Page 29

“I was hoping you might dance with me,” he says, nodding toward the small space where a few couples sway to the crooning of Dean Martin.

“Oh dear.” I put a hand on his shirt and bring my lips just beside his ear. The warmth of his skin is more intoxicating than the rum I just drank. I can feel the feathery softness of his hair against my cheek as I murmur, “That would be very indiscreet.”

“One friendly dance,” he coaxes. “I’ll be the soul of discretion.”

I’m honestly dying to—we’ve never danced together—so it doesn’t take any more convincing than that. I offer a hand and he takes it, leading me to a patch of hardwood splashed with marbled blue light meant to look like ocean waves.

We position our arms, and for a minute maintain a proper distance. But when the song changes to Etta James’s “At Last,” I melt against the muscular wall of his chest and let him hold me close. He drags one thumb down my spine, and the sensation is too delicious.

Putting a foot of space between us, I clear my throat. “That’s hardly fair.”

“I have to make love to you tonight.”

“You know I can’t—I have a deadline.” I draw a circle around one of his shirt buttons with a fingertip. “But in a few weeks we’ll stay together during the British GP, at the house Phae’s lending us in Towcester. A whole week, just you and me.” I flash a winning smile.

“Come to my room, Talia.” His gaze is heat and hunger.

With a frustrated groan, I say, “Do not tempt me. I have an important call at midnight. It’s eight hours ahead where the—” I break off, not wanting to reveal too much. “Where the person is calling from, and I was lucky to get their time at all.”

A pensive shadow darkens his expression, as if he’s going down a list of the countries that are eight hours ahead of Montréal.

Something about it pokes at my guilt over hiding this, when we’re supposed to be committed to honesty now.

It must be obvious that I’m leaving out details—I have no poker face.

I sigh. “It’s someone from Amnesty International. A lead I’m working on again.”

He scowls. “About the new race location?”

“Wow.” My eyebrows lift. “Quick line you drew between Amnesty International and the new grand prix. So… guess I don’t have to tell you why it’s important that I don’t miss this call.”

His feet come to a halt and his hands smooth over my upper arms before he grips me lightly. The look on his face is one I’ve come to know—tight intensity beneath a mask of calm. “To whom will you be speaking?”

People move around us as we stand, conspicuously still, no longer dancing. I open and close my mouth, deciding whether I want to tell him. Finally I shrug. “A woman I got in touch with through that watchdog organization—the group that gave Emerald the report on your old sponsor, Basilisk.”

Taking my hand, Klaus leads me off the floor and to a hallway near the restrooms. “You shouldn’t be poking the hornet’s nest on this issue, Talia. When journalists ask the wrong questions, it can be dangerous.”

“Uh, you just described the whole point of journalism,” I deadpan. “And if you’re referring to the reporter from Al Jazeera who fell off that balcony a couple weeks ago, it was an accident. She was trying to get social media pics or something, they said.”

“Oh? You know this for certain—an accident ? I wasn’t aware you witnessed it.”

I fold my arms, waiting for it to catch up to Klaus how condescending he sounds.

He has the grace to look annoyed with himself. “My apologies. But…” He rubs his face. “I thought you’d set this aside, after Santorini.”

“Huh,” I say with a squint. “And why after Santorini, specifically?”

He seems about to reply, then sighs and rubs his face again.

Quietly, I add, “ You claimed the sex wouldn’t change things. That I’m free to write what I want. So your alleged concern for my safety sounds a little disingenuous right now.”

“I don’t want you to pursue it further,” he insists, his tone almost a growl. “ Please. ”

I take a step back, glaring. “I abandoned a story for you once”—I drop my voice—“ with what was on the USB drive . You already used your one veto. It’s not fair of you to ask me to let this one go too. A big exposé like this could make my career.”

At the dismay on his face, it occurs to me that the last time we mentioned an “exposé” was when we discussed the libel case over the article about Sofia’s death. I must’ve hit a nerve—he looks so stricken.

