Reveling in Sin Read online

  Ten years ago, we only had stolen hours here and there, and I think that’s what made that time seem even more precious—because we both knew it was fleeting.

  Now I want all the time in the world with this man, but I know when we’re in Gable, there will always be other things competing for his attention. But not here. At Blue House, Lincoln can be mine alone.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks as he takes a sip of ice water.

  “That I hope this can be our place, where the world doesn’t get to intrude. Like the cabin was all those years ago.”

  Something glints in Lincoln’s eyes, and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking.

  “I’m glad you feel that way. Blue House has always been special, but mostly because I always wanted to show it to you. I wanted to know what you would think of this place.” His attention drops to the table, and he pauses.

  “What?”

  He looks up, his hazel gaze shimmering with sincerity. “I built Blue House for you. For us.” He laughs, shaking his head. “I thought I was fucking crazy at the time. Who would build a house on an island for a woman married to another man?”

  His admission rocks me.

  “Are you serious?”

  Lincoln nods. “I knew we weren’t done. I refused to accept it. If it took me until my last breath, I was going to get my second chance with you.”

  Tears sting my eyes, but they have nothing to do with sadness. No, these are happy tears.

  “Really?”

  He nods again. “I don’t give up easily, and for you, I was never giving up.” Lincoln rises from his seat and steps around the table. “I wasn’t planning to do this now, but I wasn’t not planning to do it now either . . .”

  “What?” I blink as he drops to one knee and pulls something out of his pocket and holds it up between us.

  “You’re the only woman I’ve ever seen when I pictured forever, and now I know forever with you still isn’t long enough, but it’ll have to do. Whitney Gable, will you marry me?”

  My mouth drops open as a sense of disbelief takes over my system. The tears that were burning my eyes only moments ago materialize and spill down my cheeks as the sun catches the diamond and it flashes.

  I cover my mouth with both hands as I stumble from my chair and drop to my knees before him. He pulls one hand away from my mouth and holds the ring at the end of my finger.

  “Will you?”

  “Of course! Of course I’ll marry you!”

  I’m laughing and crying, and my hand shakes as he slides the diamond onto it. But it has nothing to do with fear or uncertainty, and everything to do with the fact that it’s official.

  I’ve never been this happy in my entire life.

  Lincoln Riscoff is finally mine, and I’m his.

  38

  Lincoln

  “Oh shit, we’re interrupting.”

  Cricket’s voice comes from behind me moments after I pull Whitney to her feet and kiss the hell out of my future wife.

  I tear my lips away for a moment. “Go away. Come back later.”

  “Shut up!” She must see the rock on Whitney’s hand because she squeals and comes racing toward us. “You’re engaged? Oh my God! This is, like, the second-best news of the day!”

  Whitney wipes away the tears streaking down her cheeks to look at her cousin. “And what’s the best news of the day?”

  “We’re getting married!” Cricket grabs Hunter’s hand. “But not today. When we want to. How we want to. Where we want to.”

  “And my mother can either accept it or not come,” Hunter adds.

  The smile on Whitney’s face widens even further as she springs toward her cousin to hug her.

  “I’m so glad! This is the best day.” She turns around to look at me. “I think Blue House might be magic.”

  I don’t have to tell her I already knew that.

  Cricket and Hunter join us for lunch, and being surrounded by such joy is a completely new experience for me. Janelle brings us champagne, and we toast each other until we’re buzzed.

  Nothing can touch us here. No one can take this away from us.

  We eat until we can’t eat any more, and Whitney and I sink into one of the plush cushions on a large round chair by the pool. Cricket and Hunter laze across from us, side by side and holding hands. We probably all look like the most disgusting pictures of happiness.

  Fucking finally.

  “We need some music,” Cricket says, pulling out her phone. She taps the screen a couple of times, and the first sound to come out of it has Whitney curling away from me.

  It takes me a few seconds to realize that the voice is Ricky Rango’s. But the words are Whitney’s.

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  “No, don’t change it,” I say.

  Whitney looks at me funny. “Why not? We don’t need him here. He’ll just ruin everything.”

  I shake my head. “No, he won’t. Because he doesn’t have that power anymore. Besides, he didn’t write those words. You did. It might be his voice, but this is your heart.”

  “I never thought about it like that,” Whitney whispers. It takes a moment before she relaxes into me, but when she does, her spine unbends and she starts to hum along with it.

  “I wrote this song thinking about you,” she says when it ends, and the words I just heard hit home even harder.

  “I’m so sorry I put you in the position where he had even a sliver of a chance with you. I hate that I gave Renee the opening she needed to threaten you. I’m so sorry, Whitney. You’ll never know how sorry.”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry. It might not have been the road I wanted to travel, but it led me right back here to you. This is where I was meant to be, and I appreciate every single bit of it more now than I ever could have before. This is real. This is perfect.”

  “This is us,” I tell her quietly.

  The song changes to something else, and we spend the afternoon exactly the way it was meant to be spent.

