“Oh, Jack.” I bent over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, flinching at the overwhelming scent of whisky wafting from him.
Our eyes met as I pulled back.
The sick feeling in my gut grew and grew as I considered how he’d feel if he remembered this in the morning.
“I’m a vault, Jack. I won’t tell anyone.” I wouldn’t. I would never jeopardize him or his sister like that.
A murder.
I could barely wrap my head around it.
“Of course you won’t,” he whispered, his eyelashes fluttering closed. “You’re just a dream.”
I groaned as Jack’s soft snores drifted into the room.
He would be so pissed in the morning when he realized what he’d done.
Or should I say … what I’d manipulated him into doing.
13
Jack
One year ago
He was a coward.
Jack had never felt that more than when he woke up in a house he didn’t recognize, saw a photograph of Emery on the wall with an older woman, realized it was her house, and hightailed it out of there before she appeared.
Waking up fully clothed on Em’s couch was one thing. Seeing his car parked right up against her porch, wheels turned out, proving he’d driven here drunk, was another.
Wondering what he’d said to her didn’t bear thinking about.
Even though he shouldn’t have, he drove back to his place.
He promptly threw up in his bathroom, thanking God he hadn’t thrown up at Em’s. He hoped. Downing Tylenol and one of the smoothies he drank after a workout, Jack sat for a bit to keep it down. And he tried to think. Tried to remember.
Nada.
Getting ready for the day with the hangover from hell was difficult. His hands shook as he showered and trembled as he dressed, and his legs didn’t feel steady. Part of Jack wasn’t even sure if it was just the hangover.
What the hell had he said to Emery?
Jack remembered their encounter on the boardwalk. She’d cut him to the quick. He’d gone home, cracked open the whisky. Fucking downed a ton of his best bottle. Eighteen-year-old Macallan in a sherry oak cask.
That shit was expensive.
Groaning at the thought, Jack checked his phone, which he’d left at home while he was doing whatever he was doing at Emery’s. There were missed calls from Ian, Stu, Kerr, and Vanessa.
Two missed calls from Vanessa.
An image of Emery’s face flashed across his eyes. Her expression when he approached outside the hotel—he’d known right away she knew about Vanessa.
“I … I guess she was just a reminder.”
“A reminder?”
“Of how you see and treat women. I’m not special to you, Jack.”
Not special to him.
He was enraged she’d said that … but then what the fuck else was she supposed to believe?
Ignoring the missed calls, Jack stuffed the phone in his pocket and set out to run on the beach. Maybe it would help with the hangover. Maybe it would make it worse.
He didn’t care.
As he took off from his house, he did so tentatively at first because every pound of his feet on the sidewalk was a beat of pain in his throbbing head. After a while, he picked up the pace and soon he was on the beach, the sand creating resistance.
That’s when the memories came back in fragments.
He saw Emery on her porch, coming toward him.
He saw her above him, like he was lying with his head in her lap.
What the hell did he say to her, though?
Her sweet voice filled his head. “I’m a vault, Jack. I won’t tell anyone.”
That wasn’t from last night, Jack argued with himself. Emery had said that to him years ago. Right?
“Of course you won’t. You’re just a dream.”
Uneasiness built in Jack and he ran harder, faster, the sweat soaking his shirt as his body pushed out all the toxins from the alcohol.
“You deliberately set it up for Cooper to find you with her.”
“Yeah.”
“Two birds. One stone.”
Fuck! Jack stumbled to a halt, bending over, hands on his thighs to catch his breath as it came back to him. Emery helping him into her house. Putting him on the couch …
Coaxing the truth out of him.
Horror slammed through Jack as he bit out a curse, running his hands through his sweat-soaked hair.
He’d told Emery everything.
Suddenly, he was running again, but this time with a clear direction. It was too early for her to open the store, so she’d be at home. Jack ran miles down the beach to her house, jumping over the locked private-access gate and taking her porch steps two at a time.
He pounded his fist against her screen door.
Not even a minute later, she appeared through the hazy screen, her frown disappearing when she realized it was him.
“Jack.” She opened the door, standing before him in nothing but a tiny tank top and short shorts. Her hair was piled on top of her head, but long strands fell around her neck and face. It was also clear from the slight pebbling of her nipples that she wasn’t wearing a bra.