“No, no, Tessa.” Lacey felt the tears spill, bile rising in her as she realized this was way worse than she had feared. “It was nothing like that. I?—”
“Don’t be mad at her, Tessa,” Roman said, making another effort to get onboard.
But Tessa shooed him off, her shaking fingers flipping a line around a cleat, freeing the first tie to the dock.
“Get away,” she ground out.
“Please don’t be mad at her, Tessa,” he said again. “This was all me. My doing, my idea, my scheme.”
She snorted. “How proud you make me…son.”
Roman flinched at the word, watching as Tessa reached for another line, twisting it free.
“Please, Tessa, there’s so much to say,” he pleaded. “We were going to tell you. We just—I had to wait until?—”
“Youliedto me,” Tessa said, her voice sharp and shaking. “You both lied to me. You made a mockery of our friendship, Lacey, and you…” She threw a disgusted look at Roman. “You let me look at you and laugh and talk and share things, the whole time knowing who I was looking at while I had no idea?How could you?”
“Tessa, please,” Lacey said, stepping forward. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Well, you did. You gutted me. Now go away. All of you. Go.”
“I swear to you, we were going to tell you today,” Lacey said, her voice as shattered as her heart. “Roman wanted to tell his parents first and?—”
“Back away,” she insisted, vaulting to the helm. She wrenched the key and suddenly the engine roared to life, the inboard shaking the whole dock.
Lacey stood frozen as the propeller sprayed whitewater and Tessa pulled out with no grace, no care, and no goodbye.
She churned up a wake, leaving water lapping at the pilings with angry, rhythmic splashes.
“Guess I shoulda kept my mouth shut,” Seamus muttered.
“No,” Roman said. “I should have opened mine a whole lot sooner.”
Lacey let go of one long breath, certain that she’d just lost a woman she loved very, very much. And maybe the man she could love, too.
But honestly, right then, only Tessa mattered. And Tessa…was gone.
Of course she ran away. Ofcourse.
When the going gets tough, Tessa takes off.
She could hear her father’s voice in her head, louder than the engine, louder than the truth, louder than the heartbeat she couldn’t calm down.
Well, what was she supposed to do? Throw her arms around the guy? Act like it was no big deal? Stand there and giggle like a fool?
She was a fool, all right. A blind, dumb, clueless fool.
With a noisy groan of agony, she kicked up the throttle and let the waves slap at the boat. Out of the harbor now, the Gulf stretched out before her, glittering and vast, a wide open body of nothingness where she could run, hide, and figure out what to do next.
Good Time Girlsliced through the water like she had something to prove, leaving a rooster trail of white foam for a wake. The wind tangled in Tessa’s hair, salty and hot on her tear-streaked cheeks. Her hands trembled against the wheel.
She wasn’t sure if she was shaking from adrenaline or hurt or shock or…what.
Roman was her son. Herson. How could she have missed that?
Because she never in a million years imagined Lacey would betray her trust andfind him. Not to mention cooking up some scam about being boyfriend and girlfriend so he could spy on Tessa and decide if he liked her sufficiently to acknowledge their blood relationship.
Well, geez. It took him long enough to make the decision.
