“Right.” Slowly I moved away from her and offered my hand.

“Hey!” Demetri yelled from behind us. “Nice black eye!”

I flipped him off.

“Nice finger!”

I turned around and made a move to chase him down, but Nat tugged on my hand. “Castle. We have to build the castle! We aren’t losing to Demetri. The guy can’t even walk without getting a side ache.”

“Sorry. I was distracted by my girlfriend clocking me in the jaw, won’t happen again.”

Nat smirked and threw the little plastic bucket at me. “Dig.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We frantically filled the buckets around us with the wet sand and began constructing our castle just as Jaymeson and Angelica made it to the beach. I didn’t have to turn to know they were present. Angelica made sure of that with her yelling and screaming.

“Muzzle her, would you?” I yelled back to Jaymeson.

“Tried. Apparently they only let you muzzle dogs, not humans.”

“I don’t see what the problem is.” I chuckled.

Jaymeson laughed right along with me and tugged Angelica to the space next to us.

“Gross!” Angelica swatted her hands at the wet sand, some of it landed on our castle. Nat grumbled under her breath and glared over at Angelica.

“Just build the damn castle,” I heard Jaymeson say.

“And if I don’t?” Angelica taunted.

“Then I’ll bury your entire body, leaving your face exposed to the sunlight and put peanut butter on your nose for the seagulls to feed on.”

“Graphic,” I muttered under my breath to Nat who was trying ridiculously hard not to laugh.

“Fine.” Angelica huffed and began working with Jaymeson.

According to our instructions, Nat and I only had one more section of the castle to build. It wasn’t that big but the directions said we had to have at least eight bucket towers.

An hour later and we were just on the last tower when I heard someone screaming my name.

Actually, scratch that. I heard several people screaming my name. I blinked against the sudden flash of light and noticed reporters littering the beach like one of us had just decided to strip nak*d in public.

“Alec is it true? Are you on anti-depressants? Did Nat threaten to break up with you? Did she punch you in the face? Are you dying?”

I glared at Ruben. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d purposefully leaked something to the media. The only people who knew our location was the film crew.

Ruben called into his walkie-talkie and soon our security detail pulled up and began slowly leading the media off the beach.

“Guess the cat’s out of the bag then,” Angelica sang to herself. “Soon everyone will know all your dirty little secrets, Alec.”

“Pretty sure they know them all now,” Nat answered just as I opened my mouth.

“Oh, honey…” Angelica stopped putting sand in her bucket and turned a wicked smile toward Nat. “You sweet, innocent little lamb. You know absolutely nothing. Isn’t that right, Alec?”

Forgetting about the cameras for a brief second, I wondered if I would actually get arrested for striking a woman. I clenched sand hard in my fist until I was sure I would have bruises of tiny sand marks etched on my skin.

“Five more minutes!” Ruben announced. “And the castles have to be finished before you row back to the next shore and move on toward your last game of the day!”

“Ignore her,” I whispered to Nat as I released all the sand from my hand and wiped it across my board shorts.

“Can we be done?” she asked in a small voice.

I inspected our castle. It was damn near perfect. “Yup!”

Hand in hand we ran back to our boat and began rowing back to the original shore.

Nat was silent until about halfway across. “What did Angelica mean? Does she know something I don’t?”

Hell, yes. “Don’t worry about it. She’s just jealous because I’m the only Daniels brother she hasn’t slept with.”

Nat’s eyes closed. “I didn’t realize how badly I needed to hear you say that until now.”

“Say what? That she’s jealous?”

“No.” Nat shook her head. “That you haven’t slept with her. I was worried that… well, I mean, it would explain a lot.”

I almost laughed. She was relieved I didn’t sleep with Angelica, yet she had no idea what I did do that night. No idea the choices I made and how they would affect her even now as she was stressing about another woman.

“I didn’t sleep with her. If I remember correctly I rejected her.” I cleared my throat and looked down at my feet as I continued to row. “I may have kissed her.”

“WHAT?” Nat roared.

I ducked. Self-preservation and all that. Besides who really wants to sport two black eyes, both from your girlfriend?

“When?”

“Before you and I were dating,” I answered honestly. Finally. I could at least tell the truth about that. “I, uh, well, we had to do some promo together. We both had a lot to drink and I kissed her. Actually, she kissed me and then I pushed her away, but still.”

“Gross.” Nat shivered. “No offense, but you’re an idiot.”

I gulped and tried to laugh with her but it sounded too hollow. Oh, I was an idiot all right. I was a damn fool. But instead of pushing me to confession, all it did was make me want to control the situation more. I pushed the truth so far back into my head that I wasn’t even sure what reality was anymore.

But one thing was certain.

