Page 74 of Boss

“I guess,” she said and lowered her gaze. “But you can’t remember. You can’t see past the woman before you to who I used to be. Don't you remember me?” she asked.

He let go of her wrist and sat upright. He frowned.

“Not even a little Tarek? I could never forget you. I wanted to marry you, for you to be my prince. I drew you a picture but my momma made me go to bed. I kissed you from the top window. Remember me now?”

Tarek eyes stretched. “Kassie.”

“That's right, Kassie. That’s the secret. I don’t work for Dale, or Daniel. I work for me. All of this, from the very start, has been about you and me.”

“There is no you and me. You were a kid. How the hell do you even remember me?” he asked. “What were you? Four years old?”

“I was six you asshole!”

“What the fuck is this about?” Tarek said. He glared at her. “This is about Clarissa? You came after me for Clarissa?”

“Crystal Beach,” she sighed. “I loved that place as a kid. And every year my family would stay at a small bed and breakfast called Maria that my parents often visited because of the sea turtles. The year you and I met was the year my parents and my sisters died.”

“Fuck!” Tarek stood. He “Fuck!”

Kassidy could tell he not only remembered. But he remembered all of it.

“It was the best and worst summer of my life. You're right Tarek, it was a car accident. Like you, I'm an orphan.”

“Your father. He was an attorney? Wasn’t he?”

“Jameson Turner,” she said.

Kassidy stood. She faced him. The tears came despite her suppression. “And your family killed him.”

“No. No.”

“I was in the car! I can remember that night. How afraid he and Jesus Garcia were. I can remember the way he drove at night and the car trailing us. We were driven off the road.”

“You don’t understand,” Tarek said.

“I understand that you are responsible for wiping out my entire family,” she shouted.

Tarek stared at her. Kassidy wiped her tears. “And you didn’t stop there. Clarissa was my angel. After the accident and my time in the hospital, she nursed me back to health. Eventually my aunt came for me. She took me back to Plano. I don’t know what you did to make her kill herself. But that was the final straw. You killed her, just as sure as you killed my family.”

He wasn’t smiling. In fact his face was blank. No reaction registered at all. And the tequila kept talking.

“You were a kid. The fucking Garcia’s should have told you the real story. What happened to your family, and Clarissa wasn’t my fault. They’re fucking assholes for making you believe it!”

She charged him. She screamed with rage and went at his face with her hands and nails. He was taken by surprise and they both went down. Kassidy kept hitting him. Screaming and hitting him. Tarek rolled her to her back. He pinned her hands down and locked her body with his legs. She was forced to lie still.

“Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed.

“Stop it! You want to know the truth, here is the truth. And you’re going to listen!” he shouted in her face. “My father wanted that beach. He wanted to stop the protests and resistance he was getting for MGS drilling in the Gulf. The Garcia’s led the charge to push him off. But money, baby, money can buy anything—friends, loyalty, you name it and there is a price.”

“They were good people!” Kassidy said.

“Maybe, some of them were, but they made a big mistake by dragging your father into it. The business on the board walk wanted to sell. Some of the resorts too. Day by day my father began to break them down. Clarissa and I fought about it. But we both knew if our parents knew who she and I were to each other our relationship would be over. So we stopped being seen together, and did a lot of sneaking around. Her mother helped her. At first. She didn’t know who I was. I told Dale about how much in love I was with her. He offered to help me too. I was willing to run away with Clarissa I loved her so much.”

“What happened to my family?”

“Everyone wanted to sell. A meeting was called to force the final few who were refusing to sell to change their minds. But your father stepped up. It was on the news, and in the local papers. He was retained by the resort owners in Crystal Beach. He was going to the federal courts to get the beach protected. He would represent the Garcia’s and stop MGS encroachment.”

Kassidy frowned at the history lesson. Tarek let her go. He sat up. She lay flat on her back staring at the ceiling. She digested the news.

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