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BRIAN:You think you know about the hotel business? You think you can do better than me?

He’d heard. Of course he heard. I gripped my phone in my fist, so tight I was sure I would crush it.

I was at the second-to-last step when Cassandra said, “Wait!”

I froze, my foot hovering over the last stair.

Cassandra came down the steps behind me, circling around so she was below me, looking up. For the briefest moment, looking at her determined face, I wished none of this had happened, that I was just a fisherman in the river who’d saved her. That we’d kissed and stayed all day on that island and had completely different lives than we did.

“Okay,” she said.

It was there, still, that heat from before.

But I couldn’t let it control me. I pressed it down, shoving it as far as I could.

“Good. See you next week, Cassandra.” Then I walked past her, leaving her standing behind me, watching me go.

It should have felt good. It was a victory, what I’d pulled off there. So why did it feel so fucking hollow?

6

CASSANDRA

Dad’s lips moved,but no sound came out.

“Dad!” Chelsea shouted. “You’re muted.”

“Ow,” I said, moving away from her. She’d yelled right in my ear. “He can hearusjust fine!”

“Yeah, Chels, damn,” Jude said on-screen, making a show of taking out and reinserting his earphones.

It was Saturday evening, a full five days from when I’d made the deal with Blake Harrington.

And an hour before we were supposed to meet him and Lila for dinner.

Lila, his non-wife.

Blake, not a married man.

I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. If I was being honest with myself, I still felt like I shouldn’t believe him.

But somehow, I did. I saw the way he flinched when he mentioned his dad leaving his family. I recognized that flicker of pain. Even though it wasn’t him who’d been cheated on, he had been betrayed. I knew the look that had danced across his features.

What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I enough?

He could still be lying, but I didn’t think he was. Still, I’d trusted before and been burned. So mostly, I maintained a sense of caution. I’d wait until I saw the new contract; the private one between us that only my lawyer would see. Blake and I had emailed back and forth a few times on the terms, and he was bringing the final version to dinner tonight.

Nerves shot through me at the thought of seeing him again. I should have been getting ready, but instead, I was waiting for my dad to set up his technologically impaired butt on this call.

I’d just gotten out of the shower twenty minutes ago when my phone buzzed on the counter. It was Dad, texting me to say he needed the five of us to call him urgently. He’d sent a cryptic text the day before; a question I hadn’t thought much about relating to the east wing. I thought he was doing more research for this history book he’d been plugging away at in earnest since Mom died. But today’s text had alarmed me.

DAD:Get everyone together—urgent.

I’d hurried to pull on my sweats, then ran across the hall to bang on Chelsea’s door. Between the two of us, we managed to get ahold of all three of our brothers. Jude was home and able to join the call from the millionaire mansion he rented up on the other side of town. Eli was out at baseball practice, but on his way back. Griff told me straight up that he wasn’t going to join the call.

“It’ll be some bullshit, Cass, you know that.” Griffin didn’t have a lot of time for Dad’s flightiness. He was probably right—the chances of it being actually urgent were not high. Dad had absolutely gone off the rails when Mom died, and Griffin wasn’t quite over it.

“There’s a chance it isn’t,” I said.