Page 36

Claire

Now

By the time I get back downstairs, Ellery, Declan, and Josh trailing behind me, Luke has turned the bar area from empty to cozy.

Two tables have been shoved together, a jug of water and several bottles of wine placed alongside individual glasses for each of us, and candles flicker from the edges of the room, dousing everything in a pleasant light that contrasts the quickly darkening sky outside.

But I barely notice any of it. Anxiety sits heavy in my chest at what Adrien’s about to confess.

The six of us gather around the table, Kyan noticeably absent.

“What is all this?” Josh asks. “I feel like I’m at an intervention.”

“Well,” Adrien says, “I know that some of us”—she shoots a sharp glance in my direction—“have become a bit obsessed with knowing every little thing that happened during our first trip here. And there’s something I never shared with you all.”

Luke busies himself pouring glasses of wine and water for each of us, ignoring my stare.

“I knew I was in love with Kyan the moment I met him.”

This is certainly not how I expected Adrien to begin her confession. I’ve rarely seen her express any emotion that wasn’t fully calculated. The surprise must be evident on my face because she sighs, rolls her eyes.

“I know you all thought it was some fling, a silly vacation romance. And I know some of you”—she narrows her eyes at me—“feel like I ‘stole’ him from Phoebe. But he was the first guy I ever loved.

“Neither one of us made a move at first. You know Kyan, how big of a flirt he is. I couldn’t be sure he felt the same way, and I refused to be the one who initiated things. But eventually, we both admitted how we really felt.

“We tried to keep it under wraps for a bit. It wasn’t my finest moment, sneaking around with him while Phoebe thought they were basically in a relationship.

I see that now. And, of course, she found out eventually—I mean, we weren’t exactly subtle.

At first, she basically just stared after Kyan everywhere he went like a lost puppy.

But after a while, things…changed. It was like a switch flipped, and she became mean, vengeful, acting like I had stolen Kyan from her. ”

I breathe in deeply.

“It was little things at first. Stupid mean-girl things. And I know, I know.” Adrien cuts another glare at me. “I wasn’t exactly innocent myself. But the night she went missing, we found out just how far she was willing to go.”

Adrien sips her wine as if fueling herself for the rest of the story.

“That night, Kyan and I had been…together.” My mind skids to Randy’s video, Adrien and Kyan lost in passion, and I try to blink it away.

“Afterwards, he checked his phone. We had both been tagged in a Facebook video posted by some anonymous profile—one of those ones with no information and no friends. It was…” She coughs, as if to cover the emotions rising in her voice.

“It was a video of me and Kyan. A private video. One we had no idea had been taken. I don’t know how Phoebe managed it; she must have left her phone recording in my room at some point.

We searched everywhere for it after, but it was nowhere to be found.

The video was filmed the night before, so she must have found a way to sneak it out after that. ”

“A sex tape?” I ask.

Adrien shoots me a glare and nods. “And she tagged all our relatives as well—basically anyone with whom we were friends on Facebook who shared our last names. And it had been a while since she shared it. You know how sketchy service was at the Inn back then. We only tried to log on to Facebook a few times a day. That was probably why none of you saw it. But by the time Kyan found it, our entire families had seen. It was…humiliating.”

I imagine the shame that must have flooded over Kyan and Adrien in that moment, their postcoital bliss devastated by the worst invasion of their privacy. I remember the fury that flashed across Kyan’s face in Randy’s video, and for the first time, I understand.

“Kyan wanted to find her. To confront her,” Adrien continues.

“I mean, I did too. We were so angry. He nearly pounded down the door to her room, but neither of you were there.” Her steely gaze is once again on me.

Heat flushes the apples of my cheeks, remembering where I must have been in that moment, but Adrien doesn’t seem to notice.

“So, we went outside looking for her. We knew it was a lost cause immediately—I mean, you know how open it is behind the Inn—but Kyan didn’t want to give up. ”

She sighs again. “Finally, I stopped him. I took his face in my hands, and I told him that none of it mattered. We had each other. That was enough. We agreed to leave the Inn for the night. We couldn’t stay there after what happened. So we came here.”

She raises her hands gesturing around us.

“You came to the Royal Hotel?” I confirm.

Adrien nods. “The rooms were still open back then. We were just going to spend the night, have a bit of a getaway, but we noticed the bar was still open, so we decided to have a couple drinks.

“I guess we got a bit tipsy, and one thing led to another, and Kyan, well…he proposed.”

My jaw drops.

Luke chimes in. “We popped champagne to celebrate. But it’s been so long, I didn’t recognize Adrien until she just reminded me.”

