the cause of me losing the magazine internship at the beginning of the summer.
I most definitely am acquainted with his son.
Levi Summers, the king of Beauty.
Extraordinarily tan, piercing blue eyes, dark hair and beard shot through with a healthy amount of white and gray. I think he’d be what people would call a silver fox. He’s also pretty much my enemy right now. But that’s okay. I try to remind myself that he isn’t Adrian.
And this isn’t about either one of them, anyway.
It’s about doing the right thing.
I stick out my hand. “Hello,” I say, “I’m Josie Saint-Martin, Diedre’s granddaughter.”
One brow lifts, but he accepts my handshake. “I’m well acquainted with your grandmother. A lot of your family, actually.”
I laugh nervously. “Well, that’s probably not good. But I would like to apologize formally for what happened to your store’s window. That was wrong, and I’m sorry. I’d also like to say that it was not my intention to destroy your property. I was aiming for your sign.”
Mr. Phillips coughs. The other man at the table laughs under his breath.
“Well, Miss Saint-Martin …” Mr. Summers starts.
“What I mean to say is that it was a moment of anger for what Adrian did to me and my cousin,” I explain. “But no matter what he did, what I did was wrong. I feel terrible, because that’s not who I am or more importantly, who I want to be in the future. And I know my grandmother talked to you about the window, and about Lucky Karras, and the whole mistake of him taking the blame for it, but that’s all in the past.”
“Oh?” he says, crossing his arms over a crisp white shirt.
“What I would like to do is to pay you back for the window,” I tell him. “But I can’t afford to do that. So instead, I was thinking … what if I took photographs of your window displays for your website? I’m a great photographer. You might even remember that I was up for consideration for an internship at Coast Life, but you thought I was too young.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Phillips says, scratching his ear. “She’s quite good, too. Has a professional portfolio. Her father—”
I shake my head. “I’d like to stand on my own merit, if you don’t mind.”
Mr. Phillips holds up both hands and smiles. “So be it.”
Mr. Summers looks me over. “I admire both your apology and your offer, Miss Saint-Martin. I’m not sure if I’m in need of a photographer right now, but I’ll think about it.”
The restaurant’s patio lights flip on and a buzz goes through the café tables. Uh-oh. That means the flotilla will be starting up soon. And now that I’m standing under mood lighting, a Juicy Clam waiter spots me and is coming to shoo me away from the patio ropes.
Time to flee.
“Um, okay, well … thank you for your time,” I tell Levi Summers quickly. “I’ll ask you again in the future. I’m tenacious. It runs in my family.”
Mr. Summers smiles, but not unkindly. “You don’t say …”
Ducking away, I wave goodbye to Mr. Phillips and head back down the pier to find Evie. She hasn’t gone far, and Mom still hasn’t found Aunt Franny and Grandma but is busy chatting at one of the food-truck windows.
“Hey,” Evie calls, waving me over through the crowds. “What was that all about?”
“Just attempting to right a wrong,” I say, and briefly tell her what I’m trying to do to pay for the window. When I look back up at Levi Summers and Mr. Phillips, I catch sight of the third man at the table. I should’ve introduced myself to him. Maybe it was rude not to have done so. “Hey, Evie? Do you know who that man with the ponytail is, sitting next to Levi Summers?”
She scrunches up her face to squint at the darkening pier. “Oh, him? That’s Desmond Banks.”
Desmond Banks … Bright red FOR RENT sign, darkened door. Next to the hand-dipped candle store that smells like Christmas. “The private investigator?”
“Former,” Evie corrects. “Or more like disgraced. He used to run his own agency in South Harbor, a couple blocks from the Nook.”
“I’ve seen his office.”
“Well, a few years back, his files got hacked by some anonymous Golden and ten years of everyone’s miscellaneous dirty laundry popped up in a Golden Academy forum. People’s bank records, photos of affairs—all that kind of stuff. It was only up for an afternoon, and he recovered most of it when they busted the