Pieces of Us - Carrie Elks Page 0,94
over until the Explorer is ready.”
“Not on Sam’s boat, though.” Her worried gaze met his.
He laughed. “No. I prefer to stay above the water line when I’m onboard.”
“It could be months until the pier’s ready. Years, even. The season will be over. You’ll have lost at least a year’s income.”
“I’m not worried about that,” he told her, his gaze sure as it connected with hers. “All the best things are worth waiting for. And working for.”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “I should never have lied to you about the pier. And I should have told you about the buyer being interested. And I’m sorry I didn’t.” Sliding her fingers between his, she curled her hand around his. “If you hadn’t guessed, I have a lot of trust issues.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I didn’t give you a lot of reasons to trust me. I jumped to all the wrong conclusions and treated you like shit. And I’m so desperately sorry for that.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “The things I said…” His voice trailed off as he tried to find the right words. Maybe there weren’t any. “I was an asshole.” That was the crux of it.
“Yeah, you were. But you were a hurt asshole. I should have told you before you found out from someone else.” She swallowed hard, trying to find the right words. “Can I tell you a little about my marriage? Maybe it’ll explain why I find this so difficult.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Yeah. I’d like to hear it.”
She tilted her head, looking up at him. “So, I told you before, Josh and I had a real estate business. A really successful one we’d built up from scratch. And I thought we were a team, each of us playing to our strengths, but it turned out Josh didn’t agree.”
Griff said nothing, his deep eyes steady as he looked at her.
“He’d have meetings and not tell me. Make deals without us talking them through. Ones I wouldn’t have risked, or where I didn’t trust the people involved.” She sighed. “And when I asked him to run things by me first, he’d just laugh. Told me that I brought the contacts and he brought the brains. I needed to let him do what he was best at without questioning him.”
“What an asshole.”
She nodded her agreement. “And then one of my friend’s husbands called me one afternoon and asked me to meet him in a coffee shop.” Her hand was still curled in Griff’s. “He works for the FBI. Wanted to give me a heads up that Josh was involved in something he shouldn’t be. And because the business was involved, that implicated me, too. They suspected he was helping people launder money by renting them office space, but they were still trying to prove it.”
Griff swallowed hard. “What did you do?”
“What any wife would. I asked him about it. And he told me I shouldn’t get involved.” She ran her tongue across her bottom lip. “That’s when I knew I needed to get out. I’d spent a lifetime doing what my dad told me to do. I thought my marriage would be different. But it wasn’t.”
There was a tic in Griff’s jaw, as though he was biting down too hard. “Was he investigated?”
“I’m pretty sure what I said spooked him.” Autumn shook her head. “But I can’t imagine he’ll walk the straight and narrow for too long. He’s an opportunist. In some ways that’s what I found interesting about him in the first place. He was different to me. Maybe too different.” She blinked, still gazing at the ocean. “The divorce took a long time to negotiate. The business was worth a lot of money. But I didn’t know how much of it was dirty. I guess I still don’t. So I asked him to buy me out.”
“Did he offer you a fair price?”
She chuckled. “It depends on what you mean by fair. I was willing to take below market to get out of it. I wanted my name off everything. But I had my dad in my ear, asking me why we couldn’t work it out. He likes Josh a lot. Said he reminded him of himself when he was younger.” She grimaced. “He even offered to buy Josh out so I could keep the company.”
“Did he know about the bad deals?”
“I didn’t tell him. And now I can’t because I signed an NDA.”
“A non-disclosure agreement?”