The Sinner

“You’re asking me to go with you.”

“It’s short notice, I know but…yeah. I want you to come with me. I don’t know what happened this week, but it suddenly feels like the two years you’ve worked at Ocean Alliance have flown past me and I feel every second of it. All that lost time.” He held me closer. “I don’t want to waste one more minute.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I hid them by pressing my cheek against his broad chest. Guy’s scent filled my nose--nothing like Casziel. No fire and spice. He felt different from Cas too. I felt different in his arms. Stiff and uncomfortable instead of perfect. Across the deck, Abby was alone but had her phone out, filming everything.

“I’ll go with you to Sri Lanka,” I said.

“You will?”

I felt him want to pull me back, to look in my eyes, but I held tight.

“Sure. Why not?” I pressed against him, not sure if I would laugh or cry.

Cry. Definitely cry.

“Great! Let’s talk about it at the office on Monday. Work out the details.” He sighed, content, and held me tighter. “It’s going to be perfect.”

“Perfect,” I nodded, my tears staining the front of his jacket. “Happily ever after.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Twenty

The heavy clouds that had been building on Saturday broke into a steady rain that didn’t let up all day Sunday. The weather app said a huge storm was coming and would last until Tuesday night. Casziel’s last day on This Side.

My thoughts tried to turn to him, but I kept steering them away and spent the dreary afternoon prepping for my presentation. Going through the motions like a robot. Rain battered the window—now closed.

Because it had all been a lie.

My phone rang with Cole Matheson’s number. I ignored it. My BFF tried again and then a text popped up with a thumbnail of his latest sketch—me, looking radiantly happy and surprised about it. Shocked I could actually feel that way.

This is your heart on Cas. Any questions?

My heart clenched with actual physical pain.

Another text followed. OK that was cheesy, even for me, but you’re beautiful, Lucy. I hope the wedding was everything it was supposed to be. Call when you get a chance.

A great sob welled up in me, but I pushed it down. If I started crying now…

I tossed my phone aside and noticed that Edgar, my houseplant, was dead. All the water he needed was pouring down the panes of glass outside the window.

“I’m sorry, Edgar,” I murmured, touching his dried leaves. “I’m so sorry. I got so wrapped up in…”

My words trailed. I didn’t know how to describe the last nine days. A nightmare? A fever dream? Or maybe the entire thing was a hallucination. Maybe I had a brain aneurism. Maybe I was lying in a hospital bed in a coma on the brink of death.

Dad’s voice sounded gently in my head. You’re alive, kiddo. You’re here. You’re strong and you’re not done yet.

I wished I believed him. I wished I believed it was my dad. That he was still with me, just in the next room. But maybe that had been a lie too.

The next morning, I dressed for work and packed my presentation materials in an old briefcase Dad had given me when I went to college. “To hold all my big ideas.” It’d sat empty in the closet for years.

Now, I put in my notebooks and my laptop loaded up with a very plain Google Slides presentation of my shoe idea. I didn’t know why I was still going through with it. I guessed I had a shred of dignity left because the idea of lying around all day, feeling sorry for myself, was nauseating. Then again, everything in my tiny, empty, simple little apartment made me sick. The rows of romance novels were pages and pages of lies. There were no happy endings in real life. Real life was brutal and full of cruel jokes.

Like the fact Guy had finally noticed me and wanted to take me with him to Sri Lanka.

I searched my entire soul and found no feelings for him. I’d been waiting for real, true love my entire life. Probably longer. And now I had a chance, and I couldn’t bring m