Still Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 10) (21 page)

Because they followed up all those happy couple shots with
our
pictures. Me and Hindi six years ago, kissing in Central Park (not my best idea). Fast forward to me knocking on Hindi’s front door in Angel Cay. Me kissing Hindi on the beach, half-in, half-out of the water, while I tangle my fingers in her hair and hold her close. They’re happy pictures, and not just because we’re both smiling. I think we were happy—it’s just that it didn’t last. Real life is hard as shit and we didn’t know our time was almost up.

The tabloid lays it all out there in black and white, from the date of our marriage to the dates of my deployments and the inescapable truth that Hindi Alvarez and I are still married but seeking a dissolution in the state of Florida.
Third time’s the charm, Hindi!
You know that childhood saying about how sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can’t hurt? It’s not true. I’ve broken bones. Taken a bullet twice. Survived hand-to-hand combat where my opponent was trying to kill me and almost succeeded. That shit’s all on the surface, but these words cut deep. In real life, you have to listen and then try to forget.

Or remember.

When I asked her to marry me, she was my first, my best. My very last. The exclamation point at the end of a sentence that began with
Will you marry me?
Now all I have are questions and a picture of my ass in a supermarket tabloid.

“Alain and I got an annulment,” she says quietly. “We kept it private.”

I close the paper. “Let’s define
private.
How big do you think the circulation of this particular tabloid is?”

“Not private enough.” Her shoulders slump and she sounds so unhappy. I want to pull her into the Jeep, into my arms. Want to fix this for her and promise her it’s all going to be okay. A few days ago, a few months ago? Fuck, yeah. I would have. I would have done whatever I could to make the road smooth for her. You know that Irish blessing about the road rising up to meet you with the wind at your back and the sun on your face? I’d still like to be her own personal Zamboni, smoothing out all the rough edges in life, but I can’t shake the feeling that she’s still playing me. That she hasn’t been entirely honest—and if she can’t or won’t tell me the truth now, what kind of future do we have together?

It’s not like a few thousand more people matters, but I’m in a pissy mood. I don’t know where we go from here, and the look on Hindi’s face just confirms it. She never expected me to find out about my predecessor. Husband number one got swept under the rug of her life and she went on—so what’s to say she doesn’t do the same to me, to
us
? Jealousy isn’t a good look for me. I know that, and yet I can’t stop thinking about Mr. Alvarez the First.

“Who is he?” Angel Cay isn’t that goddamned big. While Hindi tries to come up with an answer to my question, I fast-walk the four hundred yards back to her bungalow, where my Jeep is parked out front for the whole world to see. I’ve never done the walk of shame, never left someone’s bed and been forced to wear the same, telltale clothes I wore when I arrived the night before. I plan way too fucking well for that. I don’t get caught out, don’t come up short.

I always wondered how people brazened that out. I mean, there you are, so busted. There’s no hiding what you did or with whom. It was impulsive, accidental, and probably fifty shades of wrong, but you went ahead and did it anyhow. Was an orgasm or four worth what came next? Worse, you can dress it up as love at first sight or insta-lust, use any one of a half-dozen fucking adjectives, but a handful of hours do not a relationship make. I never could figure out what drove people to do it, knowing how badly it would end the next morning.

So how do you like me now? It’s my morning after and I’m parading up Angel Cay’s main street.

“I ran away to Vegas when I was seventeen,” Hindi says. No. Scratch that. She fucking
shouts
the words as she scurries along behind me. Anyone in Angel Cay in blissful ignorance about the state of our personal lives has just been schooled. “I wanted a do-over on my life. I wanted, just once, to
not
be a disappointment. My dad wouldn’t stop harping on what a screw up I was. I couldn’t get my shit straight or right or rainbow-colored enough for him, so I took a sabbatical from his crap and ended up in Vegas. And I met Alain and we thought it was…” She inhales. The woman has an amazing pair of lungs. Bet she could totally make it from one end of the pool to the other without having to surface for air. “Love. Lust. A glorious, wonderful,
fun
mistake.”

I yank open the Jeep’s door and get in. “So you had a shitty childhood and your answer was running away to Vegas. I actually do understand that, Hindi, but what the fuck happened when you got there?”

The basic facts are printed in black and white. I read them. She met Alain when she auditioned for his show. He took a shine to her, and even though she couldn’t dance to save her life (a fact that I can confirm), he made a place for her. Less than twenty-four hours later, they were standing before an Elvis impersonator, swapping promises.

“Day one? Alain and I got married. Day two? We fucked like crazed bunnies. Day three? My dad showed up and dragged me home.”

It all sounds so innocent. I mean, what’s not to like about love at first sight? Have you ever watched two people picking each other up at a bar? And you’re not planning on being like them, not ever. You’re not going home with someone you barely know, someone whose only relationship skill is picking up a tab and flashing flirty-ass grins off the mirror behind the bar and straight at your heart. Got good aim, too, and before you know it, you’re off that stool, holding hands, and out the door. I know better than to take chances.

“You should have told me.” In fact, I’m almost certain that if you’ve been previously married, you have to produce proof that you’re now single when you go for round two in the marital sweepstakes.

Her face tightens. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. But when was the last time you let me in and told me about your feelings? Do you even have feelings?”

Women get all the credit for being sensitive and emotional. They’re the ones who feel things. They fall in love and they have a million words to describe what the sensation feels like. I’ll bet if you check the payroll at Hallmark, the people writing those card verses are all female. They’re good at it—but that doesn’t mean I have to be bad at it. I have feelings. I just prefer to keep my descriptions to myself.

“This isn’t about me being right or you being wrong.”

“It always is,” she says sadly.

“Are we even married?”

Yes, on a scale of one to ten, this has to be the stupidest question I could ask.

