Our conversation tapered down to a casual chit chat as we drove out through New Jersey. While I wanted to give her a day free of responsibility and pressure, I also had an ulterior motive that I’d hoped she would later forgive me for. I wanted us to meet face to face so that I could tell her everything that I’d learned.
Finch and I had sat for hours going over every detail, going over everything that we knew for sure. I hated knowing more about Ana’s past than she did, so I vowed to tell her today.
We drove down the highway with the windows open and rock music playing. Ocean City was surprisingly quiet when we arrived. The sun was high in the clear sky and it had grown nicely hot.
What a perfect way to spend the day, alone with Anastasia. Maybe we’d take a walk along the boardwalk. We could get the towels out and lie on the sand a while. With the sun quickly warming up it was lucky I had thought to pack sunscreen.
I pulled into the parking lot and stopped the truck. We climbed out, I grabbed the cooler and towels from the back and walked around to the low wall that separated the parking lot from the path where Anastasia waited. She looked at the cooler and laughed.
“We’re taking that with us?” she asked, surprised.
“Of course, how else are we supposed to have a picnic?” I said with a grin as I teased her. The cooler wasn’t big and could be carried in one hand - I’d bought it with today in mind. I had tried to think of everything and every possible scenario.
I’d never done this before. I’d never been a boyfriend before, this would’ve been my first real date. You know, with someone I actually liked. This was all new to me but I wanted it to be special.
Our relationship had had a rocky start. I wanted to convey to Anastasia that I was going to make that up to her, even if it took the rest of our lives. She deserved that, and so much more. I wanted to give that to her, to give her everything. And this mushy - romantic - stuff, although wasn’t all that important to me, I knew that it would be to her.
The need to show her, to prove to her that I could be anything and everything that she needed was strong within me. She already was my everything, but I wanted to be hers too.
I couldn’t taper down the pride I felt at the wide, happy smile that Ana was sporting. The idea to go to the beach had been solely mine, but when I realized that I’d had no plan further than that, that’s when I called Heather. We were on the phone a while, she’d broken everything down into step by step instructions. ‘Foolproof’ she had said with a mocking laugh. Of course, I wasn’t gonna tell Ana that. I was more than happy to take all the credit. “Wanna take a walk first or set up on the sand and have lunch?”
“Let’s take a walk further along the boardwalk.” She twirled in the direction of the boardwalk and I quickly followed to catch up.
“A walk it is.” So, hand in hand, we walked quietly along the boardwalk.
“I’ve only ever been here once, that I can remember,” Ana said, stopping to lean against the railing. She looked wistful as she gazed out to the ocean, but not sad.
“I remember coming a few times as kids. Our grandmother used to play chess with some of her friends while we’d run off to play in the arcades.” I could still picture her as she won her chess game, arms flying through the air as she screamed. It was one of the happier memories from my childhood.
“That’s really sweet.” The corner of her eyes crinkled in the cutest way as she smiled. But, it was her tone of voice that made me realize that I hadn’t shared a lot of my past with her.
We continued walking again, just watching all the people around us. I remembered what I enjoyed so much about this place as a kid, the life that flowed so freely. Ana stopped again, this time wandering down onto the sand. We stopped about halfway toward the water, I had barely laid out our towels before she was pulling me down to sit beside her.
“It’s so beautiful here, so carefree you know?” I nodded in agreement and pressed a soft kiss to her shoulder. I wished that we could’ve stayed there for longer.
“Ana, I have something I need to talk to you about.” Inwardly I grimaced but I tried not to let it seep through. I wanted more time to enjoy the sun. To enjoy just being with Anastasia without any constraints. But I knew there was no putting this off any longer, she needed to know the truth.
“I ran into Finch,” I began.
“What? Here?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing.
“Yeah. He was watching over the Varela house.”I didn’t give her too long to linger on that, I didn’t want it to creep her out. “He had some… new information.”
“Oh?” I handed her a bottle of water from the cooler. She turned away, looking out to the water and sipped. When she finally looked back at me, she prompted, “what’d he have to say?”
And so I began to tell her, from the top, everything that Finch had told me. “Cassio Bellucci, he was apparently a friend of our fathers. My dad was the one to hire Anton to kidnap you.”
She got very quiet, very quickly. She stayed still except for the occasional sip of water until after I was finished. She looked deep in thought, but she didn’t respond. When she looked at me again her eyes were surprisingly dry. I braced myself for the worst.
“So, let me just… Cassio hired your father, who hired Anton to kidnap
