Julia
I gazed out the window of the town car as it drove away from the high-rise buildings that dotted the shoreline of Waikiki Beach after dropping Naomi off at her hotel. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to get a room myself. Pack up my stuff. Pretend I’d never accepted my brother’s invitation to use one of his architecture company’s rental properties on Oahu.
If I hadn’t, if I’d kept to my original plan of staying in Waikiki, I never would have met Chris — Lachlan.
At this point, that would have been preferable to the inescapable truth that he’d used me.
I heard Naomi’s voice in my head, scolding me that I didn’t know that for certain. That perhaps there was another explanation.
I couldn’t share in her optimism, though. I gave Nick the benefit of the doubt, and it nearly killed me.
All day, I’d barely been able to focus. I didn’t know how I made it through the cooking segment or the handful of interviews I had. I just wanted to disappear, lock out the rest of the world, and forget I ever met Lachlan.
It should be easy enough. We’d only spent one night together.
One night that ended up being a lie. Simply a scheme to get information.
Nothing more.
I should have hated him for his deception.
A part of me did.
But another part wanted to separate the Lachlan who lied to me from the Chris who made me feel alive. And it was that part that had me entertaining the notion of simply pretending I’d never learned the truth. Keep using him for a week of hot sex. Give him nothing but my body in return.
But I wasn’t that cunning.
That vindictive.
That sinister.
Not like it appeared Lachlan was.
I had really hoped turning forty would be the fresh start I needed. That I’d finally leave the horror of my thirties far behind.
I never expected them to follow me to paradise.
“We’re here, ma’am,” Paul, my driver, announced.
I snapped out of my thoughts, surprised the twenty-minute drive was already over, and peered up at the two-story beach house.
When I left earlier this morning, I was filled with so much hope, so much promise. Now, I feared I wouldn’t be able to step one foot inside without being surrounded by Lachlan’s betrayal.
After everything Nick put me through, I thought I knew enough not to trust so easily. Yet all it took was a panty-melting smile, a few kind words, and a touch that lit me on fire, and I was more than happy to lower my guard.
And my pants.
I couldn’t put myself through that again.
I couldn’t put Imogene through that again.
The car door opened. Paul helped me out before going to the trunk and retrieving my things.
“Do you need help bringing these inside?” he asked, pulling out my garment bag and makeup case, which more closely resembled a suitcase.
There was once a time when the only makeup I owned was some powder, blush, eyeliner, and a few tubes of lip gloss. Now I had everything under the sun, all to make me look the part my PR team had concocted in the hopes of differentiating the Julia Prescott who made cakes and pastries from the Julia Prescott whose husband was responsible for nearly a dozen rapes and murders.
“I can manage.” I took the garment bag from him and draped it over my arm, then grabbed the handle of my makeup case.