Hindi leans against the Jeep’s driver-side door, as if a flimsy piece of metal could keep us apart. “I don’t want to fight,” she says. “But yes. The network had people check.”

There’s something wrong with that last sentence, that her employer had its hired guns checking on her marital status. Why would they even care? It’s a bit of an HR nightmare in terms of taxes and benefits, but it’s not insurmountable. And I’ll bet their lawyers don’t come cheap.

“Me neither.” I’m so fucking tired of fighting, fighting, fighting. Did it for Uncle Sam in a good cause, came home, and I wanted some peace and quiet. Instead I’m now a centerfold. I pinch the bridge of my nose. For all I know, we’ve got paparazzi hiding behind the palms, documenting our every move. I want to meet her halfway, to find some way for this to be okay, but there’s something niggling at me.

“Why does the network care? Why are Lilah’s pictures of us in a tabloid?”

“Lilah’s?”

“Yes, Hindi—Lilah’s. Your Gal Friday and the woman who’s stalked me with a camera every chance she got. She’s on your side, right? So why would she sell pictures of us to a tabloid in the first place?”

It takes me a moment to realize that she’s not going to deny it. That Lilah’s pictures in this tabloid aren’t some kind of freak accident or gross betrayal of Hindi’s trust.

She knew.

Her face totally gives her away, and I’m not sure why I’m still surprised.

“Tell me.”

She winces. “Well, the network wasn’t sure if it wanted to renew me for another season. They wanted more drama, more viewers tuning in. When I found out we were still married, us getting a divorce seemed like something they’d be interested in.”

I hold up a hand, stopping her. “Why is our personal stuff any of their business?”

She taps the tabloid. “Because it means ink. Eyeballs. Free coverage. As long as I keep my viewers hooked, they keep me. I like my job. I don’t want to lose it. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.”

Well. Fuck. I kind of thought we were good at us, but apparently
she
was just doing her job. Really, really well. I rub the back of my neck.

“So the whole time you were down here, you were… trying to boost ratings for your show? You weren’t really trying to work things out?”

She shrugs and I see red.

“And Lilah was running around behind my back taking pictures she could sell to the tabloids?”

Her voice climbs a decibel or six. “No. She
leaked
the pictures. No one cut her a check.”

“That doesn’t make it better.” The need for cash might actually be easier to accept. Electricity and running water don’t come cheap, and we’ve all heard the horror stories about rental costs in New York City. Or hell, maybe Lilah has a beloved sister who needs cash for an organ transplant. An elderly mom about to get the bum rush from her childhood home unless someone ponies up the mortgage payments that are in arrears. I’d take a shopping addiction or a gambling problem, too, because yes, I am that desperate.

Everything she did was a set up.

Everything she said was a sound bite for her next season.

I’m not in a relationship with my wife—I’m accidentally auditioning for season four. Five. Fuck if I know what I’m doing here, but I know one thing.

I’m leaving.

I’m
so
out of here.

Rohan

A
week ago I walked. Six days later I swing by Hindi’s bungalow—and I still have no fucking clue why I do this—just in time to catch the sleek, black car parked outside. As the driver, sweating in his three-piece suit, sets a bright pink duffel bag and a purple roller bag in the trunk, I come to the obvious conclusion. Hindi’s on her way out. Leaving. Going, going, gone. A piece of me feels like the ball in a ball game that’s too close to call. The batter swings hard, there’s a crack and a connection, and then that goddamned ball goes airborne, headed out of the park. For a few glorious moments, all eyes stick to the ball and it’s the goddamned hero, the game-winning player, the star of the show. And then it’s up, up, and over the wall, gone, and the batter tears around the bases.

Just substitute my heart for that poor, lonely, stupid as fuck ball, and you’ll get the picture. Might have been better to hit me in the head with the bat because when that front door flies open, I jerk forward. And yes, I can’t breathe, can’t wait, can only hover there by the rental car like the worst kind of idiot. I had feelings for Hindi and she used me. She was the one who broke us up and I was the loser who got stuck with the bill.

But it’s
Lilah
stepping out onto the porch. I wait a beat, but nothing.
Nada.
No lively, glorious, fan-fucking-tastic explosion of color behind her. No Hindi.

Lilah has words for me, though. She spots me immediately and raises the middle finger on both hands. “You suck,” she yells, loud enough to be heard on the mainland.

“Is Hindi—” Nope. I have no idea how to finish that sentence. Not a clue. Since Lilah’s pissed off, however, she jumps all over me.

“Gone home.” She marches down the stairs and straight over to me. She hits hard, too—her fists drill into my chest and it’s no accident that the four-inch spikes on her boots land on my toes.

I back up a step. You think I should let her go to town on me? Because she’s a girl and Hindi’s her friend? Not this time. Not my problem. Hindi caused this.

I state the obvious. “This is not my fault.”

“Oh, Captain Bullshit, that is so not true.” Lilah fires this off with a sincerity that makes me think she doesn’t know exactly what went down between Hindi and me. “I ought to Photoshop your head onto the body of a turd with the world’s tiniest dick.”

I don’t even have the heart to point out exactly how and where she’s gone wrong. I just turn and head in a different direction. Whatever. Hindi’s headed back to… wherever it is Hindi lives. Yeah. I have no fucking clue where that is, but since her television show shoots in New York City, she must be within commuting distance. See? That’s a nice, practical observation. I used to be the king of logical deductions. B followed A in my universe, two and two added up to four, and relationships only happened in math class.

And divorce is the only logical solution to our situation.

I’d like to say I don’t know where we go from here, but I do. We’ve got a one-way ticket to divorce court. I leave Lilah getting into the car to return to whatever circle of hell she regularly inhabits, and make a solo visit to Ava’s office to verify next steps.