“You seem to think you know me well for someone who met me five months ago.”

“I do know you better than any of the other women you’re generous enough to give the time of day to.  For starters, I’ve been interviewing you for months.  Then there’s the fact that we’ve been fucking regularly since April.”

The pain in my chest sank like a knife to my stomach.

Fucking.  Regularly.

Since April.

I clutched the wall, my brain sinking instantly into a dark well that crawled with red flags and confirmed suspicions.  So I wasn’t being at all paranoid that night at The Pike – the night that Callum and I had sex for the first time since I came back.  There was something between him and Ana.  Something significant.

I heard Callum’s short laugh.  “That doesn’t do much to prove that you know me.  I’ve slept with a lot of women.”

“You haven’t given many interviews to the Times though.”  It was quiet for a second and I knew the triumphant “mm” Ana hummed was a response to Callum’s silence.  “Let’s not forget the fact that you’d just taken your cock out of me when you got a text and said, ‘Fuck this, you’ve got to be kidding.’  Couldn’t help but observe that you weren’t exactly excited for her to come back.  I mean – hmm.  What else did you say? That she was ‘poison’? That she didn’t ‘belong’ in your life? You suspected from the jump that she was going to be a burden and an embarrassment to you and what do you know – you were right.”

With those words, I went dizzy.

I was poison.  A burden.  I didn’t belong.  They were my more paranoid suspicions but here they were, confirmed by the smug lips of Ana Hale from the Times.  I was seething, humiliated but I couldn’t hide behind the wall anymore.  I stiffly turned the corner and stood there before them, waiting to be noticed, the tears in my eyes clouding every bit of my vision aside from Callum, his chair and his stupid Scotch in his hand.

“Oh, Christ.”  I heard Ana’s groan. I didn’t have to see her face to know that she’d seen me.  I hated the pang of shame I felt and refused to back away, watching in slow motion as Callum turned around.  The second his eyes settled on me, he let out a very long, very guilty breath.  God.  Damn it, Callum.  I shook my head at him, disgust creeping into my fury and betrayal emanating from the pit of my closing throat.

“I don’t belong in your life?” I whispered, staring at him, unable to believe the cold, icy look in his eye as he rose to his feet, grabbed my forearms and walked me backward.

“Not now, Lake.”

“What the hell, Callum?” I breathed, reading nothing but anger in the vacant stare he gave me.  God, I hated it.  I always had but in this moment, I hated that look a million times more than I ever had in my life.  “You were sleeping with Ana? Since April? You told her about me? What else did you tell her? How long were you going to keep this a secret?”

“Lake, I’m not talking about this.  I have work to do.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the cameras are in there – they’re setting up right now.”  I looked past his tightly flexed arm, where his finger pointed.  I saw the rest of the lounge my tear-filled vision had missed a second before.  Aside from Ana, there was a photographer.  A lighting crew.  I saw Oz turned around in his seat at the bar.  The man serving him his drink was frozen with him.  Every last person in there was turned to me, staring.  Gaping.  Joining my fury now was mortification and that very embarrassment Ana had mentioned.  I looked back to Callum and down at his fingers wrapped around my wrists, trying desperately to pull me out of sight.  To hide me.

“Do I belong in your life, Callum?” I whispered the question.

“Don’t do this to me.”

“Just answer me.”

“I won’t.”

My heart twisted at the bite with which he enunciated his words.  It started sinking slowly under my shrinking ribs, getting sucked into that bitter quicksand.  Still, I tried to fight the pull.  My wet eyes flicked back and forth between Callum and Ana as she came up behind him, leaning in the doorframe, cocking an eyebrow at me and tapping the platinum watch on her wrist.  Tick tock.  I could almost hear her saying it.  Drawling it.

Tick tock.

The words brought me suddenly back to Sunstone – flashed images of my stepfather before my eyes.  They asked me if I’d fought and clawed and come back for nothing.  If I was wrong to think I belonged anywhere else but there.  “Callum.”  I hated that my tears were spilling in front of everyone and most of all, that woman.  I tried to lower my voice so she couldn’t hear me.  “Just tell me, Callum,” I demanded under my breath. “Tell me if you mean it.  If you think I’m poison.”

“Lake – Christ.”  He released my wrists and I stumbled back.  I could feel the shock and hurt in my face as he glared at me, an inferno of white-hot flames blazing behind those wolfish blue eyes.  “You’re demanding answers?” Callum’s growl was low, from his chest.  “Go ahead.  Demand them.  But then so will I.  I’ve waited too goddamned long, Lake, so if you wanna play this game, let’s play it.  But you’re going to give me the truth first.  Tell me the fucking secret – whatever it is – right here, right now.  Tell me what you’re so fucking certain I can’t get past.”

Silence hung in the air till Ana lilted.

“Please do.”

“Shut up,” Callum snarled at her without tearing his eyes from me.  “Go, Lake.  Say it.  Tell me now.”

I couldn’t breathe. I looked at her and then him.  I had no idea where to start and all I could see was the horrific end I’d caused to be able to come back.  Something escaped my lips.  I wasn’t sure if it was a word and suddenly, Ana was marching forward and reaching for Callum.

“I can’t watch another second of this bullshit,” she hissed.  “We need to start, Callum.  She’s wasting your time and she’s never even going to be your girlfriend, you said it yourself.”

Her bombshell stung my skin.  Every inch of it.  My eyes flickered to Callum and I stared at him, pleading a silent question but he didn’t answer me, and he didn’t refute her.  Only then did I realize how many more awful and humiliating things he could’ve told her.  Ana read the shock on my face and cooed.

“Unless I recall incorrectly.  But didn’t you say that, Callum?” She asked him but tilted her head at me.  “That she’d never be your girlfriend?” My eyes returned to Callum just in time for his cold answer.

“Yes.”

It was all I needed to hear to walk – no, run out the door.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lake

It was green hills, blue sky and clock towers before me but I couldn’t see anything but the dirt road leading into Sunstone.  And it had nothing to do with the wall of tears clouding my eyes.  It was just that my feet were carrying me away from the hotel and my mind was carrying me away from sanity, bringing me right back to the trailer park on the day I left New York for Trish.

I took a cab from the airport to the address she gave me.  I didn’t know a lot about Virginia.  I’d never been there.  When I lived with Trish as a kid, we were in Texas, where she had met my dad.  The sight of palm trees surprised and actually excited me because they reminded me of the vacations Caroline would take me and Callum and my grandma on.  I passed by several places that made me look out the window till we drove out of sight.  I liked a lot of what I saw.  But that all changed the closer we got to Sunstone.

Trish had said it was a mobile home park not a trailer park because the latter made it sound like she lived in a trashy place, which she didn’t.  She insisted Sunstone Communities was opened to be “one of those classy parks” and I actually saw on the website that it didn’t look like what I thought of when I heard the term trailer park.  It looked new and almost nice.