Page 40 of Until August

I took a couple steps back. “You were in prison,” I repeated as if I hadn’t heard right.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving my face.

“What were you in prison for?” I put more distance between us and crossed my arms over my chest for protection. Maybe it wasn’t for anything bad. But people didn’t get sent to prison for traffic tickets. “What did you do?”

“I transported drugs.” His eyes flitted over my face, trying to gauge my reaction.

Transported drugs. What did that even mean? Was he a supplier? A dealer? It didn’t matter.

Drugs were the reason my husband was lying in a bed hooked up to tubes.

Drugs were the reason he ended up with a fractured skull.

I lost my husband because two junkies wielding tire irons and baseball bats decided a BMW was worth more than my husband’s life.

And this man was standing before me, informing me that he was responsible for flooding the streets withmoredrugs?

God, how stupid could I be? Cruz would have killed me if he knew I’d hired a random stranger without running a security check on him. He was always so concerned about my safety that he used to run the checks himself whenever I hired a new employee. Except for my brother, I hadn’t hired anyone new over the past two years, so I hadn’t even thought of doing it.

“Stay away from me,” I said through clenched teeth.

I threw myself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

“Nic. Wait.” He knocked on my window, but I ignored him. I couldn’t even look at his face.

He’d played me. Maybe he thought I was so enamored with him that I wouldn’t even run a security check.

I hit the gas and rocketed out of the parking lot.

That asshole.

I punched the steering wheel, accidentally beeping my horn as I blew through a yellow light.

I can’t believe I’d trusted him.

My father had been right. August Harper was trouble. With a capital T. And I wanted nothing to do with him.

It was only when I’d slammed on my brakes at a stoplight a few minutes later that I remembered the cakes in the back of my Jeep.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Nicola

Everly and Isla’sMad Hatter tea party was not the time or place to stew over August Harper or how he’d deceived me. So I tucked it into a separate compartment, slammed the lid on it, and plastered on a fake smile.

Luckily, the kids were too jacked up on sugar to notice. There were twelve of them gathered on the lawn for an Instagram-worthy picnic lunch. After I’d snapped about a million photos and fawned over the girls who oohed and ahhed over the cakes that were still intact, they joined their friends, and I grabbed some refreshments.

Pink lemonade flowed from a silver fountain, and I filled my floral teacup to the brim, wishing it was spiked with something stronger.

“How have you been?” Remy asked when I sat next to her on a tufted cushion on the bamboo decking.

When I first met Remy thirteen years ago, I was starstruck. A former supermodel, she was stunning back then and just as stunning now, with long dark hair and aquamarine eyes.

I balanced a lemon scone and a finger sandwich on my thigh and took a sip of pink lemonade. “Everything is fine.” I flashed her a smile to prove it. Hopefully, if I said it often enough, it would be true. “How are you?”

“I’mfine. But I know a fake smile when I see it.”

Guess I wasn’t as good of an actress as I thought. Cruz used to tell me he could read my face like a book. I wore all my emotions.