Last Summer(64)

“You stalked me?”

“I loved you. I wanted to be involved in Simon’s life. My son’s life,” he says. “Tell me, Ella.” He makes a move toward her. “Was he mine?”

“Enough!” Ella cuts her hand through the air. “I’ve heard enough.” After everything she’s been through. After the loss he’s suffered, grief has him grasping at straws for anyone he can claim as his own. It certainly won’t be Simon. The nerve of him to assume her baby was his.

Ella looks wildly around the room. The dull morning light between the cracks of the curtain panels. The rumpled bedsheets.

Oh, my god. What has she done? What is she doing here? With him?

Going to her luggage, Ella yanks on a pair of jeans.

“You called me right before your accident.”

She stills.

“I think you were about to tell me but we got cut off.”

She squeezes her eyes shut to block out his words. But she can’t. They’re there, and they want to be heard. Mulled over. Considered.

Ella lifts off her sleep shirt and puts on her bra. She tries to put on a clean shirt but her arms shake so badly she keeps dropping it.

Nathan’s voice lowers. She can feel him standing right behind her, the disturbance of air when he says, “I tried reaching you for days after you called. I was worried about you. Rebecca told me you had an accident. I called her when I couldn’t get hold of you. I visited you in the hospital.”

“What?” Ella finally pulls on her shirt and swings around. Her mind stumbles back to her last day in the hospital, to Nurse Jillian, who told her about the commotion the previous day. To the argument between Damien and her that Andrew had mentioned. That argument must have been over Nathan. That commotion must have been between Nathan and Damien. Damien wouldn’t have allowed him to visit her.

Stuffing her sleep shirt into her bag, Ella packs furiously. She’s tough. Usually she can handle the worst sorts of stories about human nature. But this reality, her reality? What Nathan’s done to her? What she’s done to Damien? It’s too much. She has to get out of here.

“What are you doing?” Nathan asks. He winces, his hand still clutched to his ribs.

“What does it look like? I’m leaving.”

“You can’t do that,” he says.

“Watch me.”

Nathan’s expression darkens. The temperature in the room nose-dives.

“You. Bitch.”

Ella snaps to attention. “Excuse me?”

“You got your story and now you’re bailing.”

“That’s not why I’m leaving and you know it.” She zips her luggage closed.

“Why then? You didn’t like what you heard? Not what you expected?”

“I don’t know what I expected. Certainly not this.”

“Then try this on for size,” he says, following her to the bathroom. “Screw and ditch is your MO. That’s how you get your interviews. You did it with me last summer, and you did it with that actor Michael Leed. You got him to spill about his affair with his male costar. You met Senator Burmeister at a fundraiser, a man you’d been trying to nab an interview with for months, charmed the shit out of him, and fucked him. Next thing you knew, his secretary is calling to set up an exclusive with Luxe Avenue. And Damien! Of course, you stayed with him, but you fucked him the night you met because you wanted his story. You told me a lot last summer, Skye, and it wasn’t all pretty.”

She slaps him, the crack of bone on flesh startling. She’s never hit anyone. But then, she’s never been as angry as she is with Nathan. He barely flinches, but the blue in his eyes cools, two icebergs that chill her to the bone.

“I’d say that’s the meds talking, but you didn’t take any this morning.”

“That’s the truth talking.” He growls the words. “I’m only repeating what you told me last summer.”

“Why on earth would I tell you any of that?” His words burn.

“Beats me, babe. We got real close. Maybe you felt compelled to confess all your shit.”

His accusations are insulting and demeaning, designed and delivered to hurt. But what hurts more is that Nathan is telling the truth, as disgusting as he’s made her sound. Ella remembers the interviews, but they were pre-Damien.

As for Simon, Ella doesn’t know what’s the truth and what are lies. What she does know is that she can’t trust Nathan. She made a horrible mistake coming to Alaska.

Scooping up her cosmetics and toiletries, she pushes by him and dumps them in her luggage. She’s still shaking so badly that she almost drops her laptop when she picks it up.

“Didn’t you find it easy getting into bed with me? Guilt-free, I might add. You’ll do whatever it takes to get your story.”

She slams her laptop into her bag.

“I honestly thought I was different than your other lays.”

There’s so much venom in his voice that his words stop her on her way to the door. “For what it’s worth, you were different. I did care about you. But I also fucked you to see if it triggered my memories. Clearly it didn’t work.”

Partial truth. She wants him hurting as badly as he hurt her.

Nathan stumbles back, sinking onto the bed.

She grips the doorknob.