Andrew had been celibate since then, for just over a decade. Was it hard? Yes and no. Yes, because he was a man in his prime and he wanted sex. Wanted the relief and precious seconds of oblivion it provided. But those fleeting moments weren’t worth the emptiness. A secret part of him even got off a little now on depriving himself of anything and anyone but fantasies of Jiya. Like his own secret punishment, inflicted by the object of his obsession. He didn’t care that she’d likely been with men in college—he was loyal to her, whether he could have her in reality or not.
Now, Andrew let his gaze slide toward the woman in question. It wasn’t lost on him that Jiya had only partaken in two drinks, in an attempt to give him the night off from being everyone’s conscience. Giving her what she wanted was second nature, so while he had no intention of getting shit faced and letting the night go sideways, he’d had a few drinks to indulge her. His buzz made him more inebriated than he’d been in a while, though, and he was done. Any further intoxication would be a bad idea, because he was already devising ways to get Jiya alone in the back office. Just to talk.
Right. It would be a miracle if he made it through tomorrow without doing something irreversible. He’d flirted with her last night and again when she arrived at the door in her pinkish-red dress and heels. That made him a bastard. It was just so hard to watch her slip through his fingers and it was happening. The wheels were already in motion.
As if sending his thoughts, Jiya looked over at Andrew and gave a half smile.
When he couldn’t bring himself to smile back, he averted his eyes.
They landed on the cop standing just inside the Castle Gate door.
Andrew’s stomach hit the floorboards. Not tonight. Please not tonight.
The man had been following him for weeks. Every time Andrew saw the officer watching him from the boardwalk or passing the house in his cruiser, the noose tightened a little more around his neck. As of now, Andrew’s goal was to keep the latest appearance from his personal harbinger of doom from ruining Jamie’s bachelor party.
With a heavy swallow, Andrew turned to observe the group’s current antics, which included a mildly wasted—against his will—Jamie getting into the spirit of things by pulling his socks up over his pant legs and jamming on an air guitar to AC/DC. Rory sat back in a booth cracking up, an arm around Olive, filming the entire thing on his phone for blackmail.
Jiya was watching Andrew.
Her eyes ticked between him and the cop.
Andrew waved her off, despite wanting to bury his face in her hair and tell her everything. Everything. And after playing cat and mouse with the officer for half the summer, Andrew got up to go confront the officer.
He knows.
He knows everything.
The closer Andrew got to the man, the more obvious that became.
There was a knowing look in the stranger’s eye that he’d failed to see at a distance. But up close, the actions of Andrew’s past lay between them like a thick fog.
Still, Andrew kept his features schooled, a skill he’d mastered dealing with barroom bullshit for years, and he stopped just within earshot of the cop.
“Help you?”
The fucker smirked. “We’ll see,” he drawled. “Nice to finally meet you face to face, son. You can call me Handler.”
“Who says I want to call you anything?”
With a humorless chuckle, he looked past Andrew. “Pretty girl you’ve got there.”
Just like that, Andrew was neck deep in his worst nightmare. He wanted to reach into the man’s chest and rip out his beating heart for daring to comment on Jiya. Rage riddled him, the kind he’d learned to keep a tight leash on, ever since the night the leash had snapped. Andrew might have acted on his impulse to hurt the man if Jiya wasn’t watching. But he could feel his time with her ticking away and he didn’t want it to be marred.
Keep your cool.
Don’t let him see how important she is to you.
Get him out of here. This isn’t going down tonight of all nights.
“You got a crush on me or something, old man?” Andrew asked, using his body to block Jiya from view. “You’ve been sweating me for weeks.”
“Those are some fucking balls you’ve got there, son. Your dad had brass ones, too.” He smiled without humor, revealing a crooked row of bottom teeth. “Ain’t seen him in a while. Have you? He just kind of…dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Yeah, he was good at that. Taking off, coming and going how he pleased,” Andrew said smoothly, even though that noose around his neck was wrapping slowly around a ceiling rafter. “Guess this time he decided to stay gone.”