Swept Away 4 Read online

  Swept Away, Volume 4

  First Digital Edition, December 2014

  Copyright 2014 Jennifer Haymore

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Swept Away

  Volume 4

  J. Haymore

  Table of Contents

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Connect With J

  About This Book

  About the Author

  Swept Away, Volume 4

  Ethan has dropped his final bomb, and I'm done. I'm finished. I can't do this anymore.

  I had no idea of the danger I was stepping into. That she was one step ahead of me at every turn. And that I was about to be in a desperate fight for my life.

  Connect with J.

  Sign Up For J’s Newsletter

  Website: jenniferhaymore.com

  Twitter: @jenniferhaymore

  Facebook: jenniferhaymore-author

  Goodreads

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I’m walking away from the arrival gate at the Burbank Airport terminal. Away from the crowds of reporters. Away from Ethan.

  Away from the strange woman he was holding in his arms.

  “Justine Lindberg, his fiancée,” the bodyguard had said. I shudder, but I stride resolutely forward, fixing my gaze on the two bodyguards as they lead Kyle and me toward glass double doors. Two other men follow us, bearing our luggage. As soon as one of the men opens the door, I spot my Aunt Jo standing with Kyle’s parents in a small baggage claim area.

  All the dammed-up emotion inside me bursts free, and I brush past the man, lunging for Aunt Jo. She opens her arms for me just as I barrel into them.

  She just holds me, stroking my hair, as I bury my head in her shoulder. She knows what happened—how Mick was stalking me and tried to kill me, how he blew up the sailboat, how Nalani died. She’s never met Ethan, but she knows I’ve been seeing him.

  What she doesn’t know is that some woman just threw herself at Ethan and that he seemed to forget I existed the moment he saw her. She doesn’t know how my stomach is tied up in knots, how my skin is cold and clammy, and how my heart has just shattered.

  Aunt Jo doesn’t know all this, but it doesn’t matter. Aunt Jo is like a mother to me. She doesn’t ask questions, never judges. Now, she hugs me fiercely as I cling to her, only vaguely aware of Kyle reuniting with his parents just a few feet away.

  “Miss?”

  It’s the bodyguard. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I turn to him. He gives me a sympathetic smile, then addresses all of us. “The car is waiting. If you’ll follow me?”

  Ethan had said he’d have a car ready for all of us to get away from the reporters. But Ethan isn’t here, and right now, I don’t want to have anything to do with him. I look at Aunt Jo. “Did you bring your car?”

  “No, I’m carpooling with the Carlssons.”

  Carpooling with the Carlssons. I’ve heard that phrase a million times in my life and have always thought it sounded like a title of a sitcom. Aunt Jo and Kyle’s parents are next-door neighbors, and they formed a carpool every year for me and my sister and Kyle and his brother.

  “We brought the Range Rover, so we’ll all fit,” Tobias, Kyle’s father, says. He’s in his fifties and looks like a distinguished, serious, gray-haired Kyle.

  “We have our ride taken care of,” I tell the bodyguard. “Thanks, though.”

  He hesitates for a second. Then, “But Mr. Williams said—”

  “You can tell Mr. Williams we chose not to go in his car, okay?” My voice is pleasant, even if my words aren’t. Aunt Jo stiffens a little, and I can tell she is surprised—she isn’t used to me being so assertive.

  I turn back to Aunt Jo. “Can we go?”

  “Of course, Pumpkin. We’re just across the way.”

  Aunt Jo has always called me Pumpkin. She says I looked like one when I was a baby, chubby and round, with an orange hue to my skin thanks to newborn jaundice. She was my mom’s best friend and my godmother. She raised my sister and me after our parents died, and she says she never regretted a day of having the two of us in her life. She loved us unconditionally, though we couldn’t have been the easiest girls to raise. Emily with her brash sexuality—making out with boys in the downstairs closet in fifth grade—me with excruciating shyness and anxiety. Each of us reacted to the loss of our parents in different ways, but Aunt Jo took it all in stride.

  She ushers me out to the Carlssons’ Range Rover, and we get in the back along with Kyle’s mother while the men stow our luggage in the trunk.

  Tobias drives out of the airport, and no one speaks until after he’s paid the parking attendant. Then he asks, “So, should I drive you two home?”

  Kyle and I both live in West LA. My flat is one of the penthouses in a high-rise apartment building. Kyle rents a room in a house owned by two attorneys who are rarely home.

  Aunt Jo looks at me critically, then says, “I think you should stay with me tonight.”

  I am so relieved to hear this. Because going to my dark, quiet apartment and being alone tonight—that won’t be a good thing. I nod my agreement.

  Kyle, who’s sitting beside me, addresses his parents. “Yeah, would it be okay if I crashed with you guys tonight?”

  His mother, Susan, raises her brows in surprise. She, unlike Aunt Jo, who’s a Prius-owning, granola-loving hippie and proud of it, is very “Southern California.” She hasn’t hesitated to take every opportunity to slow the aging process. Botox, tummy tuck, boob job…and more, I know. She’d tell me if I asked—she’s proud of all her “enhancements,” but I haven’t asked. She looks plastic, and I’ve heard people call her a ditz more than once. But she’s actually one of the nicest, most sincere people I have ever known, and she’s as smart as a whip. When we were growing up, she saw through Kyle’s BS every time.

