Distance only makes the heart grow fonder. I won’t forget about you no matter how far you go. But it seems like you’ve forgotten our arrangement.

She dropped the papers as if they were on fire.

Innocuous words, but the threat was there, a living, breathing thing in the ink on the page. Like a toxin.

He knew where she was. There was no hiding. So much rode on one man deciding if she was worth squashing or not.

“Fuck,” she breathed, flipping through the articles and skimming their contents.

The innuendo and rumors were there, but there had been no official statement from either party. Everything she’d built hung by one tenuous thread, and he held a pair of scissors.

But he’d miscalculated. The asshole assumed she was more concerned with her career, her reputation. And while she had clawed her way to the top, while she’d fought for every success and built something she was proud of, the truth was, she’d burn it all to the ground if it meant saving Camille.

But there was an upside. If he was sending her shitty reminders of their “arrangement,” that meant Camille could still be saved.

She blew out a breath and felt just a little steadier.

Maybe it was time to start doing a little threatening of her own.

She dusted off her laptop, spread the articles out in front of her and went to work.

Hours later, she leaned back in her chair to roll her tight shoulders when she realized it was dark outside already. She’d spent an entire day parsing through news reports, gossip blogs, press releases, and her own overflowing inboxes, hoping for something, anything that would light the way out of this situation.

She’d come up empty. This was a fight she wasn’t equipped for. And the cost of failure was too high. She wouldn’t survive paying.

A shiver crawled up her spine as the gloom of the dark house sank into her bones. She needed light. And alcohol. And people. She needed to forget.

She jumped up from the table and dialed her phone as she turned on lights.

“Hey. It’s me. Want to get out of the house and—”

“Yes,” her sister cut her off.

“We could talk about that neighbor welfare check thing.”

“Don’t care,” Kimber snapped. “Get me out of here.”

“Do you want to go someplace we can take the kids?”

“I want to go somewhere no one will call me ‘Mom’ or ‘babe.’ Meet me at Tiki Tavern at seven and try not to be Remi late.”

Not the Tiki Tavern. Anything but the Tiki Tavern.

“Isn’t there another bar open?”

“Not in February on a Wednesday. Besides, your nemesis doesn’t work Wednesday nights.”

Hell. Why couldn’t there be more than one bar open on the island in the winter?

“Fine. I’ll see you there,” Remi agreed.

13

The Tiki Tavern was the kind of theme bar that shouldn’t work but somehow did. Its vibe was Caribbean rum shop meets country-western bar. The staff wore Hawaiian shirts, denim, and belt buckles while serving barbecue and bourbon next to jerk chicken and tropical drinks with umbrellas.