The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (226 page)

“You look lovely,” he said, planting a kiss on my cheek. “Relaxed.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

He slipped his hand into mine and entwined our fingers together. Part of me wanted to resist, but his expression was so hopeful, I let him hold on to me. We could talk about our issues later. For now, it felt nice to have his warm fingers clutching mine. Noelle let Upton and me walk ahead while she fell back to walk with Dash. I glanced over my shoulder at them and saw him brush her fingers with his. Noelle pulled her hand away but blushed as she suddenly became very interested in Kiran’s new shoes.

Things were finally getting back to normal.

We walked through the open double doors and out onto the patio en masse. The maître d’ grabbed a stack of menus and started toward a large round table right at the center of the patio. The slatted roof overhead allowed the sun to pour in over the white linen tablecloth, and all the silverware and glassware gleamed. The scents of Caribbean barbecue filled my senses, and my stomach growled audibly. Once again, I had to concede: Noelle had had a good idea.

Maybe I should just let her run my life from now on.

Upton pulled out a chair for me and I was about to sit when I heard a familiar, cloying laugh. Poppy’s laugh. I stood up straight and whirled around. Poppy, Paige, and Sienna were all seated at a small table near the corner, framed by gorgeous tropical flowers bursting from the planters all along the edge of the patio. Sitting there in their designer
sundresses, their tan skin gleaming, their heads thrown back in laughter, they would have appeared to any normal person the perfect picture of privileged youth. All I saw was an evil triad of death.

As soon as they saw me, they started to whisper to one another behind their hands. What were they doing? Plotting their next attack?

I shoved the chair aside, stepped around a stunned Upton, and walked over to their table. Their laughing mouths snapped shut as I approached. Paige Ryan looked at me as if I was some kind of straggly half-drowned cat that had just washed up on the beach. She tossed her wavy auburn hair back from her face as she reached for her water goblet.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said, taking a sip as she looked away.

“Which one of you did it?” I spat, hovering over them. “Which one of you shoved me off that boat?”

The diners at the nearby tables fell silent. Someone’s fork clattered to the wooden floor. Sienna’s jaw dropped and all three of them exchanged an appalled look.

“Excuse me?” Sienna said in her thick Spanish accent.

“You could have
killed
me!” I shouted, gripping the back of the one empty chair at the table. Piled on it were their colorful Tod’s beach bags. I felt Upton walk up behind me, but I didn’t turn. I was too focused. “Do you think you’re so untouchable? Do you think you can try to murder someone and there won’t be any consequences? Which one of you did it? At least have the guts to look me in the eye and tell me!”

Sienna simply stared at me as if she was concerned for my mental
well-being. Poppy scoffed and looked away. Paige raised her eyebrows, tilted her head, and took another sip of water. The entire patio was so quiet I could practically hear the ice melting in the glasses at the next table. All of my friends were still standing around our table, staring, clearly unsure of what to do.

“Wow, Upton. You definitely have interesting taste in girls,” Paige said, earning a laugh from the other two.

“You know what I think?” Poppy said in her crisp British accent, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. “I don’t think you were pushed. I believe you jumped. I believe this whole thing is just a cry for attention. So perhaps you should stop accusing people of something that didn’t even happen.”

The fingers on my right hand curled into a tight fist. I was so angry my vision actually went hazy. She was going to accuse
me
of making a play for attention? The girl who had disappeared off the island for days, neglected to return hundreds of phone calls from her friends and family, and let everyone think she was dead?

Upton’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Reed, perhaps we should just—”

“No!” I blurted, shrugging him off me. “I can’t believe you’re saying I made this up,” I said to Poppy. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

She rolled her eyes and took a bite of her salad.

“Reed,” Upton said.

“No! I just want to know. I just want to know who tried to kill me.”

“I believe I have the answer to that question,” a booming voice announced.

Upton and I turned around to find Mr. and Mrs. Ryan, as well as their son Daniel, striding through the restaurant. Everyone started whispering again as dozens of pairs of wide eyes followed the family’s progress across the patio. Mrs. Ryan stood behind her daughter, placing her hands on Paige’s shoulders, as Mr. Ryan stepped up next to Upton. Daniel hovered near the corner, as close to Poppy as he could get without falling off the edge of the deck. I was starting to understand the massive crush he had on her. Took a nutter to attract a nutter, apparently.