  “Is that all right with you, Mom?” Kyle asks.

  “Of course, sweetheart,” Susan says.

  Tobias nods, and forty-five minutes later, he’s pulling into Aunt Jo’s long driveway. We’ve spent the last fifteen minutes in relative silence after Kyle rehashed the story of what happened to us on the sail from Los Angeles to Hawaii on the Temptation—sans relationship drama, of course.

  The Carlssons have decided that Kyle and I need a hot meal, a full night’s sleep, and plenty of rest. They speak as if we were just rescued last night instead of over two weeks ago, but they are good-hearted, and just being around them makes me feel like I’ve come home.

  Aunt Jo’s house is an older two-
story wooden structure—an eclectic mishmash of archeological styles tucked into a glen of tall eucalyptuses, weeping willows, and pepper trees. She unlocks the enormous red door, and I breathe in the smell of home—eucalyptus and cinnamon. Tobias brings my luggage in for me, taking it straight to my old room without asking anyone where it should go. Then he kisses my cheek and tells me I’ll feel better tomorrow.

  Kyle has come in too, and he meets my eyes. “I’ll come over in the morning.”

  Before I can respond, he’s following his father back to the Range Rover.

  I turn away from the door, and Aunt Jo closes it securely and flips the dead bolt.

  “Go take a shower,” she orders. “I’ll make some hot milk.”

  I nod, head upstairs, and go through the motions, getting a change of clothes from my bag and a towel from the linen closet.

  I’m not going to think about Ethan.

  I take a shower mechanically—no thinking about Ethan, I refuse to think about Ethan—dry myself off, put on a pair of pajama bottoms and a black T-shirt. Stop thinking about Ethan! I run a brush through my wet hair and head back downstairs, needing not to be alone with my running thoughts.

  Aunt Jo is puttering around in the kitchen. She faces away from me, and her long gray braid extends all the way down her back. She’s wearing loose, flowery pants and a black lacy blouse.

  “Do you need help?” I ask her.

  “No, I don’t. Sit down, Pumpkin.”

  I lower myself onto a bench seat at the retro orange Formica table in the breakfast nook. She brings over two cups of steaming milk generously sprinkled with her favorite spice, cinnamon, then sits at the white-vinyl-covered chair across from me.

  I look down into the speckled surface of the milk. Steam curls up from its surface, and I wrap my hands around the cup, trying to steal some of its warmth for myself. I doubt it can melt the chunk of ice that has solidified inside me, though.

  “Tell me,” Aunt Jo says quietly. “Something happened, didn’t it? You told me you’d introduce me to Ethan tonight.”

  I swallow hard, refusing to let myself cry. I’ve done more than enough crying lately. “I honestly don’t know what happened,” I push out, trying to keep my voice steady. “Everything was fine. We…were planning to go on a date tomorrow. And then…we got off the plane, and…and…”

  Aunt Jo doesn’t press. She just waits for me to find the words.

  “He just…withdrew. He’s an affectionate person, but the second we got off the plane, he didn’t touch me. And then this woman threw herself at him, and he…he hugged her…” I’m gulping in air at this point, and I gaze at my milk, trying to calm myself down.

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  “He hugged her,” I say tightly. “They kissed—”

  “Oh. Shit,” Aunt Jo says.

  “And then he held her hand and faced the media with a big smile on his face.”

  “But—”

  I throw up my hands in utter confusion. “He hates the media! As soon as he found out they were there waiting for us, he arranged to have those men there and the car waiting so we could get out of there quickly. But then that woman showed up, and…and all that happened, and he didn’t even look at me again. It was as if I never existed. I asked one of the bodyguards who she was, and he said her name is Justine something-or-other, and that she’s his…fiancée.” I choke out that last word.

  “Oh, Tara.”

  “I don’t get it. He seemed so…” I shake my head. “We had plans. He wanted me to spend the night at his place tomorrow. So how is this even possible? I feel like we landed in some alternate reality. He acted like…” He was in love with me. As deeply in love with me as I am with him. “He was acting like I was a stranger.”

  I gulp down a drink of milk then put the cup down. “Oh my God. I just remembered something. He told me that he wanted to keep our relationship out of the public eye. But maybe…maybe that was because he wanted to keep me a secret from his fiancée. Maybe he wanted to keep her a secret from me, but that was all ruined when she showed up at the airport…?”

  Aunt Jo’s lips twitch. “You sound like one of your mom’s old soap opera episodes.”

  “But that has to be what happened,” I exclaim. “I can’t think of any other explanation.”

  “I’m sure there’s another explanation,” she says quietly.

  I shake my head. Ethan has betrayed me before, when I thought I could trust him completely. This time, I’ve been more hesitant to give him my trust, but we were almost there…and he’s betrayed me again.

