At First Hate (Coastal Chronicles)

“Then, everything seemed to happen all at once. I found out that she’d quit her job while she was away on what I thought was a business trip. Instead, she’d gone to St. Barts with her friends for a week with a cost in the low six figures.”

I gasped. “Holy shit!”

“While I waited to confront her about the spending and her job, I went through the bills. She’d told me that she was handling them. That I needed to just relax after work and not worry about money. I’d been played. She was running up all of our credit cards. Three of them were maxed out, and apparently, she’d opened seven more that were well on their way.”

My eyes rounded in horror. “Derek, that’s terrible. I can’t… I honestly cannot even imagine.”

“She had an insatiable appetite for money. We had a huge fight when she got home. I cut up all the cards. I put limits on my bank accounts. She was furious and hit me, scratching my arms and face and screaming like a banshee. I’d never seen anyone act like that.” His eyes were so far away. “I still tried to salvage the situation. I wanted her to go to therapy.” He shook his head. “Suffice it to say, none of that worked out. I was saddled with all of her debt during the divorce, but I got out without having to pay her alimony. She had been counting on that money to continue living this insane life, but it didn’t happen, and she still has the audacity to ask me for more money.”

My mind was reeling from this news. And by how similar it felt to my childhood. All the times my mom had train-wrecked back into our lives to ask Gran for money. The way she begged until it happened. Then, she was gone again with some new man who was the one. When it inevitably didn’t work, she always came crawling back. And Gran had always given in until the very, very end, the last one that had ruined all of this.

“Believe me when I say that I know something of what you went through,” I whispered. “I can’t imagine the depths of her betrayal, but I do remember what it is like to live with someone like that. To always be looking for the next time they tried to ruin everything.”

He frowned as he realized I was talking about my mom. That little piece wedged between us uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Mars.”

“Me too.”

“This is why I pursued you when I saw you were back in town.”

“This?” I asked in confusion.

“You were the only person who ever cared about me… just me.”

Our eyes met in the distance, and my heart melted all over again. I crossed the sitting room and curled up into his lap. I rested my head against his chest, just listening to the soft beat of his heart.

“Why is this always so hard?”

He kissed my hair. “It’s not. You and me, Mars, we’ve always been easy. That’s why I want you back. I want you to be mine. I want all those things we talked about when I was still too young and immature to ask for them.”

“But…”

He tilted my chin up to look at him. “Don’t think about it. Just be here with me. Just be mine.”

I wanted it to be that easy. To not have one more thing between us.

Then, the doorbell rang, and Ash crashed into his house with a boisterous, “Honey, I’m home!”

Amelia giggled behind him. “Shut up, Ash.”

They barreled into the sitting room just as I slid off of Derek’s lap.

Ash raised his eyebrows. “Are we interrupting?”

Derek threaded his hand into mine. “Nope.”

Amelia grinned from ear to ear. “I love seeing y’all together again.”

“It’s adorable,” Ash said with an eye roll. “Can we go now?”

“Yeah. I just had to deal with Kasey.”

“More money?” Amelia snarled.

“You guessed it in one.”

“She’s the worst,” Ash said.

I fell into step with them, as if I’d always belonged there. It was easier than thinking about all the problems that we still had to face. If I even was able to. The case was only a few weeks away, and after that, I had to return to Atlanta to my job at Emory. What would happen then?

When I looked up into Derek’s smiling face, I decided I didn’t care. This was everything that I’d ever wanted with Derek. I wanted to live in this moment forever.

34

Savannah

Present

Derek docked the sailboat with Ash’s help while us girls huddled together. It was always a few degrees colder on the water, and the breeze had chilled Amelia and me to our bones. Thank God for the extra blankets Derek had on board. Besides the cold, we had a perfect day out on the water. The wind had filled the sails. Ash was drinking less and starting to look like a person again. And Derek and I were just together. As we should have always been.