This time Anthony didn’t respond. After a beat, Joy continued. “So let me get this straight. According to the New York Times, and many other publications, which I found with the help of my favorite search engine, you have a son.”

Anthony nodded. “He’s four. His name is Max.”

“And your father is the guy with the gigantic display in the window of Island Bound Books, am I correct about that? Leonard Puckett?” When they’d stood in front of the poster he’d asked her if she’d read anything by that guy.

“Correct,” said Anthony.

“And. Furthermore. You yourself are an author, not some freelance journalist. Only, your second book, for which you got paid, like, a bazillion dollars, got yanked before publication because you plagiarized part of it. And you got caught.”

He nodded. “Such a tiny part, though,” he said. “It wasn’t even a—it was such a—I mean, most of the book was . . .”

“Uh-huh.” Joy crossed her arms over her chest. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it slamming into her hand. “I should have known,” she said. “That it was all too good to be true. That you were too good to be true.”

“But I’m not too good to be true,” he said. He sounded desperate now. He raked his hands through his hair. “I’m here, I’m me, I’m the guy you’ve spent the better part of the summer with. It’s still me, Joy. If I could just explain to you, if I could just tell you, it was all such a mistake, one stupid move that got blown way out of propor—”

She cut him off. “You are the biggest bullshitter I have ever met in my life, Anthony Jones.” He winced. “Puckett, I mean!” she corrected. “Anthony Puckett. Basically everything you ever told me was a lie. One big fat stupid lie.”

“No! Not everything. Some of it. Well, not so much a lie as a—as a withholding of some of the truth.”

“What a pretty way to put it,” she snapped. “I can tell you’re a writer!” She picked up a stone and hurled it toward the water.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I don’t know what else I can say, Joy. I came here at the beginning of the summer and I was broken. Completely broken. My ex-wife wouldn’t—” He was trying to persuade her now, but she wasn’t going to let herself be persuaded.

“Not ex. You’re not divorced, remember?”

“You’re right. Not yet. I will be, but not yet. Anyway, I came here just to hide, to lick my wounds, and to figure out what was next, and I didn’t want to meet anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was hiding. That’s why I chose this place, I thought I could be invisible for a while, until I got enough strength to return to the real world.”

This made Joy even angrier. How dare he consider her world, her island, not the real world? She hurled another stone. “This is the real world, for some people. This is my real world. This is Maggie’s real world. You can’t just step into it and . . .” She put her fist to her mouth and bit down hard on her knuckles. She wanted so badly to stop herself from crying, but she was just so, well . . . so disappointed. “You can’t step into it and play with it, and step right out like it’s nothing.”