that it? That you’ve done this kind of thing before?”
“Oh, God, no,” Jesse said, his heart breaking. This was a nightmare. “You are nothing like her, Gail. There’s no comparison.”
“Then why are you telling me this?” Gail’s voice was ominously flat. “And better yet—why would celebrity magazines give a rat’s ass about what happened between a tourist and a part-time tour guide? And where did that ‘ton of money’ come from?”
Jesse automatically tried to touch her but she recoiled. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in his touch.
“Did you teach her to salsa?” Gail’s lips began to quiver. “How about skinny-dipping at a private beach? Did she get the VIP treatment like I did, with the dolphins and the private lunches and the fancy dresses and everything else you did to make me feel so special?”
Jesse raked his fingers through his hair. This was worse than he imagined it would be, and he hadn’t even gotten to the good part. “Please hear me out.”
“I thought I already had.” Gail stood, reaching for her robe. She whipped it off the floor and onto her body, yanking hard on the sash around her waist. “You just said you were falling in love with me and you wanted me to come back soon, but this—” Gail waved her arm around. “It’s like you’re giving me a warning not to get my hopes up, that I’m not all that special after all, that you did this before and you’ve always regretted it.”
She turned away from him. Jesse leaped from the bed. “Gail, don’t. That’s not why I’m telling you.”
“Then why?” she asked, spinning around.
“Because I need to explain to you who I am. She targeted me because I’m sort of famous. She wanted my money and her fifteen minutes on TV.”
Even in the low light, Jesse could see Gail’s face drain of color. “Sort of famous?”
Jesse grabbed his own robe from the bedpost and hastily wrapped it around himself. He flicked on the bedside lamp.
“You know how I told you I was a writer?”
She nodded, frowning.
“I’m J. D. Batista. I’m a bestselling suspense writer. Have you ever heard of the ‘Dark Blue’ series set in the Keys?”
Gail turned her head to the left and stared off into space, as if she was trying to conjure up a distant memory. “Vaguely,” she said, looking at him again, her eyes suddenly devoid of emotion. “Then again, I’ve never really cared for that kind of trash.”
Her words stung. “Okay. I deserved that.”
Gail laughed. “This is hilarious,” she said, the sarcasm oozing from her voice. She put a shaking hand to her mouth before she went on. “So let me see if I got this straight—you lied to me about your writing, telling me that you hoped to be published one day when you already had a major career? And you did this because you thought I was another psycho tourist out to get you?” The tendons in Gail’s neck stuck out like guitar strings. “Is that what this is all about?”
Jesse couldn’t help but see the irony of the situation. Gail Chapman was the only woman whose opinion mattered to him, and she was sickened by his deceit and thought his work was trash.
This hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped.
“Gail, please listen. I only wanted to be sure you liked me for who I was as a person before you knew I had money and fame.” Jesse’s legs felt weak. He’d blown it with her. He knew it. “I always planned to tell you.”
Gail laughed bitterly. “Really? When? When I was already home? When I came upon your books in some Walmart somewhere?” She flapped her arms in agitation. “Or maybe you wanted to wait until after I’d fallen completely, totally in love with you! Oh, wait—that’s already happened!”
“Please forgive me. I made an awful mistake.”
“You know what the worst part is?” Gail’s cheeks had become red and blotchy with anger. “You knew how important honesty was to me! I told you, Jesse. I told you that I’d been burned by a lying, cheating, embezzling asshole, and that honesty was the only thing I absolutely had to have from a man.”
Jesse’s head felt as if it would explode. In trying to protect himself, he’d hurt her. “I am so sorry,” was all he could say.
Gail wasn’t finished. She poked a finger in his chest. “But think about this—however bad that girl hurt you, Curtis hurt me more. It was my husband who betrayed me, not some tramp from