Last Name - Dr. Rebecca Sharp Page 0,21

it hit a wall it desperately wanted to crash through but couldn’t.

“Oh, Lars, you need to go pick up my parents,” Suzanne jumped up and cut him off.

I glanced down at my watch, swallowing my gasp when I realized the time—and how fast it had gone while I was here.

I stood with the rest of the table, Lars preparing to leave while Suzanne and Kathleen grabbed all the plates, including my own, handing some to James and whisked them into the kitchen before I realized what was happening.

I turned to follow them inside, but my steps faltered.

Swallowing through the tightness in my throat, I turned away from the energetic commotion I could feel coming from inside the house and instead, wandered in the opposite direction needing a moment alone. Needing a moment to separate.

The back patio of the house seemed to melt into the boulder-built coastline. There was a stone-walled firepit but beyond that, the giant rocks dwindled until they disappeared into the lake completely.

I didn’t belong in there.

I didn’t really belong out here either.

I was a planner. I thought I was done with the big changes in my life when I’d been cheated on and then fired by my fiancé. Moving out here was supposed to be a healing isolation—not just from my family and the people I knew but from anyone new or old who might break my heart.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I let my thoughts drift and drown in the still, dark waters. The warm glow from the house fading into night at the water’s edge.

I had so many questions—so many things I wanted to know about James, but it would be dangerous to ask them.

With how much I wanted him, it would be dangerous to know more about the man I was married to.

“Carrie?”

I spun at the sound of his voice. His gaze like a set of keys as it captured mine and set free my need to know.

It was just a few small questions asked on a moonlit night.

What harm could they do?

She jumped, confirming that she’d been lost in thought and hadn’t heard me approach.

The golden light from the house rolled down all the soft curves of her face, along the length of her neck, and off the edges of her shoulders. The rest of her clothed with the shadows of night.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, looking down at her feet as though she waited for them to spring to life and speed her away from me.

“Don’t be sorry.” I came up next to her and reached down to turn on the firepit before she could say anything to stop me. The gas flame burst to light with a plume of heat.

“You shouldn’t do that. I should really head home.”

“Dine and ditch?” I teased, trying to bring some levity to the worry that creased her beautiful face—a face that gave me an unamused look.

“Says the man who ditched me the morning after our wedding,” she retorted with that adorable crinkle of her nose that was quickly becoming one of my favorite quirks about her. Though, the accusation wasn’t nearly as pleasant.

“Believe me, Carrie. I didn’t want to ditch you that morning.” I faced her, my jaw tightening. “Ditching you was the very last thing on my mind.”

“Then why did you just disappear without a word? Or a note? Or, you know, your name?”

I knew this was coming. After what Lars said, I knew she’d want to know. And the worst part was, even Lars didn’t know the truth.

“Your brother said you were kicked out for saving me,” she pressed, folding her arms over her chest, and I tried not to think about how badly I still wanted her. “But you weren’t. We left together.”

My chin dipped, and I took another step so we were shoulder-to-shoulder, staring out at the stillness of the lake.

“You’re both right,” I told her with a low voice, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one else had followed me outside. “We did leave together. But I was also kicked out for saving you.”

I let out a long sigh.

I’d kept certain truths from certain people so well for so long. But Carrie… I couldn’t keep this from her.

She had a right to know, I told myself. But it was more than that. I wanted her to know the truth about me… someone should.

“Did you know I graduated from Harvard University?” I waited until her head shook. “Well, while I was studying there, I joined the MIT Blackjack team with some