Page 160 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

Maybe because I couldn’t speak, Ethan kept talking.

“When Parker Briggs took my idea and all my documentation,I said fuck it. That arena of cutthroat business is draining. I needed to get away. I bought the island and expected to tune out for a few months, figure out what to do. But then I found I could run Valentine Enterprises from here. I had good people to take over the day-to-day operations. I made decisions and reviewed projects and went to board meetings via Zoom, but I almost never had to show myself. When I had to, I made the connection poor and put on fake glasses just in case someone recognized me. I’ve changed—LASIK surgery. I started working out and built up muscle, grew out my hair, got tan.”

“Everyone knows Clark Kent is Superman,” I said. “Glasses are hardly a disguise.”

“People see what they want to see,” he said. “No one pays attention to bartenders, wait staff, housekeepers. So I asked Tristan to give me a job as Jason Mallory. I needed the time to just... I don’t know, figure myself out. I got to help make St. Claire thrive, and people didn’t know who I was. It was... heaven. For the first time in my life, I was truly free.”

I’d only seen one old college picture of Ethan Valentine. I didn’t see him in Jason. He had changed over a decade.

“Nothing’s changed,” I said. “Except a few dozen people now know who you are.”

“I don’t care about that. I don’t care about them. I care aboutyou. Don’t walk away.”

“What did you think would happen,Ethan.” His real name still felt foreign on my tongue. “That I’d come visit every year, we’d have great sex, then I’d go away and you could continue this farce?”

“No. I was hoping you’d stay for a few extra days, work from my house, and then I’d tell you.”

“Oh, now you’re saying you always planned to tell me?” I shook my head. The tears were there, burning, but I didn’t let them fall. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth,” he said quietly.

“You lied to me. We talked, we made love. I thought—no. The time to tell me was before I fell for you. I can’ttrustyou.”

“I don’t have any more secrets. Ask me anything, anything at all—I’ll tell you.”

“How am I supposed to know if what you tell me is the truth when you’re so good at lying?”

I ached. I was humiliated. Mostly? I was so damn sad.

I’d fallen for him, hard.

I’d fallen for a lie.

“Let me make it up to you,” he whispered. “Please, Mia.”

“You can’t,” I said. And walked away to find the beach, to find my way back. Somehow.

This time, he didn’t follow.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

—Roald Dahl

I was packed hours before I was supposed to leave for St. John to catch my plane home. Henry had already picked up my luggage to take to the ferry.

I stood on my patio and stared at the ocean. This, I would miss. The sea. The colors. The smells.

But I wouldn’t miss this feeling that I’d been had.

It had been a whirlwind after Tristan was arrested for murder. Talking to the police well into the wee hours of Sunday night. Talking to curious guests all day Monday. I tried to avoid them, but that didn’t work. So many people came by my cottage to talk about what had happened at the Sky Bar that I finally went to the Blue Dahlia and drank heavily, answering any question people had. For hours.

“Did you know that the bartender was Ethan Valentine?” Doug had asked.

“No.”

“When did you suspect the resort manager had killed Diana Harden?” the honeymooners asked.