Page 35 of These Summer Storms

“I didn’t lie to you,” he said, the words clipping in his throat like he’d bent them to his will.

“No? All yourI’ll build you a fire, You can’t fit a sousaphone in the overhead, I’m staying at the Quahog Quayjokes? Just a regular person in Wickford forwork.”

“Iwasstaying at the Quahog Quay. Iamhere for work.”

“Yeah, but you’re not a regular person. You work for my father! Why were you even on the train? Don’t you have access to the company helicopter?”

“Why wereyouon the train? Don’tyouhave access to the helicopter?”

“I haven’t had access to the helicopter in years, Jack. Which I’m sure you know.”

A muscle clenched in his jaw. “Right. Because you’re your own person.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Because I’m not my father’s person. Not like you. Managing Director of Franklin Storm’s whims.”

Gray eyes flashed. “I take my job seriously.”

“Oh yeah, very seriously considering what happened last night at the Quahog Quay.” She was poking the bear, but she didn’t care. She held up a hand before he could reply. “I know. A miscalculation. So what did you do for him when you were calculating properly?”

A hesitation. “Whatever he needed.”

“You put out fires.”

He nodded. “Among other things.”

Always so cryptic. “And you knew who I was.”

He took a deep breath, as though she were the one who was annoying. “Of course I did. Your father paid me to know everything, without being told. But even if that hadn’t been my job, I’d have known who you were because I’ve seen your picture on his desk every day for as long as I worked for him. I’ve listened to him talk about you. And I’ve been sleeping in your bedroom.”

She blinked at the words. At the unexpected power in them. How dare he make her feel something other than anger? She didn’t want it.

“If you recall,” he added, “I tried to tell you who I was.”

I should introduce myself,he’d said on the train platform. Before she’d stopped him.

“No names, right? They make things complicated.”

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel like it’s my fault that you knew who I was and didn’t tell me? Are you seriously suggesting that I don’t have the right to be angry that you knew I was your boss’s daughter, and you fucked me anyway? Hours after his death and knowing you would be showing up the next day to drop a bomb on my family?”

He didn’t reply, and his silence only further infuriated her.Why?She wanted to scream it.Was it to stick it to me? To punish Franklin? To score some kind of point?

“Turns out I was right,” she said. “Names did make it complicated.”

He ran a hand through his hair and looked out the window, where the darkness turned three sides of the room into mirrors, reflecting everything in the room…and somehow nothing important. “Yeah.” He grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Turns out you were.”

He headed for the door, brushing past her, and she resisted the way her body reacted to his nearness, as though it hadn’t forgotten the feel of him the night before. Instead, she watched as he opened the door, hesitating at the top of the stairs before he looked back and said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

The apology surprised her. “Careful. My dad didn’t believe in apologizing.” When he didn’t reply, she said, more to herself than to him, “I guess it was a walk of shame, after all.”

“What else could it have been when you snuck out of the room at dawn?”

If she weren’t so raw, she might have heard something compelling in the question. Something like disappointment. But she wasn’t about to care for this man who had so clearly manipulated her. “Believe it or not, I didn’t think of it that way until right now.”

“Sleeping with the help,” he said.

“Sleeping with aliar,” she corrected.

He nodded, taking the blow like a champ. She shouldn’t feel bad about it. He had lied to her. He’d known who she was, why she was here, whyhewas here—and he’d still slept with her.