she’d never even been here. With housekeeping making the bed and righting lamps that had tumbled over and cleaning bathroom mirrors that had been streaked with handprints, it was as though I’d made up all of last night.
God knew I’d pictured plenty of last nights in my head.
“The young woman? Did you see her?” I asked the two ladies cleaning the cabin.
They both avoided making eye contact, like they were afraid to answer me.
Finally, the one still wrestling with the sheets nodded. “She was here to get her bags.”
I was pacing in circles, feeling like the whole world was going mad with myself leading the charge. “Did she mention where she was going?” I guessed the airport, either to meet Jacob when he arrived later or to catch her own plane out of here.
The woman focused extra intently on smoothing the sheet over the pillows.
“Please?” I added, not above getting on my knees and begging the woman if she had any idea where Cora had run off to. “I need to find her.”
When she took a look at my face, she sighed. I must have looked really desperate. Good to know my expression matched the way I felt.
“The main hotel, sir,” the woman answered. “She said she was checking into a room in the hotel.”