Nate was going to see that picture. Everyone in Silver Point, everyone he worked with, served, spoke to, were all going to see that picture. She no longer had any doubt that the people outside on the beach were watching the apartment. Because of her, his whole life would be exposed. It had been fun, and light and dizzyingly new, but now it felt tarnished. It was red wine spilled on a white dress. And to make it worse, they’d tracked down Denise and extracted a comment from her.

Serious? I doubt it. She isn’t easy to love. If she was, then Cliff Whitman wouldn’t have had all those affairs, would he?

Her hands shook on the phone. No matter what she did, who she saw, this was never going to stop. They’d carry on pointing their cameras, and pressing their noses up against her life.

Who needed that? Who wanted that?

She didn’t.

Nate wouldn’t.

She turned off her phone, not wanting to read anymore.

She took a few deep breaths and glanced longingly at the bedroom door, to the room where Nate still slept, oblivious.

She wanted to climb back into the bed and pretend this hadn’t happened. She wanted to hold him for a bit longer. She wanted to walk on the beach with him, make dinner, make love, maybe make a life, but he was going to wake up, see the photographs and realize that life with her would always be complicated. And he was going to decide he didn’t want that. And she would have to deal with the fact that he didn’t want that.

Or maybe he’d pretend he was fine with it all, that it didn’t bother him, and they’d carry on seeing each other, having fun, enjoying themselves, and she would fall deeper and deeper and—and what? What happened then?

One day he’d wake up and decide he wasn’t fine with it and he’d reject her a second time.

Instead of a fun hookup, it would be heartbreak.

Caring had made her vulnerable.

There was sweat on her brow and the back of her neck. She felt sick. She kept remembering that day he’d ended it. It had almost broken her. She’d have to be a fool to let herself be broken by the same man twice, wouldn’t she?

She retrieved her clothes and dressed quickly. Should she leave a note? No. Their relationship was still casual. Best to keep it that way.

She grabbed her car keys and quietly left the apartment. There was no sign of the photographers. Presumably they still had their cameras pointed at the window of the apartment, not expecting her to leave this early.

Without pausing, she slid into the car and drove back to Otter’s Nest.