Page 4 of Secrets of the Past (Secrets of Mustang Island #3)

T ripp Masterson didn’t remember leaving Nicole’s office building.

One second, he was staring at the back of Nicole’s perfectly tailored blazer as she stormed away, her heels echoing like gunshots in his ears.

Like bullet holes to his heart. The next, he was gripping the leather steering wheel of his Corvette, heart pounding so hard, it felt like a fist in his chest.

The past had a way of showing up uninvited, and today, it had worn emerald eyes and glossy black hair, and left him shattered during one of the most important trials he’d taken on since returning to the island.

A trial he had not originally been the counselor on until the lead lawyer went in for triple-bypass surgery.

He sat behind the wheel for a long moment, staring straight ahead, trying to process what had just happened. Trying to process the facts he’d learned that still left him stunned.

She thought he had broken up with her. By email.

He’d done no such thing.

His hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles whitening. Fury tangled with confusion in his chest, a knot twenty years in the making. He started the engine and hit the gas. The Corvette roared to life like it knew he needed the speed, needed the release.

What the hell had happened?

She said he never called. That he’d ended their marriage like it was a high school fling. But he had called. Again and again. He’d left voicemails. He’d sent messages. He’d begged his parents to let him come back to her.

And then she’d emailed him .

A cold, clinical message with three lines that shattered his heart.

“I’ve changed my mind. This was a mistake. Please don’t contact me again.”

He remembered staring at those words on his parents’ laptop in a penthouse suite in Greece, sun blazing outside the window, while his insides froze solid.

He’d cried.

Actual tears.

At eighteen.

All their dreams had been shattered by the most venomous text he’d ever read, words so cruel, they cut him to the bone and left him crushed.

And now she stood there in court, confident, brilliant, furious, and swore he had been the one to abandon her?

None of it made sense.

The memory slammed into him.

That morning after the wedding. They’d woken tangled in the sheets of a cheap motel bed, the scent of her skin still on his fingers. At their wedding, she’d worn a veil from the dollar store and no makeup, and she’d never looked more beautiful.

He’d kissed her forehead and promised he’d tell his parents that afternoon. Then he’d walked into his house and everything changed.

His bags were packed.

“Surprise!” his mother had said, too brightly. “We’re going to Greece. Your graduation present. Isn’t this exciting?”

Before he could say a word, his father had ushered him into a waiting limo. There was no time to argue, no time to fight. They had a plane to catch. They were already late. They’d booked it weeks ago.

Now that he thought back on that morning, they hadn’t even questioned him about where he’d been all night.

Had they known?

“I need to call Nicole,” he’d said, panicked.

“There’ll be time for that later,” his mother had said, waving her hand.

There wasn’t.

The first day, his cell phone was there, but then that night, it was gone. Claimed it got lost in transit. Every time he tried to use the hotel phone, his parents were suddenly there. He’d asked to go home. They’d refused. Then the week in Greece had turned into a month touring Europe.

By the time he got the email, he was a ghost in her life. And just like that, it was over.

He hit the highway and floored it, the Corvette leaping forward as if it shared his need to outrun everything.

The sun burned low over the Gulf, painting the sky in shades of rust and gold, but he barely saw it.

His mind was a reel of memories: Nicole’s laughter, the night they’d eloped, her crying against his chest when she got her scholarship.

As the reel flickered in his mind, it felt like his chest split wide open, tears stinging his eyes. No, he wasn’t that fragile eighteen-year-old anymore, but the ache was still there, sharp and undeniable.

She’d promised him forever.

And then it had ended in a dozen cold words typed onto a screen.

But now? Now he knew something else.

She never got his calls. She never sent that email.

And he sure as hell hadn’t sent the one she accused him of.

They’d been played.

But by whom?

He knew.

His parents. Her parents, possibly?

The beach house came into view, a modern architectural gem perched on the dunes, all glass and angles and cold perfection. He hated it. Always had.

He pulled into the circular drive, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment, trying to calm the surge of emotions storming through him.

It didn’t work.

He walked up the stone steps and opened the front door without knocking.

“Dustin!” his mother called from the formal sitting room. “You’re home early! How lovely.”

Not Tripp. Just the name she insisted on using when society was around.

Tripp stepped inside, the scent of white lilies and lemon polish assaulting his senses. Everything was pristine, curated, artificial.

Just like her.

“We’re having guests tonight,” she continued, breezing toward him in a silk blouse and pearls. “You remember the Pembrokes? Their niece is visiting from Houston. She just passed the bar. Quite accomplished.”

Tripp gave a dry laugh. “Let me guess. Blonde, thin, politically conservative, and not a single thought of her own?”

That was the kind of woman his mother liked to introduce him to, and he was tired of thinking she knew what was best for him. Today, he’d had a reminder of what he wanted in a woman. She’d been fighting him in court, and doing a damn good job of being a lawyer.