Softening my expression, I take his phone from his jacket pocket and check the time. “I don’t want to fight about this, okay? I have to get back to my room. The call’s in ninety minutes, and I need time to prep.”

We manage to make up before I leave the bar, but I can tell there’s something he’s not saying. It nags at me like heartburn during the cab ride back to my hotel.

Ten minutes before the scheduled call, I get a one-sentence email from my contact:

I am so sorry, but circumstances have changed, and I must unfortunately withdraw from the interview and cannot reschedule.

All best,

Beshira

This feels like too much of a coincidence. Did Klaus do something to make her cancel? I’m so mad that I jab out an accusing text to him, but then delete it unsent. I need to calm down first. It’s past midnight, and I have a ten o’clock flight in the morning.

I get in bed, but of course I’m not relaxed enough to sleep. I open and then reject a dozen books on my e-reader.

Tap, swipe away.

Tap, swipe away.

Phae’s comment echoes: You should read the stuff your mom sent.

With reluctance, I climb out of bed and get my laptop, then tuck under the covers again. Opening the desktop folder, I peruse the file names:

Trip_to_California.docx

Money_Runs_Out.docx

Meeting_Bux_and_Shockley.docx

Job_Gone_Wrong.docx

Hiding_Out_in_Barstow.docx

The_Arrest.docx

I fiddle around with the cursor arrow, gliding it over the words, pointing it at different letters like a tiny, inky accusation.

I close the laptop.

I reopen it.

I click on the first document.

For almost a year while Jace and I saved up the money, a name hung in my mind bigger and brighter than the Hollywood sign: Venice Beach. How could it be anything other than a paradise?

Venice: the romantic City of Canals in Italy. I’d never be rich or lucky enough to go there, but I could have the American version.

For a girl who’d never laid eyes on a body of water bigger than the Ohio River hugging Louisville, any beach sounded magical.

Everyone told us we were fools to go. But the sweet call of that blue Pacific was louder than the sensible warnings of people Jace and I saw as boring adults—those who would live and die working the soybean fields and mopping Kentucky sweat-dust off their faces, never to experience the joys awaiting us in California.

My friend Lila Knox worked at the Merry-Go-Round clothing store in Lexington, had pink streaks in her hair, and had once gone to bed with a man who had a genuine Australian accent, so I thought her mighty worldly.

She told me she was moving to California, and I should go too.

Said with my looks, there was a good chance I could model or even end up in the movies.

It took a year of pinching pennies to save the $2,000 Jace and I thought would be enough to get us started out west. Sometimes he’d look at that thick roll of twenty-dollar bills as it grew and talk about everything else we might do with it.

“Those are small-town things,” I’d tell him, disgusted.

I wanted California. For the beach named after a city in Italy, for the thought of seeing myself on the cover of Mademoiselle (my favorite magazine because it had a French name), but most of all, for my little girl. I wanted her to grow up someplace sunny and glamorous.

When we left her with Jace’s aunt Minnie and drove off that morning, Natalia didn’t wave goodbye.

She’d found a moth on the screen door and was cupping it in her hands.

She just smiled at me—that bright, beautiful smile that was my world—as I waved.

Our plan was to come back for Natty in a few months after we’d gotten settled.

I was already in tears by the time we hit the main road. I told Jace I’d changed my mind. He was never one to get sore with me, not even when he’d had a few, so I was surprised when he looked at me fierce and said, “Dammit, Pinkie… I already quit my job. We’re going.”

I cried all the way to St. Louis.

I’m only a page in, and already I’m crying too. I pick up my phone, both grateful and mad at Phaedra for making me read this and not caring that the message might wake her.

Me: Oh God, Phae. My mother’s writing sounds a lot like mine.

Me: SHE SOUNDS LIKE ME. I don’t know how it’s even possible. She’s a stranger.

Immediately, there’s a reply.

Phae: Maybe she’s not as much of a stranger as you thought.