Page 121 of Scandalous Lover

The two of them are still smiling at me like they don’t have a care in the world when I turn my glare on them. “How do you know that about me?”

Max shrugs. “It’s what you all say when I ask. Seems to be the plight of most of your generation.”

I smile in relief. He wasn’t reading my mind, he was just making a general observation. “Gotcha.”

“But you, my dear, seem to have something deeper going on. It’s just a guess, based on how you threw yourself into the sand, but I would be willing to bet that whatever it was you thought you found isn’t working out the way you planned.”

I accept my iced tea with a smile and try to decide how much of this I want to get into with these complete strangers. I don’t have my phone, and I don’t have anyone I could call even if I did, so what the hell.

“Yeah. I just hit a bit of a bump in the road.”

Neither of them make any signs of speaking as they give me their full attention, so I go on. “I lost my business back in theStates by doing something incredibly stupid that I didn’t know was stupid at the time. And then I ran here to hide, but ended up falling for the last guy on the planet I should have fallen for. And it seemed to be going pretty well until I just overheard him telling all his friends what a loser I am, simultaneously breaking my heart and stealing away the fantastic new job opportunity that was about to come my way.”

I almost laugh at my ridiculous summation of the last month of my life, but I’m worried it will come out as a sob, so I just sip my iced tea and wait for one of them to speak.

“I wonder if you could tell your story again, but this time, tell the truth,” Max says finally.

My mouth falls open. This day is just full of surprises. “That was the truth.”

“Was it?”

There’s no malice in his tone. Nothing to make me defensive, so I take a moment and consider. “No, I guess not.”

I glance out at the ocean and try to formulate my true story.

“Okay. I’ve been working for my whole adult life to build a personal brand and channel that represents me. Or at least the me that I want the world to see. I’m good at it, and I’ve been really successful. But I knew that it wasn’t real life, even as much as I wanted it to be. I’ve always struggled with personal relationships. Online relationships are so much easier. Simpler. I almost never have to meet anyone in person, and I can curate how I come across in photos and texts. It was all so perfectly contained. Under my control. Until it wasn’t. I was just working to promote brands, like we all do on the internet, but some people I’d built online friendships with decided to go behind my back and take me down to grow their own channels. It’s something I've done before. We all do it. I didn’t even think it was that wrong until ithappened to me. Suddenly I was left with nothing and no one. I’ve never had close relationships with my family, and never made many in-person friends since I had my online community.”

I’m hesitant to get into so much detail about a person I know they know well, but I can’t bring myself to stop now that I’ve started. “But there was one person. One person who I thought would be a safe place to turn. I can’t even say why I thought that. I barely knew the guy. But it was enough. So I flew out here and found him. It was hard at first, but he was exactly as wonderful as I imagined, and I started to see a new life for myself. A life where I belonged and where people saw me as who I really was. In person. I thought he felt the same way.”

I pause to glance down at my hands where they rest on the colorful floral tablecloth.

“Then this afternoon I overheard him telling his friends that he didn’t want me to come work with them because it would put the resort at risk. That I was untested and possibly untrustworthy. It sucked because I didn’t even want the job they were discussing offering me. I would have turned it down, the main part of it anyway. But to hear him say those terrible things about me, like he had just been pretending to care about me all this time.”

“That sounds bad. What did this mystery man have to say for himself?” Petunia asks.

I smile up at her, even though I feel like I might cry as I try to tell the next part. “He said that he was just trying to keep me all for himself. That the other guys take everything, and he’s always let them, but this time he wanted to keep me for himself. And that he was sorry, and he didn’t mean any of it.”

They let me cry in silence for a long moment, not offering me comfort or a napkin or anything. The waveof sadness passes on its own, and I look back up into their kind faces, already feeling better.

Already knowing what Max is about to say.

“Now that you’ve said that aloud, does it seem like the truth?”

I nod.

He and Petunia nod as well.

“But what can I do? Tell Dom or let him tell Dom about us? It will ruin that lifelong friendship and put his whole job, his whole life in jeopardy. I can’t ask him to do that for me.”

“Is that the truth?” Max asks.

I narrow my eyes accusingly at him as I prepare to take him to task.

But my anger quickly sees reason. I flop back in my chair and sigh. “No. Probably not.”

“It’s a fun story, though. Very dramatic.”

I can’t help but smile and shake my head. “Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

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