a black friend.” Topher paused for a moment before cocking his head and speaking again. “Can I tell you a secret?”
The bottom of her stomach dropped. She wanted his secrets, but at the same time she was scared to death of them.
“Don’t worry,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “It’s not one of those secrets. It’s a historical secret.”
“A historical secret?”
He nodded and then launched into a tale about how he had been roped into helping Ashley’s little boy with his Heritage Day project, and they’d uncovered Rose Howland’s diary, which seemed to suggest that Rose had been in love with Henri St. Pierre.
“You’re kidding,” she said, shocked in spite of herself.
He shrugged. “I don’t know if we’ll ever prove it. But there’s enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Howlands and the St. Pierres are both descendants of our town mother. Although, in fairness, the Howlands should be using the surname of Teal.”
“So Rose had a thing for pirates,” she said, and then blushed, because it struck her right then that Topher could do a darn good impression of a pirate with his eye patch and slightly shaggy hair.
“I guess so,” he said. “Should we let the secret out and see what the old biddies do with it?”
She stared at him. The idea was so incredibly seductive and so terribly wrong. “No. Let’s not.”
“Yeah. Probably wise to keep it a secret until we can verify it. And then it won’t be gossip; it will be the truth,” he said.
The truth. It was what she’d always wanted. But the truth was way more complicated than she’d ever fully realized. People could get hurt when you told the truth.
She focused on her food, cutting and chewing. She wanted to tell him how she felt, but it scared her silly. She didn’t need or want a man in her life. She didn’t want to give up her freedom.
When she ran out of food to eat, she said, “You know, Caleb probably has the power to take the island away from you.”
“First he’d have to get enough votes in the assembly, and then he’d have to come up with the money to purchase the property from me. Those are pretty high hurdles.”
Topher said this with such conviction that it blew her mind. He wasn’t the slightest bit worried about Caleb. It seemed to underscore the truth about him.
“So what do you propose we do? Stand by and wait for him to raise the money?”
“There isn’t much we can do about it.”
“We could gate-crash their meeting and present our designs,” she said. “Show them that we aren’t planning on raping the environment.”
He cleared his throat. “The flyers certainly used colorful language about that, didn’t they?” he said. “But I think it would be crazy to go to their meeting.”
“Really, why?”
“You can’t win those people over by arguing with them.”
“But we have to.”
“No. We don’t.”
“But when they see how we plan to build the house, I’m sure they’ll—”
“No amount of green design will appease them.”
“So what? You just want to give up?”
“Did I say I was giving up? No. I’ll just steamroller them.”
She stared him down. This. This was what scared her about Topher. He had the power to do as he pleased and never pay any consequences.
“I’m not sure that’s the right approach. I mean, the flyers paint you as some kind of eccentric billionaire who never gave one thought to protecting the environment. Are you willing to stand by and let them assassinate your character like that?”
The corner of his lip curled just a tiny bit. “I don’t care about my reputation. That’s one of the big differences between you and me.”
And that was the problem.
She cared. No matter what. She would always care. Her reputation was everything. Without it, she’d have no business. Heck, her business up to this point had been built entirely on Yoshi Akiyama’s word of mouth. If she squandered her reputation, those good vibes would disappear.
“Well,” she said in a tight voice, “I won’t stand by and let people accuse me of designing some kind of monstrosity. That’s the word the flyer used. I have to defend myself.”
* * *
Topher laid his knife and fork across the plate and looked into Jessica’s eyes. They were the color of graphite today, filled with a determination he admired.
He wanted to tell her to save her breath. Caleb was nothing but a paper tiger who was about to discover that all his plans and schemes had been built