“Dustin,” his mother warned, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her sleeve. “You’re thirty-eight. You’ve wasted years. It’s time to start thinking about your future. About settling down. About the Masterson name. Your father would expect this of you.”

His father was dead, and yet she liked to remind him of what his father expected from him, of how he would run the law firm. All Tripp wanted was to be his own man.

He stared at her. “I did think about my future once. Remember?”

Her expression didn’t change. “If you’re referring to Nicole Reyes, I hope you’ve outgrown that foolishness.”

No, today proved that whatever time and distance had taken from them, the spark remained—still humming low and steady, like the perfectly tuned engine of a classic car waiting for him to turn the key.

Tripp smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Guess who I saw today. In court.”

Her fingers paused on a crystal decanter. “One of your father’s old clients?”

“No. Nicole. Reyes. You know. My wife.”

Her face went completely still. The ice behind her eyes cracked for just a second.

“I’d hardly call her your wife,” she said, too smoothly. “That marriage was annulled. It lasted less than twenty-four hours, because that little witch’s family disapproved.”

Oh, really? That was more than his mother had ever said before. How did she know that Nicole’s family didn’t approve?

“She says she never received any of my calls. Says I broke up with her via email. Funny thing is, I never sent her one. But I sure as hell got one from her. And I never responded.”

Silence.

“Mom,” he said slowly, stepping closer. “Do you know anything about that?”

Her chin snapped up, eyes narrowing in sharp disapproval.

Her mouth twitched. “I barely remember the girl.”

“That’s a lie. You said her name before I mentioned her.”

Her chin lifted higher in defiance. “Excuse me,” she replied, crossing her arms like a shield. But her eyes betrayed her, glinting with something between fear and fury. For a moment, her control cracked, the mask slipping enough for him to glimpse the truth beneath.

“I said it’s a lie. You remember her. You hated her. You said she was beneath me. You said she was a distraction. You said she was a phase. You called her trash.”

His mother flicked her long gray hair over her shoulder like she was on the damn cover of Town & Country , not standing there lying through her teeth. He almost applauded the performance. The fake smile, the casual gesture, it was vintage Suzanne Masterson. Polished. Controlled.

And totally full of shit.

He’d seen that move a hundred times.

It was her signature tic.

She always did it when the truth became inconvenient.

“I said what any mother would say. You were too young. She wasn’t right for this family. You had a future to protect.”

“So you what?” he snapped. “You took my phone? You sent fake emails from both of us? You destroyed my marriage before it had a chance to breathe?”

She didn’t answer.

“I asked you a question.”

“I was happy to see it end,” she said at last, voice cold and clipped. “You would’ve thrown away everything for that girl.”

That wasn’t a lie. He would’ve moved mountains to keep Nicole smiling. He’d been ready to walk away from Baylor, pack up his dreams, and follow her to Austin. But instead, she’d tossed him aside, swift and merciless, like a hot potato he never saw coming.

“I loved her.”

“You were eighteen,” she snapped. “It wasn’t real.”

Tripp’s hands curled into fists. “If I learn you sabotaged my marriage, you’ll regret the day you ruined my life. I will not take it kindly.”

At this point in his life, he could see his mother for exactly the type of woman she was. A cold, selfish, snotty society woman who didn’t fraternize with anyone lower than her standing in society. You’d think that type of person had died with the Gilded Age, but you’d be wrong.

“Stop being dramatic. You were eighteen. Ask her parents what happened. It was twenty years ago, and I know nothing except that I was going to protect my son at any cost.”

They stared at each other, the air crackling with electricity.

Tripp turned on his heel and walked toward the stairs.

“Dinner is at seven,” she called after him like nothing was wrong. That this argument was over, and she’d won. But it was far from over.

“I hear this girl is a beauty.”

He didn’t answer.

In his old bedroom, still disgustingly untouched like a shrine to the golden boy he used to be, he shut the door, leaned back against it, and exhaled.

His mind was spinning. His heart was wrecked.

He and Nicole hadn’t failed.

They’d been tricked.

Most likely by the people who were supposed to protect them.

He sat at his desk and opened his laptop. He had questions. And someone was going to answer them.

If Nicole was back, for good, then he had one shot to make this right.

One chance to rewrite the ending they'd been robbed of.

And he’d be damned if he let anyone take her away from him again.

The only person who might hold the truth was Paige.

He hadn’t thought about her in years, but now her name echoed in the back of his mind like a thread he needed to pull. She’d been there that night. She’d known them both, knew what they meant to each other.

He didn’t know where she was now. But he’d find her.

Because something had gone terribly wrong, and the past wasn’t done with him. Not yet.

If there was even a chance that Paige could help him piece together what really happened, what tore Nicole away from him, he had to take it.

Tripp was done living in the dark. Done swallowing someone else’s version of the truth.

He was going to dig up every lie, every hand that pulled the strings, and finally find out who tore his marriage to Nicole apart, and why.

And God help them, there had better be a very good reason.