Page 38 of Escape to Lighthouse Cove

“And in a way, I couldn’t either,” she continued, “because in that moment… it was like the scales fell from my eyes. Honestly, it was so sudden, so complete, it felt…biblical.” She let out a laugh, this one, thankfully, of genuine humor. “It was like I could see myself properly for the first time. How I’d been sleepwalking through a decade of my life.More.And I could see how much I didn’t love Brad, I hadn’teverloved him, and certainly never enough to give myself the emotional equivalent of a lobotomy.” She shook her head, smiling now, seeming almost lighthearted. “It was a great moment. A devastating moment, but a great one, because for the first time in my entire marriage, I felt free.”

“I can imagine.” He hesitated, and then, compelled by her own honesty to offer his own, “I think I’m pretty sure I know how that feels, actually, although my epiphany was a little less… liberating.”

Grace’s fair eyebrows rose and she sat back on the sofa as she regarded him thoughtfully. “Your epiphany?” she repeated, waiting for more, and he knew he had to tell her.

For the first time, he wanted to.

21

Grace cocked her head, letting her gaze sweep slowly over Noah. He was lounging back against the sofa, looking relaxed, his hair rumpled, his gaze almost sleepy, a very sexy five—or really, eight—o’clock shadow stubbling his jaw, and yet she couldfeelhis tension. She’d just dumped a lot of emotional baggage on him, and she wouldn’t blame him for staggering under that unwelcome load, although she appreciated how well he’d listened.

It had felt surprisingly liberating, and evengood, to get it all out. And she wasn’t even embarrassed. Of course she hadn’t told him everything, and she wasn’t about to now. It was his turn.

“Tell me more,” she said, and he tipped his head back against the sofa cushions to stare at the ceiling.

“I don’t know how much there is to tell. I told you before that I got kind of cocky. Speaking for my brother, thinking I was so funny, starting Grob… it just felt like I was on fire, you know? Like I was some kind of wunderkind who could do no wrong. Everything I touched turned to gold, and everybody loved me. I thought I was amazing. I thought life was amazing.”

Kind of like Brad, Grace couldn’t help but think, although she didn’t want to draw any more comparisons. Brad had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, went to a preppy boarding school, then an Ivy League, before walking into a cushy job as a hedge fund manager at all of twenty-two years old, thanks to his daddy’s connections. He’d been charming, arrogant, throwing money around like confetti. So very sure he could have anything—or anyone—that he wanted, including Grace. Yeah, life had been pretty amazing for Brad, too.

But while her ex-husband believed he was still living the dream—never mind about the ex-wife and kid hiding away here in Maine—Noah wasn’t. Noah had sequestered himself on a tiny island on the northern tip of Maine, and when he’d told Grace about his former life he’d sounded so very bleak.

So she really didn’t need to be making any comparisons, the way she had when she’d first met Noah. He might have possessed a remnant of his former self, cocky and charming, in that first meeting, but she really did believe he was different now. At least, he could be. And so could she.

“So what happened?” she asked, resting her chin in her hand. “To make you see yourself more clearly?”

“Well, this is the thing,” Noah told her with a wry smile and a decidedly shaky laugh. “Unlike your life story, where you’re pretty much an innocent victim and your ex-husband was the big jerk…Iwas not. I was the big jerk, as it happens, in this scenario.”

He stopped, and Grace raised her eyebrows, refusing to be fazed. She had a feeling the person who had the lowest opinion of Noah was Noah himself. “And?” she asked, and he sighed.

“And I didn’t realize it for an embarrassingly long time. I thought I was all that, over and over again, and then… I realized I wasn’t.”

“And what made you realize?” Getting him to share, Grace thought ruefully, was like pulling teeth, and she understood that, of course she did, but… surely Noah wasn’t worried she would judge him? Not after everything they’d told each other?

“Oh, something stupid, really. I overheard someone calling me an asshole,” he said with a flat laugh. “Which is no big deal, except… it was someone I counted as a close friend, although in those days I don’t think I actually had any real friends, but… I thought I did. And I thought this guylikedme.” He sighed, the sound low and heavy. “I mean, it was just a guy I’d worked with. Someone I trusted and whom I thought valued my opinion. We’d go out for beers, play some pool…” He trailed off, shaking his head wearily. “Anyway, at a party, I overheard someone mentioning my name, and this guy said, ‘Oh,thatasshole?’ and he sounded so sneering anddonethat it… it was like your come-to-Jesus moment. I suddenly saw not just myself, but my whole life, in this awful, shocking clarity, and worse, I saw howotherpeople saw me. And I realized how stupid I’d been. How smug and—oblivious, thinking I was parading around town, the city’s superstar that everyone adored, and in reality they were all totally fed up with me, laughing at me behind my back, barely able to endure my company.”

He shook his head slowly, his gaze distant. “And unlike you, sadly, I didn’t use this revelation to make a change in myself or my life. I just doubled down on everything I’d been doing before, became even more obnoxious and desperate to prove myself, which made no sense, but that’s what I did.” He pursed his lips ruefully. “I guess I was angry, and it was a childish, I’ll-show-them kind of response. Which, at thirty-five, is not a good look. But I was determined and I guess I was angry—because I knew I could never be like Jem. Jem, who hardly ever said a word, and yet was always the silent star. I wasjealousof him. I don’t think I even realized that, at the time.” He fell silent, his expression turning drawn and somber. “And then my brother died,” he finished simply, and Grace had the distinct sense he wasn’t going to say anything more. She wasn’t sure how those two things connected, but she felt instinctively that they did.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. They felt like the only words she could offer. “That sounds very… painful.”

He nodded. “But deserved.”

“You really like the self-flagellation, don’t you?” Grace asked wryly, and he stiffened, something almost like anger coming into his eyes.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Grace hesitated, startled by the sudden animosity she hadn’t expected after all their conversation. Maybe her remarkhadbeen a little too flippant, but she hadn’t anticipated Noah’s reaction, the way his gaze latched onto hers in challenge. “Only that it seems like you’ve beaten yourself up about this for a year and half,” she explained cautiously. “How long are you going to keep doing it?”

He shook his head, a definitive back and forth, anger still in his eyes. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Okay,” she replied quietly, “then tell me what itisabout.”

“What’s it about for you?” he flung at her in challenge. “You left your husband, but why did you leave the city? Why are you hiding—because you are as much as I am, Grace?” He stared at her, color flaring in his cheeks, his eyes still sparking angrily, before he dropped his gaze. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come across so aggressively. I guess you touched a nerve.”

“I guess I did,” Grace agreed, her tone somber. She hesitated, then decided Noah deserved some more honesty. “I left the city because Brad had made my life a living hell. When I told him I was leaving, he got angry. Really angry.” She paused, and then admitted painfully, “He actually startedchokingme. Both hands around my throat. I don’t think he was going tokillme, but he certainly wanted to scare me. Although I don’t even know if it was that calculated. I think he just lost his temper, which was plenty scary enough.”

She made herself look at him, even though she felt embarrassed by her admission. Logically, Grace knew she had zero reason to be embarrassed by the fact that her ex-husband had nearly choked her to death. Emotionally, it was a different story. How could she have been so stupid, so naïve and weak, to be married to a man like that fortwelveyears? Nearly a third of her life. And not even realize how it had been killing her—slowly, a suffocation rather than the chokehold that had finally woken her the hell up.

“Grace…” Noah, his expression softened into tender sympathy, shook his head slowly. “I’m so, so sorry.”