Staying On Top(75)

It sounded as though the waves were calling my name when I woke up with a start, panting, my heart beating a million miles a minute. My mouth went dry when I saw the look on Sam’s face and my phone clutched in his hand. He’d seen the text message my dad had sent yesterday. Or maybe my dad had called early. Either way, the jig was up.

Instead of the kindness, the concern, that had been so often in his face, his maple eyes boiled with anger. I could have dealt with that, but the betrayal and pain swimming alongside it . . . that broke me in half.

“You were playing me this whole time?”

“Sam, no. I mean, yes, at the beginning, but—”

“Jesus. You fucked me for information? How could you? How did I miss that?” Anger reddened the tips of his ears and his hand shook around my phone. “All of that shit you told me about growing up alone, it’s all sob story? You’ve been happily helping your dad this whole time, right? And you were going to get more information out of me so he could steal the rest of the money I worked for? Lost my family over? Destroyed my body for? How could you do that?”

“I wasn’t going to, Sam. I didn’t lie to you, not after we got started. I swear.”

“Yeah, well, the word of a con-artist and a whore doesn’t really mean much to me.”

It felt as though he’d landed an actual slap across my face. For all of the bad things I’d done or helped do, none of my marks had ever caught on in front of me, had ever been the wiser until I’d long fled the scene, had ever had the chance to yell at me and damn, it hurt.

I knew it hurt because it was Sam. Because no matter what I said, he wouldn’t hear anything but lies. He wouldn’t see anything but a girl willing to do anything to steal from him.

So I didn’t say anything. Maybe that made it worse. In his eyes, a silent admission of guilt. But there didn’t seem to be any point to worrying about it now. Emotions swirled in the boat, in the air between us, building the longer we stayed silent. The pain, the anger, the aching, empty sense of loss brought tears to my eyes that I turned away in order to hide. They refused to be contained as the blue of the water grew lighter and shaded toward jade, then sea green, signaling our arrival in the Caymans. Sam made no move to comfort me, never stirred to speak. More insults would have been easier than the silence, which signaled to me that he had nothing left to say.

After what felt like an eternity, Sam spoke again. “Let me guess—your dad isn’t going to be here, either. You want to go ahead and give me your big speech designed to earn my trust now, or were you saving it until we were naked again?”

I closed my eyes, trying to will away the rest of my tears. It took forever before my throat stopped burning long enough to let loose the words it was squeezing to death. “Can we get the boat moored and then talk about it? And there’s no point in asking me questions if you aren’t going to believe a word I say.”

Sam moved without agreeing or disagreeing, and the two of us brought Wiggler smoothly into the North Sound, dropped anchor, and made our way ashore. A flurry of shops and places to eat awaited the arrival of tourists and sailors, but we had to go through customs first. Sam crossed his thick arms over his chest while we waited in line. His refusal to look at me left my heart feeling stomped on and my body cold, as though I’d been tossed out in the Manhattan winter.

“Nice touch with the tears, by the way. Brilliant.”

The disgust in his voice hit my skin like pellets, diving beneath and dumping agony into my blood. “I know that you don’t have any reason to trust me, Sam. But I think my dad is here. I want to talk to him with you, just like I said in Melbourne.” I took a deep breath, hardly believing I was about to give him more ammunition. More truth to throw in my face. “But the reason I blew you off in St. Moritz . . . that was the truth. It seemed inevitable that we would be different. Not easy. I didn’t want to come on this con at all, but he forced me. And things changed along the way. You have to know that.”

“I don’t believe anything you say,” he spat, handing over his passport.

“Sir, you need to come with me.” The customs agent had his hand on his hip, over his gun. He spoke softly into the radio on his shoulder, his eyes flicking between Sam and me. “Are you Blair Paddington?”

I nodded dumbly.

“You’ll need to come with us, too.”

Neither Sam nor I spoke while the rest of the people in the customs building stared at us as though we’d just bombed a village inhabited by kittens wearing party hats. I had almost convinced myself that this had to be some kind of misunderstanding when the police showed up to escort us away.