“What do you mean?” Upton asked.

“Reed, I’m so sorry about this,” Mr. Ryan began, turning a piece of paper around in his hands. “As it turns out, the person who attacked you was under our employ.”

“What?” Paige blurted.

“You mean she actually
was
pushed?” Poppy asked, her eyes wide.

If Upton hadn’t touched my wrist right then, there’s a very good chance I would have given her a black eye.

“It was Marquis,” Mr. Ryan said.

I blinked, taken aback. Marquis was a nice man who worked as a maître d’ at Shutters and occasionally waitered at parties for the Ryans. The members of the St. Barths crew were friendly with him and he’d always seemed perfectly normal. I couldn’t believe the man with the welcoming smile and easy laugh had tried to kill me.

“No,” Upton said. “We’ve known him for years. Why would he—”

“It seems his family has fallen on hard times,” Mr. Ryan explained. “He was after the necklace. The police found it in his
house. We are all so sorry, Reed. As Upton mentioned, we’ve known the man for years. I never would have thought him capable of something like this.”

My mind whirled with the news. If this was true, then no one was trying to kill me. I had just been collateral damage. The runaway horse and the faulty Jet Ski were just accidents, like Upton had said. No one wanted me dead. I was safe. Perfectly safe. Right?

“This is unbelievable,” Upton said.

“But it’s good news, right?” Noelle said, walking over to us. It seemed everyone in the small restaurant had heard Mr. Ryan’s announcement. “I mean, I liked Marquis too, but this means Reed can stay. It means you’re safe,” she told me. She even spoke slowly, like she was addressing someone who had just learned the language.

“Right,” I said. “I guess so.”

“Miss Brennan, my husband and I feel responsible. If there’s anything we can do to make this up to you, please just ask,” Mrs. Ryan said in a formal tone.

I glanced up at her and her beady eyes bored into mine. Suddenly I couldn’t help recalling in full detail the last time I had seen her. When she’d caught Upton and me half naked in her stateroom. My face colored and I looked around at the table. Paige, Poppy, and Sienna were all glaring at me. Of course they were. I had just accused them of attempted murder. And as it turned out, I was wrong.

I cleared my throat and wiped my palms on my shorts. “Um . . . I’m sorry about the . . . about what I just said. I guess you guys had nothing to do with it.”

So why did I still feel so very uncertain? Sawyer’s words niggled at the back of my mind. If Paige and Daniel were innocent, then where had they gone off to that night? Why had they disappeared? But if Marquis had done it, I guess it didn’t matter where they’d gone. They must have been off doing something else. It was all just a coincidence.

“Gee, you think?” Paige blurted. “I can’t believe you think you can just come over here and—”

“
Paige
,” Mr. Ryan said vehemently. In two seconds he’d gone from white with sorrow to red with rage. Paige sank in on herself slightly as she looked up at her father. She cleared her throat and took another sip of water before looking at me again.

“Apology accepted,” she said in a clipped tone. “Right, girls?”

Sienna snorted and Poppy’s eyes clouded with ire. “Yeah,” she said tersely. “Absolutely.”

“Thanks,” I replied, playing my part in the little charade.

“Come on,” Upton said. He took my hand and held it between both of his. “Let’s go order.”

I nodded mutely and let him and Noelle lead me back to the table. Relief flooded my body with each step, and I felt light as air. It was over. Really and truly over. I could stay on St. Barths after all. I could work things out with Upton and enjoy the rest of break. Finally,
finally
everything was going to be okay.

“We need to talk.”

I dropped down on the colorful, striped beach blanket next to Upton’s. He laid aside his iPhone and gave me a killer smile. “Well. That sounds ominous,” he said.