I couldn’t keep hurting her every damn day and not want to die a thousand deaths because of it.

I was going to choose me.

Which meant, in the end, I was choosing us. But that also meant I was screwing my brother. Just like before. Only this time I knew forgiveness wouldn’t be so freely offered. And if it was it would be right before he pushed me off a very tall cliff.

Chapter Fifteen

Alec

Five days later and we were still in what Demetri referred to as Hell Week, a.k.a. Teambuilding Week.

How was it teambuilding if we did nothing but fight?

Wonder of all wonders, my black eye made the five o’clock news, as well as my little toss with Nat in the sand, which had me looking like a player. Great. That’s just what I needed before Angelica went to the press.

I knew what I needed to do. I just didn’t know how to go about it without hurting people.

If I lied, I hurt Nat. If I told the truth I hurt Demetri and Nat. If I denied everything then I was lying to myself — but the sick part was I still didn’t know everything that went down last year.

I shook my head and sighed, at least now it was Friday night, and we were having a barbeque. I was in charge of cooking, because last time Demetri let Bob, our security guard, cook something, he nearly burnt the house down.

Demetri and Alyssa were inside making salad while I tossed burgers. I was still irritated that I had to wear the stupid apron Nat had made for me.

It said, “Kiss me, I’m Alec Daniels.”

I looked down and sighed. That’s just what I needed. A kiss? Sex? Maybe a massage? Speaking of all of the above, where the hell had Nat gone?

The smell of roses floated through the air. Breathing became strained as I clenched the cool metal flipper in my hand. I knew that smell.

“What is that?” I asked stepping unsteadily into the hotel room.

“My own scent,” she announced proudly, lifting her wrist to my nose. “I’m signing a deal with a cosmetics company and we’re picking out perfumes.”

“It smells like roses.”

“But not old person roses right?” She winked. “I want people to buy it, not spray it on their grandmas.”

I snorted in disgust. “Please, you look nothing like a grandma.”

“You’re only fifteen years younger than me, Alec Daniels. How dare you even accuse me of such a thing?”

“Once a cougar, always a cougar.” I laughed and then tripped, falling onto her bed. Just how much had I had to drink?

“Champagne?” she asked.

“Sure.” I held out my hand as my vision suddenly blurred. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

“What?”

“Oh.” I shook my head. “I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.”

“Hmm.” She handed me a glass and clinked hers against it. “So tell me, pop star, what has you so blue?”

“Life.” I drank the sparkly dry liquid and swore.

“Me too, champ, me too. Divorce.” She sighed. “We’re sure a pair aren’t we?”

“Pair?” I repeated suddenly feeling really hot. I took off my shirt without thinking and then apologized. “Sorry. I’m just really hot all of a sudden.”

“Me too.” She fanned herself. “Want me to open a window or something?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “That would be nice.”

Soon a cool breeze floated into the room. Rose perfume permeated every pore of my body, soon it felt like I was the one floating. I opened my eyes to see her straddling me.

“I don’t feel like myself,” she admitted.

“Why the champagne?” I asked, suddenly realizing how beautiful she really was. Blonde hair just like Nat and deep brown eyes. My body hummed in response.

“Ex-husband. He sent it over a few minutes ago.” She lifted her glass into the air. “Cheers, and here are the divorce papers. It’s why we’re in separate rooms.”

“Clearly.” My hands moved without thinking. I rubbed up and down her arms and then leaned in and kissed her neck.

She moaned low in her throat as the champagne fell from her hand onto the ground.

I kissed her neck, trailing my tongue down her pulse. The rose perfume invaded my senses.

“Hello, Alec.”

Reality sucked. I turned slowly and came face to face with her. The one person I had no desire to see ever again.

“April.”

“You look good.” She tilted her head to the side and took me in, her eyes scanning from my feet all the way up to my face. “It’s been a while.”

“Wouldn’t have been if you would actually pick up your damn phone,” I said through clenched teeth. I’d been trying to get a hold of her ever since she hung up on me last week.

“I’ve been busy this week with the kids.”

I began to sweat as she neared me. Her perfume made me absolutely sick. It reminded me of that night, of the lies, of the betrayal, of everything really.

Everything but what really happened.

Yes. I’d made the choice to walk into a room.

I even kissed a still-married woman. Or at least in my mind she was, since she still had the final papers to sign.

But none of it even compared to the fact that I had no idea what the hell happened over the course of twelve hours.

Or that she was… shit, I couldn’t even say it.

“Guys!” Jaymeson rounded the corner into the back yard and threw me a beer.

“Mum! Looking good.” Jaymeson pulled April into his embrace and kissed her on the forehead. “Do you know Alec?”