Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 102479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
“I’ve never been,” Jagger said. “I actually haven’t been here in years, either.” He was quiet for a moment. “I think that scooter might be the first thing I’ve driven in a couple of years, too.”
“Really? You mean the first time you’ve driven something with two wheels?”
He shook his head. “I can’t remember the last time I drove a car.”
I hadn’t given it much thought, probably because his house had multiple garages, but there hadn’t been a car in his driveway when we pulled up. “How did you get out to Montauk? Did you take the train?”
He shook his head. “Sam drove. I didn’t want to waste the hours in the car not working.”
“I’m glad you came today then. It’s too beautiful not to visit more frequently.”
Jagger nodded, still looking at me. “You’re right. It is.”
CHAPTER 17
* * *
Sutton
“You hogging this view all to yourself?”
Jagger came over to where I was sitting on the bow of the boat, taking in the sunset on the ride back home. I smiled. “I’m pretty sure no one else is up here because most of the others aren’t sober enough to navigate the narrow walk along the side to make it.”
“True.” He smiled and pointed to the spot next to me. “Mind if I sit?”
I shook my head. “I’d like that.”
Jagger sat down, and we watched his incredible boat cut through the water, moving toward the glowing horizon in silence. The sky was lit in a gradient of orange and pink rays that deepened to a rich rust and burgundy as they melted into the ocean. The last bit of golden sun cast a shimmery trail across the top of the water. It made the ocean ahead sparkle.
“Haven’t done this in a while either,” Jagger murmured.
“Watch the sunset?”
He nodded.
“You know, all work and no play makes Jagger a dull boy.”
He smiled, and we let the silence sit comfortably for a while. “Your mother seems like she had a good time today.”
I nodded. “Edmund too. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him in ages.”
“Guess we both needed to take a break.”
“And my day turned out to be nothing like I’d expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Pure torture.” I laughed. “A day with my ex who married my stepsister.”
“How did that go down, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Brendan and Colette getting together?”
He nodded.
I let out an audible sigh. “Brendan and I split about a year and a half ago. He’s from New York, too, but we met out in California. We both went to Stanford. When he graduated, he moved back home, but I still had another semester left and wanted to do my master’s out there after I was done. We tried the long-distance thing for a while, but it didn’t work out.”
“Whose idea was it to split?”
“In a way, I guess it was both of ours. He wanted me to move back to New York and do my master’s at Columbia or NYU. I’d gotten into their programs, too. But I wanted to stay at Stanford and do my graduate work under a professor I’d TA’d for and really admired. Brendan gave me an ultimatum. If I stayed in California, we were going to break up. He wanted us to move in together in New York and get engaged. I didn’t think he’d actually end things when I decided to stay at Stanford because if he loved me enough to want to propose, how could he just turn around and dump me because I was going to be gone another year? So I called his bluff by accepting the position at Stanford, and it turned out, he wasn’t bluffing.”
“How soon after that did he get together with your stepsister?”
“We broke up in August, and they were together by Thanksgiving.”
“Were they seeing each other before you split?”
I shook my head. “I thought about that a lot in the beginning, but I really don’t think so. They claim they saw each other at a bar one night about six weeks after we broke up. They’d met a few times at family events, so they already knew one another. When I found out, I got the ‘we didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear’ speech.”
“Are you still in love with him?”
“God, no. I’m not sure if I ever was, if I’m being honest. Brendan was a safe choice for me.”
“How so?”
“He was a nice guy from a good family and…he didn’t want to have sex.”
“You didn’t want to be pressured?”
I shrugged.
Jagger studied my face. “I’m not going to judge you. Lord knows I have my own issues with sex. But if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
“No, I…” I looked away, trying to decide what to tell him.
What I wanted was to tell him everything, which was truly crazy because I’d been through three therapists and never wanted to tell any of them anything. I’d opened up to the last one more than the first two, but I’d never wanted to share my story with anyone. To this day, not even Brendan knew what had happened to me. I’d only ever told Miles and my mother, and my mother had shared my story with Edmund. Yet right now I took a deep breath, ignored the churning in my stomach, and turned to face Jagger—and my own fears.