“Fine,” she said as she held up a hand and allowed him to help her out of the car. “But only because my curiosity is killing me. Where are we going?”
“Oh, no. That’s part of the surprise. Come on.”
They took off almost immediately, and once they had leveled off, Sam pulled out a charcuterie board filled with an arrangement of gourmet meats, cheeses, nuts, crackers, and fruit.
“You call this a snack?” she said. “I could eat off this for a week.”
“We can put away whatever we don’t eat.”
“Well, it beats the hell out of Hormel honey ham and Colby-jack cheese,” she said between bites. “You rich folk live fancy.” She smiled.
After they’d settled in and eaten, she got down to business.
“Sam, we need to talk. We can’t just keep dancing around the elephant in the room. I am forever indebted to you and Jake for saving my life. Coming back from New York early to check on me was above and beyond. I’m also extremely grateful to you for convincing Pops to move north. I’ve been so worried about him lately.”
“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”
“But,” she said, looking at him, “we need to talk about us. Where do you see this going?” She waved a hand between the two of them.
“Annie, I’ve made some questionable decisions when it comes to you. I had these rules I used to adhere to religiously, to guard against lawsuits and things like that. I disregarded all of them and made excuses to continue to pursue you, even after finding out you worked for the company. And while that was ill-advised by some, I don’t regret it at all.
“I’ve also acted impulsively and accused you of things I shouldn’t have, and that, I do regret. A lot. I know throwing money at you won’t make it better.” She was staring at her hands, which were folded in her lap. “Or will it?” he joked, trying to lighten the mood.
She gave a one huff laugh, looked up, and raised both eyebrows dubiously.
“I’m kidding. I know it won’t. After overhearing what you said to Wayne, that you wouldn’t help him blackmail me or do anything else to hurt me, I knew I could trust you. He had a gun to your head and you still wouldn’t betray me. You didn’t know I was there. You didn’t know I was listening. You were just being honest.
“Truth be told, I knew I could trust you long before I overheard that conversation. It’s why I broke all the rules in the first place. I had a feeling from the beginning that you were different. But while I knew it in my heart, I had a hard time convincing my mind.”
“I understand why you have a hard time trusting, Sam. If I had the kind of money you have, I’d be looking over my shoulder all the time too. It’s probably a good thing you do so you don’t get taken advantage of. My problem is that I can’t be in a relationship—assuming you still want to pursue one—where trust is not the basis.”
“And that’s perfectly reasonable. In fact, I feel the same way. And, yes, I do want to pursue this relationship. I have trust issues. I admit that. I’ve sought some professional help, but you’re right, I have to watch my back and unfortunately, that’s made me a little cynical.”
“I get that, I do. But all you had to do was read the papers. All you had to do was ask me about Wayne, about Avery. We could’ve avoided all this if you’d have just slowed down enough to talk to me.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that Wayne was getting released soon? About the fact that you were still married to him? Tell me about Avery? It seems like maybe you don’t trust me completely either.”
She was quiet for a moment and he second-guessed himself for bringing it up. But it was a valid point, so they might as well hash it out.
“Those are all good questions, and I thought the very same thing myself this last week. First off, I didn’t find out I was still married until after our Maui trip, so when I told you I was divorced, I truly thought I was. When the attorney told me about the mistake, he also said it would be corrected within the month, so I decided it wasn’t worth mentioning. Our relationship was new and it would have been an awkward conversation to have, so I opted out of having it.
“I debated whether to tell you about Wayne getting out, but I wasn’t positive he would show up and didn’t want to tell you if it was a moot point. I was embarrassed that I’d married him, embarrassed that he was probably going to come begging, and I figured, if I didn’t have to come clean, I’d rather not.
“I also thought that, even if he did show up, I could handle him without involving you. That’s the reason I started to pull away from you last week. I knew you’d want to help, and I didn’t want him anywhere near you. My plan was to get rid of him somehow without you ever being the wiser that he’d shown up.”
He nodded but stayed silent, sensing she had more to say.
“Another reason was to protect you. Sort of a plausible deniability thing. I knew that if he knew we had any sort of connection, he’d try to exploit it. Basically, what happened was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid.” She looked down at her hands. “My reasoning was selfish. I should have just told you.”
“Your reasons don’t sound all that selfish to me. It sounds like you were trying to insulate me, and I appreciate that, but you’re right in that I would have wanted to help. You should have trusted me to help. What about