All around us, our friends were going about usual beach business, chatting, dozing, or racing along the water’s edge. After lunch, we had all adjourned to the beach in front of the Simon Hotel, Poppy’s parents’ establishment. Even the evil triad, as I was now calling them in my mind—although they had apparently
not
tried to kill me—was in attendance. Though they, along with Daniel and Weston Bright, had set up camp a few conspicuous yards up the beach away from the rest of us. I glanced back at them and caught the triad watching me as they whispered to one another, their heads close together. My heart skipped a nervous beat. I knew they were seriously pissed off that I had publicly accused them of attempted murder, and I wondered
what they were talking about now—or planning. I hoped that I would not be spending another afternoon locked up in a shower stall . . . or something much worse.

“Everything okay?” Upton asked.

I took a deep breath and turned to face him. I had to try to focus on the task at hand. “Not really.”

There was a tiny stick between us in the sand. I picked it up and used it to doodle my name in the soft powder. I knew that if I was going to be staying on in St. Barths, I had to deal with what had happened on the Ryans’ boat. So why was there a ball of dread sitting in the center of my stomach?

“It’s about casino night,” I said, watching the stick as I started a series of curlicues. “You know when Poppy and Mrs. Ryan found us . . .”

“Ah.” Upton crossed his legs in front of him. “Let’s have it, then.”

Did he really not know what he’d done? The thought was so frustrating it immediately crowded out my trepidation.

“You went after Poppy,” I said under my breath, glancing back at her to make sure she wasn’t in hearing range. Girl was still conspiring with the rest of the evil triad. “Do you have any idea how that felt? I was mortified and you left me there alone and went after your ex.”

Upton looked legitimately confused. His brow furrowed and he, too, looked back at Poppy and the others. “You mean after she and Mrs. Ryan came—” Suddenly his face filled with realization and he laughed. “Oh, Reed, I didn’t go after Poppy. I went after Paige’s mum.”

I blinked. “
What
?”

“It’s all a proper misunderstanding,” he said, lifting my hand and holding it with both of his. “Listen, Mrs. Ryan is good friends with my mum and dad and I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to go tattling on me. My parents, they’re . . . they can be quite old-fashioned sometimes, so if they were to find out what we were doing . . .”

“You were worried about getting in trouble with your parents?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“When you put it that way, it sounds silly, but it was more about you,” he said, reaching over to tuck a stray hair behind my ear. “I didn’t want them thinking you were, you know, that kind of girl.”

He pressed his teeth together in a sort of grimace and I laughed even as I blushed. I didn’t exactly care what Upton’s parents thought of me, but maybe it was good that Mrs. Ryan and Poppy had stopped us. It gave me more time to consider how far, exactly, I wanted to take this thing with Upton. To figure out if I was really
that kind of girl.

“So you didn’t go off to comfort Poppy. Because Sawyer said that when you came back to the party, you were with her,” I told him.

Upton’s expression clouded and he hesitated for a second. “Oh. Maybe for a minute, but just for a quick chat. Then I didn’t see Poppy again until we boarded a search boat to go out looking for you.”

I glanced past Upton’s shoulder at Sawyer, who sat on a towel closer to the water, hunched over a tattered novel. He had seemed to think it was more than a quick chat. Was it possible that he had simply inferred something that wasn’t actually there? Or was Upton downplaying it on purpose?

“So, are we friends again?” Upton asked, looping one strong arm around my shoulders and pulling me into him. I sighed, happy to be so close to him again.

“I guess I can take you back,” I joked.

“I appreciate your benevolence,” Upton smirked.

“Gage! Quit it!” Kiran squealed, running up the beach from the water, her long dark hair soaking wet and her tan body beaded with water. Gage Coolidge chased after her with a huge dead crab, its limp legs flapping around as he taunted her with it. Classic immature Gage. Sometimes I wondered why they ever let the guy graduate kindergarten.

“What? The international supermodel is afraid of a little crustacean?” Gage said, holding it out as he lunged for her.

Kiran squealed and whirled away. “Hello? Aren’t any of you guys going to save me?”

“I’m on it!” Graham volunteered, tossing the volleyball to Dash. He raced down the beach and charged Gage, tackling him to the sand. The crab went flying and dropped to the ground right at Amberly’s feet. She screamed and scampered away on her hands and knees, kicking sand all over Noelle’s back as she lay on her towel.

“Amberly! What the hell?” Noelle spat.