Page 57 of Beachfront Pages

So the verdict was void. Thrown out. Not because she'd finally argued her way to enough, but because the judge had never once been fit to rule.

"You don't get to decide that." She shook her head. "You never did."

She breathed out a long breath. Maybe one she'd been holding since February.

It didn't fix everything, and she wanted to be honest with herself about that. The reaching was still real. The part of her that had leaned toward him on the porch, hungry to be told she was good, hadn't vanished just because she'd caught on to his tricks. She'd still have to watch for it, the way she'd watch for a stair she knew was loose.

She could work with that. She'd written enough villains to tell a verdict from a motive. Drake had a motive. He'd had one the whole time. She simply hadn't been able to see it from the inside.

Fiona stood. She noticed her hands weren't shaking. Last night on the porch they wouldn't quit. This morning they were steady. Not the brittle steady she'd faked for half a year, the fine, fine, fine she'd handed everyone. Real steady. Calm steady. Okay, there was still a bit of fury underneath.

She took out her phone and found Drake's number, slightly surprised it was still on her phone. Mad it was still on her phone. She began to type: Meet at Harbor Brew. Twenty minutes.

"All right, then," she said as she headed out the door.

Chapter 19

Fiona got to Harbor Brew first. That part mattered. She wanted the table by the window, the one with a clear line to the door, and she wanted to be the one already sitting when he walked in. Let him cross the room to her this time.

She set her bag on the chair beside her. So no one could take the seat. So Drake couldn't take it, couldn't pull it close and lean in with that low, reasonable voice he saved for talking her out of things.

"Well, look who's out before the lunch crowd." Jan came around the counter with a rag over one shoulder. "Two black coffees, or are we waiting on a guest?"

"Just one for now. I'm meeting someone."

Jan's eyebrows went up. "Someone."

"It's nothing exciting."

"Honey, around here, someone is always a little exciting." But she went and poured the coffee and set it down without making Fiona explain.

The shop smelled like burnt sugar and salt air. Out past the glass the harbor sat smooth under a flat blue sky. She wrapped both hands around the warm mug. She didn't drink. She watched the door.

She'd practiced this. Not the words. She wasn't going to recite anything. She'd just decided how she wanted to feel walking out of here, and worked backward from that. Calm. Done. A woman who'd read the last page and closed the book.

The bell over the door jingled.

And there he was. In another pressed blue shirt because so many people told him that shade of blue brought out the blue in his eyes and he loved that. His sleeves were rolled just so, like he'd dressed for a photograph of a man being casual. He spotted her and his whole face opened up, warm and sure. It was the look that used to undo her in a hotel lobby. The look that worked across a crowded room full of people who mattered.

It didn't undo her now. She noticed that the way she'd notice a clue. Filed it away.

"Fee." He slid into the chair across from her. "Thank you for this. Really. I know I sprang all this on you."

"Sit down. You're already sitting." She nudged the second mug she hadn't ordered him toward the middle of the table. "Jan'll come take your order. Coffee's good here."

"I'm fine. I don't need anything." He folded his hands on the table, earnest. "I've been thinking about everything I said last night. I owe you a real conversation."

"I know why you're here."

He paused. Just a flicker. A man recalculating. "I told you why I'm here. I made a mistake. The biggest one of my whole life."

"Drake." She kept her voice low and even. No heat in it. She'd been very clear with herself about that. No scene. No raised voice for the Harbor Ladies Club—who Jan insisted the town referred to as the Harbor Hens—to chew on by suppertime. "I want to tell you something, and I want you to actually hear it. Can you do that?"

His jaw set, just slightly. "Of course."

Behind the counter, Jan had gone quiet. Fiona could feel it without looking. The chatter dialed down a notch. Jan suddenly had a great deal of careful wiping to do on a stretch of counter that Fiona was certain was already clean.

"The news broke on Monday," Fiona said. "About the deal. My name, the real numbers, all over the industry. It was everywhere by Tuesday." She watched him. "And you showed up on my porch Wednesday. Two days later."