“It was impulsive and ridiculous. I mean we were barely twenty; we didn’t know anything.

But even so, it was so special,” Adrien says wistfully.

“We spent the night together and then made a morning of it. Breakfast in bed, the whole bit. It was nearly noon by the time we decided to head back to the Inn, and we walked straight into a shitstorm. It didn’t seem right to share our happy news when Phoebe had just gone missing. ”

“But why didn’t you say anything about the sex tape?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“We weren’t super eager to share that information with anyone, as you can probably understand,” Adrien says. “It was a blessing enough that you all hadn’t seen it. Really the only time I’d ever been grateful for the horrible internet connection in this town.”

She was embarrassed, I realize, surprised. It’s an emotion I’ve never seen Adrien wear.

“So, what happened?” Declan asks it as kindly as he can. “Did you and Kyan get married without us knowing?”

I look pointedly at the huge diamond on her finger, the one Instagram informed me was given to her by her tall handsome husband back in South Africa who bears absolutely no resemblance to Kyan.

Adrien wraps both hands around her glass, staring into it as if something therein may provide her with a different answer.

“Even with everything that happened with Phoebe, things were magical between Kyan and me for a few days. We turned off our phones and tried to escape reality, to enjoy the last of the trip together. We felt pretty invincible, like nothing could touch us. When we left Australia, we agreed we would tell our families as soon as we got home and try to work out visas so that we could come back. We’d both fallen in love with Sydney and decided that was where we wanted to stay and get married.

I was going to transfer to Hamilton to finish my degree, and Kyan was planning to begin working on a start-up there.

“But we were na?ve. As soon as we got home, everything came crashing down. Our families were furious, of course; not only had we embarrassed them with the leaked sex tape, but both of our parents had a clear plan of how our lives were meant to go. And marrying a foreigner after a whirlwind relationship when we were only twenty or so years old was not in the cards. Even so, Kyan said he was ready to leave his family and all the money that came with it, vowed that he would give up his inheritance for us to be together. But…”

She trails off, and when she resumes, her voice is thick with emotion. “But when my father found out about the engagement, there was no reasoning with him. He didn’t understand—or care—that we were in love. He told me I had brought shame to the whole family.” She sniffs.

“Why didn’t you just leave? Do like Kyan did and give it all up? I mean, if you loved him so much and all,” I ask, not trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

“You don’t know my father,” Adrien snaps.

“He’s not the type of person you say no to.

” She pulls up the sleeve of her shirt, and I inhale sharply at the mottled skin coating her forearm.

“I ran away when I was little. He had grounded me, and I was stubborn and acted out. When he found me, he dragged me home and held my arm over a lit flame until I promised never to do it again.”

I have nothing to say.

“That was for running away as a child,” Adrien says. “Imagine what he was willing to do when he found out I was planning to elope.”

The statement fades into silence. I know the others are thinking the same thing I am. Adrien was always the perfect one. Rich, beautiful, poised, never a hair out of place. We all just assumed the reality of her life back in South Africa matched her glittering veneer.

The thought strikes me again. None of us really know each other.

“My father gave me an order,” Adrien continues.

“To end the engagement and go back to the plan he’d made for my life.

Graduating with my law degree, working at his firm, which I would one day take over, marrying a powerful man just like him.

He didn’t have to tell me what would happen if I didn’t. So, I did what he wanted.

“Kyan and I lost touch, mostly, other than the group text and the occasional message on Instagram. It was too painful for us to stay connected, even though I thought about him constantly.” My eyes dart to Declan, catch him looking at me, before I turn away.

“Kyan did end up moving back to Sydney, and I lived the life my dad wanted me to live in South Africa.

“When I got here and saw Kyan, it all came rushing back. All those feelings.” Her eyes gloss over with a sentimentality I didn’t know she was capable of. “I made a huge mistake. I should have done more to get away from my father, to make our relationship work. And now, it might be too late…”

I watch as a tear drops from her cheek, landing on the table’s wooden surface. Ellery wraps Adrien in a hug, and I feel the familiar pang of guilt. This time for wrongfully accusing Adrien, without having any idea what she and Kyan went through back then.

I open my mouth to apologize, but before I can, a sharp, screeching sound erupts next to me, causing everyone to jump in unison.

My phone, vibrating against the table, where I’d placed it when I first sat down.

Confusion blurs my mind as I wonder who could be calling me. It isn’t until I see the familiar, overly long number on the screen that the confusion turns to panic.

It’s Inspector Villanueva.