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“I know,” I said, my voice stiff.

She was waving frantically but halted as she registered my words. “Wait, what?”

“Cass?” Eli shouted from shore. “And… Blake? The hell?”

Cassandra’s face went pale, her eyes widening. “Blake?”

“Blake Harrington,” I said, thrusting my hand out to hers. “Pleasure to finally meet you, Cassandra.”

3

CASSANDRA

Blake Harrington jumpedinto the Quince River to save me.

That fact should have been what I was focusing on. Instead, as I stood under a scalding hot shower back in my apartment an hour and a half later, all I could think wasthat bastard.

Blake Harrington knew who I was and didn’t say anything. Worse, I was pretty sure, like ninety percent sure, that if I hadn’t seen Eli at that choice moment, Blake Harrington would have kissed me.

Blake Harrington was a married man.

Red rage flooded my vision as I pulled on my skirt and blazer. I pictured Blake not as I’d met him on that island with his sopping hair and beard, but like he was on the front page of his website, leaning back-to-back against hiswife. What an asshole.

It would be hard to tell Lila exactly how her husband had behaved with me this morning; but it would be much better than letting that asshole get away with… with what exactly? We hadn’t done anything. He could have been looking in my eyes, seeing if I had signs of hypothermia.

But I knew that was bullshit. What had happened between us did not feel innocuous. No, it wasn’t cool, and given how I’d been on the other side only last year—granted, with a much bigger betrayal by Ned, but still—I wouldn’t stand for it.

Blake Harrington was getting fired.

Unfortunately, it would have to be after the meeting with him. I wished not for the first time that I’d scheduled the intro meeting for later in the afternoon so I could have at least had the option to talk to Lila first. Though in some ways, it was a good thing it would go ahead. I did need them to share the results of the study, even if they weren’t going to be continuing on with us.

Even if I couldn’t stand the thought of listening to a single word Blake Harrington said.

Even if I knew in my heart, too, that the study wasn’t enough—we needed that operational review. But I could never work with a man like Blake Harrington.

There was no way.

Luckily, I knew from the meeting agenda their employee Brynn had sent me that they’d agreed with my proposed schedule of sharing the results of the remote review first. When I’d asked them to set it up that way, it was so I could warm my siblings up. Show them how the initial review outlined that the full review was not only recommended, but necessary. After that, I was going to call for a break and tell them I’d booked the whole thing. Now, I’d pull Lila aside after the break and tell her what happened.

Never mind that I’d have to suffer through any part of a meeting with Blake Harrington pretending things were fine.

God I was an idiot. I was an idiot now, for not having recognized Blake, and I was an idiot last year, when I’d sat down with Ned completely unaware he was about to shatter my heart in a million pieces—and my trust in any man ever after.

I just wished I’d remembered that standing in those trees.

The heat that had spread through me then threatened to come back now, but I shoved it aside with all my might. I wouldnotbe charmed by a philanderer.

My hands shook as I hooked in the pearl earrings Mom had given me when I graduated college into my lobes. Somehow, I managed to stroke on some mascara without stabbing myself in the eye.

Still, the memories from this morning came creeping back.

After Eli got over the shock of seeing the two of us together in the middle of the Quince, he’d pulled out his phone and called Griff, who of course had access to a dinghy with an outboard.

The wait on shore with Blake had been awkward—I’d shut down when he told me who he was, wanting very badly to hit him. I’d never wanted to hit anyone before. I’d never even wanted to hit Ned, not even when he told me he wasn’t coming with me to my mother’s funeral. Not even when he told me he was leaving me for a friend of mine—a friend he’d apparently been sleeping with for over a year.

I’d been shocked to my core, but I hadn’t wanted to hit him.

But this guy? When Blake held out his hand for me to shake, I didn’t take it. Instead, I managed to say between gritted teeth, “I guess you know who I am already,” while my mind reeled with what to do. Mortification rippled through me. In the end, I opted to pace the gravel rather than talk—or enact physical violence. He seemed to understand I needed time to process and didn’t try to speak. Instead, he peeled off the sweater he’d been wearing, revealing a white t-shirt, plastered to his body. It was then I noticed his gray sweatpants, which were also very plastered to him. To everything.