Last Summer(48)

“If you can’t give me a straight answer, I mean . . . fuck.”

What kind of marriage do they have if they can’t talk?

Reality check. The kind where she cheated on him. Self-loathing is a rusty weight in her stomach, making her queasy.

“You won’t like what I have to tell you. I don’t know how you’ll take it and I want to be there with you when you hear me out. I can’t risk—” He takes a few beats before he speaks again, and when he does, he sounds so forlorn that Ella wonders—not for the first time—exactly what happened between them before the accident.

“We weren’t supposed to find ourselves back here.”

Back where? Pissed off and uncommunicative?

If he’d been straight with her from the beginning, they wouldn’t have found themselves in this predicament in the first place. Him in London, finally willing to talk, and her on a mountain half a world away. With her ex-lover, apparently.

“I blame you, Damien. Whatever happens with Nathan, I blame you. You got us into this mess.”

Had she known she had an affair with Nathan before Rebecca called about the assignment, she would have declined it on the spot. Fuck her job. Not when it interferes with her marriage. But it’s too late. She’s committed. Her boss’s job is on the line. Her job is on the line. The Jordan Talbots of the world are pining for her assignments. Nathan is the one with the key to unlock her mind. She’s sure of it. Only he can tell her exactly what they did together. Only he can show her what they meant to one another and why. Only then will she be able to figure out why she’s forgotten him.

“Ella.” Damien says her name in warning.

“Nathan leaves for Alaska tomorrow, and if I can convince him, I’m going with. I need another day or so to wrap up this assignment.”

“You what?” he bellows.

“My deadline’s Thursday. I’ll catch a flight to Heathrow when I put the article to bed.”

“Goddamn it, Ella.”

“I don’t see a point—”

“To what?” he snaps, cutting her off.

She sighs, closing her eyes, weary of the secrets and cryptic talk. The circles they’ve been running around each other like loops of coding. She was going to say that she doesn’t see any point in continuing their conversation. But those aren’t the words that leave her mouth. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s thinking until the two-letter word eases off her tongue.

“Us,” she whispers.

“You don’t mean that.”

She doesn’t. But they’ll deal with it when she gets to London. Because he doesn’t want to talk “Over. The. Phone.”

“I have to go.” She ends the call, silences her phone, and lets her forehead fall to the steering wheel.

Everything has gone to shit.



Ella spends another ten minutes chilling in her car. That conversation did not go as planned. More like a backward spiral into the shallow end of a pool. She has so many questions. But she knows she’ll get the answers from Damien when she joins him in London. For now, she’s with Nathan, and he’s holding a whole other set of answers for her.

Unfolding from her car, she takes a deep breath of crisp mountain air, tosses back her hair, and straightens her shoulders. She treks across the yard and lets herself into Nathan’s house.

Inside, Fred and Bing rush over to greet her. Happy with the pats and scratches she doles out, they return to their pillow beds. A fire roars in the wide stone hearth, and stew bubbles in the Crock-Pot. The mouthwatering aroma of roasted meat and onions saturates the large, open living space.

Nathan is at the wet bar. He has changed into jeans and a fitted, long-sleeved blue shirt, the Squaw Valley ski resort logo above the outline of his pectoral. Ella wonders if there’s a Tahoe resort shirt he doesn’t own. She also wonders at her reaction to seeing him so casually dressed and laid-back, barefoot and freshly combed. He looks too damned good.

He mixes her a gin and tonic. “You look like you need it.”

“I do. Thank you.” Who cares that it’s midafternoon? She sips her drink, relishing the cool juniper flavor. “How’d you know I like G&Ts?”

“It’s your go-to drink. You had me mix them for you last time,” he says, pouring himself a bourbon over ice.

“Now you’re not playing fair.”

His brows lift. “How so?”

“You know more about me than I do you.”

“Not really, Ella. You do know everything about me,” he says in a tone that leaves Ella wondering how much he’d come to care for her.

A flush rises up her neck and she delicately clears her throat. “Maybe I did at one point, but now . . .”—she shows him the voice recorder, determined to stay focused—“let’s get down to business. I have a deadline and you have a story to tell.”

His expression cools. He gestures to the seating area before the fire. She sits beside him, leaving a comfortable, professional distance between them, and sets the recorder on the coffee table.

Nathan leans forward, forearms resting on his upper legs, just above his knees, the bourbon glass cradled in his wide hands. “Where do you want to begin?”

“With Stephanie.”

He sips his liquor. “All right,” he says slowly. “What do you want to know?”