  Together.

  39

  Whitney

  By the time dinner rolls around, Cricket has the mad urge to have a bonfire on the beach, and Lincoln indulges her.

  Once the flames crackle in the firepit, we roast hot dogs and I laugh as Lincoln tries to figure out how to get his off the stick and into the bun.

  “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but clearly I’ve been missing out.”

  As we eat half-charred dogs with too much ketchup, I sip wine out of a plastic tumbler and stare up at the stars.

  Cricket and Hunter sit across the fire from us, and it makes me so happy to see them just like they were before Karma dropped her bomb on all of us. She can’t break them. Just like nothing can break Lincoln and me. I truly believe that now. Our relationship has been forged in the fires of adversity, and we’ve emerged as something different. Something beautiful in a way that we never could have been before.

  I try to think about what it would have been like if I hadn’t married Ricky, and Lincoln and I had stayed together after that summer. Whatever would have followed could never have been as strong and precious, because we now know what it’s like to lose the person you love most.

  “Whit, why don’t you sing us one of your songs? I know you’ve been writing like a fiend.”

  I lift my gaze to stare across the fire at my cousin. She knows I don’t sing. My voice is strictly for shower-only performances.

  “How do you know that?” I ask, deflecting the question.

  “Because I heard you last night after you texted Lincoln and you thought I was asleep.”

  I narrow my gaze on my cousin. “You sly bitch.”

  Her smile, complete with ketchup at the corner of her mouth, melts my heart. “Come on. You haven’t sung for me in years. You used to kill me with how amazing you were.”

  I stare at Cricket like she’s taken a bad trip. “I think your memory is broken, because whoever yo
u’re remembering wasn’t me.”

  She shakes her head. “No, definitely you. Because I remember you singing that first single before it ever hit the radio. Acoustic. In the backyard. We were both buzzed off crappy wine coolers and dreaming about the future.”

  As soon as she describes that night, the memory blooms in my brain like I can see it playing out in real time.

  She’s right. I did sing for her.

  “I’m not drunk enough to do that again.”

  “I want to hear you.” Lincoln’s voice comes out husky, and his breath skims across my ear. “I would love to hear you, actually.”

  I shake my head, apprehension creeping into my veins. “No. You really don’t. I’m not good. The songs might be good—I can admit that—but I’m not. I’m a songwriter, not a singer.”

  “She’s full of shit, for the record,” Cricket says, and I want to slap her.

  “Leave her alone, babe. If she doesn’t want to sing, don’t push her.” Hunter comes to my rescue but also grabs the bottle of wine by the neck. “But if you need a little liquid courage, I can get you a refill.”

  Lincoln plucks the tumbler out of my hand and leans around the fire, his long body curving until Hunter can refill my cup.

  When it’s back in my hand, I take a long, deep drink. Just the thought of anyone hearing me sing now threatens to break me out in hives. Ricky used to laugh at my voice, and told me not to let anyone hear me because it would be too embarrassing for him, and for me.

  Asshole.

  I shove the thought out of my head, because I refuse to let memories like that pollute this incredible place and this amazing time.

  “Sorry, Whit. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You know that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do. I just . . . I remember how incredible you were, and then one day you just . . . stopped, and I never heard you again.”

  “Because someone told me the truth about how I really sounded.”

  Cricket sits up in Hunter’s arms, sloshing wine over the rim of her tumbler. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that piece of shit convinced you that you were bad? If he weren’t dead, I’d kill him right now.” Hunter has to wrap an arm around Cricket to keep her from charging toward me.

  “Babe, give her some space.”

  Behind me, Lincoln stiffens, and I want to end this whole conversation as quickly as it started. And there’s one really good way to do that—humiliate myself in front of all of them. At least it’ll ensure that they never ask again.

  I gulp down half my wine and rise to my feet.

  “Blue—”

  I turn away from the fire, facing the swift winds rising off the ocean, and wave a hand behind me to stop Lincoln from doing whatever he’s about to do.

  I close my eyes and start quietly, sending my voice into the darkness with the heat of the fire and their gazes on my back.

  “I never wanted to be stronger.

  I just wanted to be yours.

  To steal a little longer . . .”

  Gaining a little more courage as my voice seemed to be carried away by the breeze, I keep going, diving into the first verse of the song I’ve been working on for days.

  I raise my tumbler as I hit the chorus again. And then the bridge.

  By the time I finish, I’m convinced that no one heard me, and only the waves experienced the voice I’ve learned to keep hidden. But when I turn around, I know I’m wrong.

  Cricket’s smile threatens to break her face, and tears shine in her eyes. Hunter starts a slow clap, and suddenly, I’m terrified to look at Lincoln.

  “Blue . . . why didn’t you tell me?”

  His voice is a beacon for my gaze. He’s already standing, his body tense. And his face . . . there’s something so pure shining on it, I’m afraid to believe it’s real.

  Pride.

  “You sound . . . you’re incredible,” he says.

