Chapter 6

Dana POV: Alex Is In Trouble

I shove my chair back so hard it scrapes across the polished hardwood like a scream. The murmurs and protests swell behind me as I march off. Mom’s voice is rising like a siren, shrieking about how I’m a disgrace.

Out of the dining hall I march, my legs moving on autopilot, up the grand staircase, down the long corridor to my old room. The door slams behind me with a satisfying thud that echoes in the whole house.

Even through the walls I can hear Mom’s shrill, perfect voice berating me: “Didn’t I tell you all she’s good for anything? She won’t get a job. She won’t work for her father’s company. She paints! She paints! Who paints for a living?”

Dad’s weak and low voice tries to cut in but it gets swallowed whole in the melee, thin and useless against the storm that is my mother’s tirade and my brothers’ angry vitriol.

I press my back to the door and slide down until I’m sitting on the floor. The tears I’ve been holding since the car pulled up finally break free. Hot, ugly sobs that rack my whole body.

The disgrace Alex Logan pinned on me followed me all the way home. Now my family thinks I’m useless too, just like he does. A failure who ran away, who couldn’t even keep a sham marriage intact without being branded a cheater.

I hear a knock behind me and try to shut the sound out with more weeping.

“Go away!” I scream. “Limme ‘lone!”

“Dana, come on.” Derek’s pleads.

Of course, it’s him. The only one who doesn’t declare war before he even thinks. Derek is like Dad, quiet and slow to judge. My other brothers are like Mom, her soldiers.

“You can’t run away from this,” he says through the door. “We have to deal with it. Is that paper telling the truth?”

“Leave me alone, Derek!”

I stumble to my feet, and cross to the bed where my bag lies open, and dig out my phone. My thumb hovers over Alex’s number, about to press call. He lied. He fed that false story to the press to ruin me. But why? After everything, why would he do this?

I never cheated on him all the time we were married.

Derek’s voice says again, “Dana . . . did you get married?”

I stare at the door, my insides feel like its ground into chaff at the thought of what the truth is. How do I explain it was a contract? A cold, business arrangement to help Alex secure his father’s legacy? A marriage on paper so he could inherit, and I could . . . what? Escape? Start over? I don’t even know anymore.

I press call.

It rings once, twice, then cuts off. Cold hands wrap around my heart. He can at least answer the question: why involve the press?

I dial again and this time the phone doesn’t even ring. It goes straight to a generic message that says: The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

I shake with more tears as I stare at the phone in my hand. Frustrated anger rips through me. I want to throw something, smash something or hurt something the way Alex hurt me.

Derek’s voice says softly outside, “Dana, did you cheat on your husband? Is the newspaper telling the truth?”

If Alex believes it, fine. He stopped caring about me. But I can’t let my family swallow this lie too.

I wrench the door open. Derek is standing there holding a bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses, smiling sheepishly. “I brought something to numb the pain.”

I turn back into the room without a word. He follows, closing the door quietly.

“What did you do?” he asks. “This guy said you cheated.”

I sink onto the edge of the bed. Before I can answer, the door opens again. Jack and Eddy barge in, both in plain shirts and jeans now, looking less like a Marine and a cop and more like two thugs ready to settle a score.

“Guys, leave,” Derek says. “I’ll handle this with her.”

Jack snorts. “Shut up, Derek. The men are taking charge.”

They drag two chairs over and plant themselves in front of me like a wall. I stare at them glumly, phone still clutched in my hand.

“You know what pisses me off?” Eddie asks, fixing Jack with a cold stare.

Jack shrugs. “I don’t.”

Derek mutters, “We don’t care.”

Eddy glares at him, then continues. “What pisses me off is how our own sister gets married and none of us had any idea. No invitation. No information. We didn’t get to attend the wedding. That’s what pisses me off.”

“And you want to know what ticks me the hell off?” Jack says, his face red.

Eddy grins darkly. “Preach it, brother.”

“What pisses me off is I don’t even know this loser who thought he could marry my own sister. Marry her, that is, really marry her, if you follow my drift. Take her to bed, yeah, take her to bed, and then divorce her just as quietly as he married her. Guys, we can’t let this go.”

Eddy’s face is scarlet now too. “We can’t let it go. Derek . . . you knew about this? Don’t lie to me. Did you?”

Derek sighs and looks away.

Jack and Eddy exchange a look, then turn to me. I wipe my eyes, still staring at the phone, angry at myself, at Alex, at everyone in this house, well, maybe not so much at Derek and dad.

“Dana?” Jack says quietly.

I look at him.

“We don’t believe any of that crap in the paper about cheating,” he says.

I blink at my two brothers, surprised. I didn’t expect that. Not after I ghosted them for four years and hid a whole marriage.

“I didn’t do it,” I whisper.

Eddy cracks his knuckles. “I have friends on the force out in California.”

Jack nods. “And I’ve got guys on base in Nevada. They can chopper out there in two hours and make this guy sing the truth.”

“What?” I gasp, putting my phone aside, my heart racing. “What are you two talking about?”

Derek throws his hands up. “Guys, no. We can’t do this. We haven’t heard this guy’s side.”

Jack rounds on him. “Shut up, Derek. You knew where Dana was and never told us. You knew she got married and kept it quiet.”

I swallow hard. “Guys . . . I’m sorry, okay? It was—it was not—”

The words fall in my throat and the truth quickly goes to bed.

“What is it, Dana?” Jack asks, huffing. “What happened?”

Eddy stands abruptly and stalks out of the room.

Jack puts a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. Dana, all I need is a number and I’ll find him.”

“What are you going to do to him?” I ask, even though I already know.

This isn’t the first time. High-school boyfriends who got too handsy got it from my stubborn brothers, so did college guys who didn’t call back. My brothers have always handled “disrespect” with fists and quiet warnings.

“Jack, let it go,” I say. “It was my fault.”

He stands anyway. “This guy might feel different about the whole thing. He might want to talk.”

Then he walks out of the room to join Eddy.

Derek covers his face with both hands and sighs. “Shit. Dana, you know what they’re going to do.”

I bolt off the bed and run back downstairs.

In the dining hall, the table is cleared except for a map spread open under the chandelier. Jack and Eddy hunch over it, walkie-talkie crackling on the side. They’re marking something with a red pen, routes, maybe. Or coordinates.

I stop at the top of the stairs, my mouth open and my hands shaking.

Alex is in trouble.