Page 25 of Secrets of the Past (Secrets of Mustang Island #3)

T he restaurant was one of those quiet coastal places that looked out over the water, all soft lighting and dark wood, the kind of place couples lingered in corners with wineglasses between them.

Nicole sat at a table near the window, her untouched glass of chardonnay catching the glow of the candles.

She checked the time again. Six fifty-nine.

Her pulse thudded like a gavel in her chest. She had tried to tell herself this was just a conversation, two attorneys, two former friends, nothing more.

But the lie wouldn’t stick. Not when her stomach felt knotted and her throat too tight, not when she still carried the echo of his voice and the storm in his eyes after court.

Then he walked in.

Tripp’s broad shoulders filled the doorway as though the whole room had been waiting for him. His suit jacket was gone, his tie loosened, but he still looked like command in motion. His gaze swept the room until it found her, and something inside her trembled.

Something inside her broke loose and traveled all the way to her center.

He came to the table, and for a beat, neither of them spoke. Then he managed a small, almost rueful smile. “Seven o’clock sharp. You always did like punctuality.”

Nicole’s mouth curved despite herself. “And you always cut it close.”

He slid into the seat across from her. For a long moment, they simply looked at each other, the silence not hostile but weighted with too much history.

Every spark remained, the attraction, the passion, the longing, all of it alive, just as powerful as the first time they’d fallen for each other as teenagers.

Finally, Nicole said softly, “Today was hard.”

Tripp nodded, his throat working. “For both of us.” He let out a long breath. “I keep thinking about Evelyn. About what the jury saw. About how easily it could have been… hidden forever.”

Nicole’s fingers tightened around her wineglass. “That’s what terrifies me. Twenty years ago, it could’ve been me. The circumstances were different, but the power behind them was the same. Parents pulling strings. Deciding who we should and shouldn’t be with. Ending a love.”

His eyes locked on hers, raw and unguarded.

“I thought I was protecting you then. But I see now, I wasn’t protecting either of us.

I let them win. I should have torn the world apart to get to you, but I was too broken, too convinced you’d shut me out.

I believed that damn email, and it poisoned everything. ”

Her throat ached. She blinked hard, but the tears burned anyway. “And I let them too. I didn’t fight hard enough. I should have gone with you that morning. I should’ve trusted us more than I trusted them.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. He reached across the table, covering her hand with his. His palm was warm, steady, and the touch made her breath catch.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t take that on yourself. We were kids. They were the ones who schemed, who lied, who decided they knew better. We were just… caught.”

Her first tear slipped free. She didn’t swipe it away.

Tripp’s thumb brushed the back of her hand, slow and tender. “I don’t want to live in the half-light anymore, Nic. Not with you. If we’re ever going to move forward, we need to know exactly what they did. Both of them. All of them.”

She swallowed, her voice trembling. “You’re saying… bring them together. Make them talk.”

Forcing them all into the same room would be a gamble, a dangerous one, but it might be the only way. The risk of explosion hung heavy, but so did the promise of release. No more lies. No more intrigue. Just a reckoning waiting to happen.

“Yes.” His gaze was fierce, determined. “Put every lie on the table. Drag it into the light. And then, whatever comes after, it’s ours to decide. Not theirs.”

Her thoughts turned to her mother—so proud, so polished. But would she be honest when it mattered? Her father was straightforward, almost to a fault, but her mother…her mother had always preferred secrets, hoarding them like weapons, pulling them out only when they cut the deepest.

Her heart twisted. It was terrifying. It was necessary.

“Yes,” she whispered. “We do it together.”

The words felt like a vow.

Tripp’s expression softened. Relief mingled with something deeper, something that had never really died between them. His thumb traced her hand again, lingering. “God, I’ve missed you.”

Nicole let out a shaky laugh through her tears. “You’ve seen me every day in court.”

“Not like this,” he said. His voice was low, rough. “Not where I can touch you.”

The world narrowed until it was just him, his hand over hers, his eyes burning into her. The years fell away, the prom nights, the stolen kisses, the wild hope of running away together. Her body remembered all of it, and the longing that had slept for too long roared awake.

She rose first, unable to sit still against the pull between them. Tripp followed, dropping bills on the table without even glancing. Neither of them spoke as they walked through the restaurant, through the curious stares, into the cool night.

Outside, under the glow of a streetlamp, she turned to him. Her voice was almost a whisper. “Tripp…”

He didn’t let her finish. His hands framed her face, and then his mouth was on hers.

The kiss was desperate, searing, years of grief and want colliding. She gasped against him, then melted into it, her hands clutching at his shirt, pulling him closer. Tears streaked her cheeks, but she didn’t care. Not when his lips claimed hers like he’d been starving for them.

They broke apart only to breathe, foreheads pressed together.

“Too many years,” he murmured.

“Too many,” she whispered back.

And then they were kissing again, deeper, hungrier, oblivious to the world around them.

When he finally pulled back, his breath ragged, his eyes dark with heat, he said, “Not here. Not like this. Come with me.”

Her heart thundered. She didn’t ask where. She just nodded.

She’d dreamed of this night for years, imagined it a hundred different ways, the moment they found their way back to each other, the first time she melted into his arms again.

Now, as it finally loomed real, a shiver of unease spiraled through her.

And yet nothing—no fear, no doubt, no ghost of the past, could keep her from him tonight. Nothing.

Minutes later, his car pulled into the gravel lot of a nice seaside hotel, the kind with balconies that faced the ocean. It should have felt tawdry, reckless. Instead, it felt inevitable, the only place their twenty years of longing could finally break free.

The elevator crawled upward, every second stretching like an eternity.

When his hand closed around hers, her breath hitched, anticipation coiling tightly inside her.

God, what was wrong with this elevator? Why did it feel like it was moving through molasses when all she wanted was for the doors to open?

Inside the room, the door barely clicked shut before his mouth was on hers again. Kisses rough, tender, urgent, all at once. Her fingers fumbled with his tie, his hands skimming her back, pulling her closer, needing her as much as she needed him.

This time, she didn’t stop herself.

This time, there would be no running away.