  Cricket claps louder than Hunter. “She’s a goddamn angel who’s been silenced for too long.”

  Lincoln walks toward me, dodging the fire. When he stops in front of me, his palms curve around my cheeks.

  “You were amazing before, but you need to know that whatever you’ve thought all these years about your voice—it was wrong. I don’t have to love you to know how special your talent is.”

  Tears trickle down my cheeks, and Lincoln wipes them away with his thumbs.

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  40

  Lincoln

  I could kill Rango for what he did to Whitney. Fucking kill him.

  Feeling her body vibrate with fear gutted me and made me wish I could take back my request. Watching her rise, her posture stiff and uncomfortable, made me want to snatch her back into my arms where I could keep her safe.

  But listening to her belt out heart-breaking lyrics into the wind in a voice that was pure and sweet unleashed a wave of pride in me that may never be duplicated. Not just because of her talent, but because of the risk she took to conquer that fear.

  Whitney Gable is truly the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. I’m the luckiest man in the whole goddamned world that she’s wearing my ring and is going to spend the rest of her life with me.

  I knew she was special the day she walked into that bar, but I didn’t know she was the one until I lost her. I paid for that for ten years, and then I almost fucked it up again.

  “I will never deserve you,” I tell her as I wipe the tears away from her face. “But I’ll never stop trying.”

  Her tears fall faster as my lips take hers, and in the moonlight, beneath the stars, I seal that vow with a kiss. When I pull away, Whitney’s tears slow.

  “I love you, Lincoln.”

  “I love you more, so goddamn much.” I wrap my arms around her waist and pick her up, carrying her away from the fire and back toward the house.

  From behind us, I hear Cricket laugh.

  “So, what does everyone think about a double wedding?”

  I’m too busy carrying Whitney in my arms and taking her to bed to answer.

  41

  Whitney

  The last time my phone rang on this island with a call from Jackie, all hell broke loose. When I stare down at it on the breakfast bar and see her name on the display, the last thing I want to do is answer it and shatter the peace we’ve finally found.

  The island and Blue House have healed us all in a way that I couldn’t have predicted. The sparkle of the ring on my finger tells me that I didn’t make it up. All of this is real.

  The phone vibrates again, and I know I have no choice but to answer.

  “Hey, Jackie, everything okay back at the ranch?” I inject as much lightness into my tone as possible, as if I’m hoping that will influence the direction of the call.

  “You need to come back. Both you and Cricket.” My aunt, who is normally rock solid and calm, even in the face of disaster, bursts into a sob.

  I look over to where Cricket and Hunter sit by the pool, his arms wrapped loosely around her as the wind blows her brown hair. Goose bumps rise on my arms.

  I knew I didn’t want to answer this call.

  “What’s going on?” I try to keep my tone calm, but even I can hear the panic creeping in.

  “Karma . . . she’s in the hospital.”

  Oh Jesus. What now? “Is it the baby?”

  “There’s no baby, Whit. She . . . she thought she was pregnant, but . . .”

  My brows dive together in confusion. “What are you talking about? I saw the bump. She said—”

  “She has ovarian cancer. The bump was a tumor. They have to operate—”

  When Jackie cuts off mid-sentence with another sob, guilt immediately crushes me for all the awful thoughts I’ve been having about Karma. My elbow lands on the breakfast bar hard enough to rattle the dishes.

  Lincoln’s head jerks at the sound, and he must see the horrified expression on my face. He rushes toward me, ready to do battle with whoever mi
ght be on the other end of the phone call for upsetting me.

  I reach out, and he grasps my hand. “We’ll be there as soon as we can, Jackie. I’m so, so sorry. I love you.”

  She dissolves into sobs and whispers out a quiet thank you before the call ends.

  “What?” Lincoln asks.

  “Get the chopper. We have to go to the hospital, and I have no idea how the hell I’m going to tell Cricket.”

  Lincoln and I climb out of the chopper after it lands on the helipad in front of the Riscoff Memorial Hospital, but Cricket sits frozen inside.

  Hunter unhooks her buckles and guides her to the door, but she looks like a zombie. As soon as they clear the blades, I thread my fingers through hers and squeeze her hand.

  “Are you—” I start to ask if she’s okay, but Cricket speaks before I can get the question out.

  “I was so mad at her. She ruined everything. I wanted her to hurt like she made everyone else hurt. I said I wanted her dead, and now she has cancer.” Cricket’s stricken expression breaks my heart. “What kind of horrible person am I? She—”

  “Stop. You can’t think like that. It’s not your fault. It didn’t happen because of what she did or what you thought. It’s . . . it’s just life handing us another shock we didn’t expect. We’ll get through it, just like we’ve gotten through everything else. She’ll have top-of-the-line care, and she’ll be fine.”

  “The doctors here are all handpicked, and if she needs specialists, we’ll fly them in right away.” Lincoln’s calm and reassuring tone makes me love him even more. He leans down to kiss the top of my head as he squeezes me tighter against his side.