  “I need him out of my life,” I whisper right as the realization hits, talking to myself more than to Aunt Jo. “I can’t do this anymore.” And even if I could, I don’t—I can’t—want him. He’s lied to me…I’ve lost count of how many times. He claims he’s never lied to me, but he’s omitted so many facts, it’s ridiculous.

  Lies of omission are still lies. And “I really like you and I want to keep having sex with you, but I’m not going to let you know about the fiancée I have back home” is one of the worst lies of omission possible.

  “You should get the whole story before you make a final judgment,” Aunt Jo says.

  I shake my head. “He’s done this before. I didn’t tell you this—I couldn’t, not over the phone—but he dated Emily right before she died.”

  Aunt Jo jerks back in surprise.

  “He didn’t tell me until after the Temptation sank,” I say quietly. “He led me to believe he knew nothing about me.”

  There’s more—how Emily asked him to watch over me, and how literally he took her request: installing a new security system in my building, hiring people to watch over me, going to Cabo at the same time Aunt Jo and I went in January…and more.

  If Aunt Jo knew all of it, she’d be disgusted. And she’s already reeling from the fact that he dated Emily. If she hears the the rest right now, she’ll probably give up her peace-loving ways, march upstairs, grab the shotgun in the attic, and go after him with it.

  Aunt Jo raises her hand. “So let me get this straight,” she says. “He pursued you knowing you were Emily’s sister, yet he didn’t bother to mention that teeny, tiny, little fact to you?”

  It was a lot more complicated than that, and I was actually the one who did most of the pursuing. But Aunt Jo’s assessment is close enough. I nod.

  “What an asshole,” Aunt Jo announces.

  “Right,” I mutter. Oh, little does she know. And a part of me realizes that I won’t tell her the whole story now because I want to protect Ethan.

  Why the hell would I want to protect him? After everything? Why?

  I don’t understand myself.

  “And you forgave him?”

  “I was trying to. I think I had forgiven him, but now…” My head is a jumbled mess. I’m having a hard time thinking beyond the present, beyond Ethan’s new betrayal. But the truth is, I have to live my life. Kyle will be over in the morning. I need to go home and face the future. Somehow.

  Taking another swallow of milk, I gaze at Aunt Jo. She looks kind of like Sophia Loren, twenty-five years younger, with no makeup and a full head of gray hair.

  “I need to go to bed,” I tell her, setting down my cup with a thunk on the Formica.

  “Of course.” She rises when I do, then comes around the table and hugs me. “I’m sorry, Pumpkin. I want so bad for things to go right for you, for you to find happiness. But life just keeps wanting to throw the punches your way.”

  “It’s not very fair of life to keep doing that to me,” I say wryly.

  “I know. I intend to give it a very firm talking to while I am meditating tonight.”

  “Please do,” I say. Because, honestly, I’ve had enough. Enough.

  “Sleep tight. Tomorrow I’ll make you and Kyle an omelet, okay?”

  Kyle and I love Aunt Jo’s famous organic spinach-and-feta omelets. I try to smile. “Okay.”

  I head upstairs, to my old room, which
Aunt Jo has redecorated to be a guest room with a cat theme—made stranger by the fact that she doesn’t have any cats. A quilted bedspread featuring a giant calico cat’s head covers the bed, and framed photographs and posters of various cats in various poses line the walls. A large scratching post stands in the corner. When I first saw this room redecorated, I’d laughed and told her it was good she hadn’t added a litter box for that final touch.

  I brush my teeth, then climb into bed and turn off the light. I stare at the crack in the ceiling for a long time. That hasn’t changed—the ceiling cracked during the big earthquake when I was a baby. Before I lived here. To me, it’s always been here. It’s an anchor to hold on to, now that my bedroom as I knew it is gone.

  The bed is cold—absent the warmth of Hawaii and the more immediate comforting intimacy of Ethan’s naked body beside mine.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t go there. Longing for something I technically don’t want anymore is completely counterproductive.

  After an hour or two, I fall into a fitful sleep, but by the time dawn begins to light the sky, there’s no hope of me falling asleep again. I just lie there anyway, until the sounds of Aunt Jo moving around in the kitchen drift upstairs.

  I remember those first few days in Hawaii, wallowing in depression and having no desire to leave the hotel room. I’m determined not to let that happen again. I have family, I have friends, and I have my own life to look forward to.

  I’m going to look forward to it, even if it kills me.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By the time I wander downstairs, Aunt Jo has brewed coffee, and she hands me a steaming cup with just the right amount of cream and sugar. She knows me well.

  “You’re up early,” she says as I take a grateful sip.

  I nod.

  “I thought we could go get a mani-pedi today,” she says casually, her back to me as she looks into the fridge, “like we used to.”

  Aunt Jo hates people touching her feet. Back in high school, I’d really wanted to try getting a manicure and pedicure. She took me on my fifteenth birthday, and we sat beside each other and laughed over People magazine. When it was over, she admitted her toes actually looked cute, after the torture of the lady rubbing that “rough thing” over the arch of her foot.