Last Summer(42)

A week after Ella returned home from the hospital, she came across an envelope stuffed with notes from Damien. She found the envelope tucked in the back of her lingerie drawer. Damien had given her the notes throughout her pregnancy. Reading through them had been difficult and not because she didn’t recall them. Rather, Damien’s excitement and awe over Simon’s arrival was palpable. So was his love for her and their baby. It broke her heart reading them, and it made her question whether she really knew her husband. The man who wrote those notes about Simon was not the man she’d married. The man who didn’t want children.

Ella unfolds the note in her hand, the most recent one from her husband. A lime-green sticky note he left on the steering wheel of the Range Rover he purchased for her in December after she’d totaled her other one. The note is one word. Simple yet powerful and so full of meaning. Stay. It’s what he asked of her the morning after they met. The first time she had stayed. She hadn’t even had to think about it. But this time . . .

She presses the note to her forehead, closes her eyes, and whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Because Nathan isn’t a new indie artist fresh on the music scene, someone she can easily reschedule or call another day. Damien flat out doesn’t want her spending time with Nathan. And when told she can’t do something, Ella typically does the opposite. Because she’s curious. It’s in her nature.

After the looks Nathan sent her way and her own physical reaction toward him, it doesn’t take a college degree to add one plus one.

She and Nathan have history. History Damien is well aware of and not sharing with her.

Ditch the interview and come with me, Damien said.

What does he know?





CHAPTER 17

The following morning, Ella wakes to the ghost of a man’s lips on her neck, the shadow of his hands on her ribs. The rough ends of his fingers gliding between her breasts, dipping into the concave of her belly, fluttering over her hips. The heat of him moving inside her. It doesn’t feel like a dream. More like a memory where everything is three-dimensional, from the texture of his skin to the sound of his breathing. To the taste of him.

As for the man, he isn’t Damien.

Ella’s eyes snap open.

The time glows in red numbers from the nightstand clock: 7:05 a.m. Her body glows from the remnants of her dream, aching in a different way from the night before. Inappropriate thoughts of Nathan fill her mind. She blocks them, forces her thoughts to her husband. She glances at her phone with disappointment. Damien never called. She quickly sends off a text—Call me. I’m up.—and rises from the bed.

After a shower and a quick stop at the café—still no text or call from Damien and still no answer when she tries calling him again—Ella arrives at Nathan’s at 8:10 a.m. She’s ten minutes late and he’s raring to go. He’s stowing a cooler in the rear cab of his Chevy Silverado when Ella pulls up alongside. Hitched to his truck is a trailer. Parked on the trailer is a two-seater snowmobile.

Oh, hell no.

Ella’s adventurous. But she’s on deadline. How does he expect her to conduct his interview when they’re flying over snowbanks? There’s also a part of her that feels like she’d be betraying Damien. They were supposed to go snowmobiling in Vail their first year together. She’d awoken the morning after Thanksgiving in a funk so Damien canceled. Instead, he spent the day with her reading beside the fire after she’d promised they’d go snowmobiling next time. There had yet to be a next time. They haven’t been back to Vail since.

Nathan’s grinning as Ella eases down her window.

“Morning,” he says.

She eyes the trailer. “You aren’t serious.”

“I’m one hundred percent serious when it comes to snowmobiling.”

He wears gray snow pants and sturdy boots. He claps his hands together, his body visibly vibrating with excitement.

“Normal people start their days with caffeine,” she complains. Nathan starts his with adrenaline. So much for her conclusion that he’s living a risk-free life.

“Go park. We’re packed and ready to roll.”

She narrows her gaze. “You promised me an interview today, Donovan.”

“You’ll get your answers, Skye.”

“About us, too,” she presses, the memory-dream lurking in her mind. “I want to know everything.”

He drags his knit cap off his head and, ruffling his hair, glances at his boots.

“Sure, yeah, you’ll get those, too,” he says, looking straight at her, and Ella inhales sharply as realization hits her. She now knows why Damien didn’t want her to come and why Nathan acted so familiar with her when she arrived. Nathan’s expression says it all. That dream she had this morning? It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. She and Nathan were involved.

Damn you, Damien, for not telling me.

She should turn around right now, call Rebecca from the road. Insist that she reassign the interview to Jordan or cancel altogether. To hell with her job. Her marriage is more important.

But Nathan . . . She wants to know what happened last summer and what it has to do with her memory loss. The two must be connected. She also wants to know why Nathan hasn’t just come out and told her. He’s as aggravating as Damien, keeping things from her.

She has no choice but to see this through.