“Water usually is,” Marcel muttered. “Drink up,” he said a little louder.
I did as he said and fell promptly to sleep. Sometime later, I awoke with a raging headache and a tongue the size of a blowfish.
Marcel was still sitting beside me, reading his book. “I had the cabana boy slather you with sunscreen. You’re welcome.”
“No you didn’t,” I grumbled, sitting up slowly under the huge umbrella that hadn’t been there before.
“No, but I thought about it. Instead, I had him do me.”
From the lounger on the other side of Marcel, Luca murmured a sleepy “You wish.”
I rubbed my face with my hands and tried to shake off the fuzzy feeling. Hangovers sucked. I’d hoped to keep a nice buzz around the clock to avoid getting one.
“Did you say you had information about Ellison, or was that a fever dream?” I asked, assuming the latter.
He set his Kindle down on the table next to him and turned to face me. “I talked to Ian Duckworth.”
I groaned and lay back down on the chaise. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear this.”
Marcel ignored me as usual. “Obviously, we’ve been in touch about the contracts. He said something the other day, but I didn’t realize its importance until this morning when I was talking to Luca about it.”
“What did he say?”
“Ian said he was disappointed in you for leaving Ellison. He also said that Ellison was upset when he got back from taking Cate to the airport on Sunday morning. He was looking all over the property for you.”
My head was pounding. “When did he take Cate to the airport? And why the hell does he think I was the one who left Ellison?”
“I don’t know. But he told me that he and his wife really thought the two of you were serious. They were shocked when you left without saying goodbye. They asked me if Ellison found you before you left the Hamptons.”
None of that made sense. “He left first,” I said, and it maybe came out a little more hurt and accusatory than I would have liked. “I told you that.”
The first night on the island, I’d gotten drunk and spilled all the beans about Ellison and me. Marcel and Luca had listened with big hearts and even bigger opinions, but I hadn’t been in the mood for listening.
“That’s what I said to Ian, but he said no. He said you left first, and then Ellison got mad at his dad, but neither one of them ever explained why to Ian. I assumed he simply got it wrong, so I didn’t think much of it. But then I remembered the thing about taking Cate to the airport.”
“No. If Ellison had been upset, he would have called me. He would have tried to get in touch with me. Explain to me why I haven’t heard from him all week.”
That definitely came out more hurt and accusatory than I would have liked, but all the gin and tonics in all the land couldn’t have kept me from noticing how empty my arms were when I went to sleep without Ellison at night, or how hopeless the days seemed when I woke up alone.
Marcel’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding? You told me to block his number. You told me to make it so neither York could get in touch with you directly!”
“And you did it?” I asked. Sitting up quickly required me to grab my pounding head before it exploded. “Jesus Christ, Marcel! Since when do you do what I ask?”
Luca leaned forward and shot me a glare. “Watch it, asshole.”
I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. He still went behind my back to arrange everything with Ian when I asked him not to.”
“Is that bad enough to lose him over?” Marcel asked.
No. Definitely not. But my trust had been razor-thin to begin with. It hadn’t taken much to scare me off, and Ellison would have known that.
He should have come to me, dammit.
“Also,” Marcel added, “an interesting detail came up while I was talking to Ian. One of the tenants in his building needed help refitting their new office space. We negotiated additional funding for that.”
I didn’t want to talk about this right now, but it took less energy to close my eyes and ignore him than to argue.
“In the process of dealing with that, I got a list of the current tenants. The largest one is Marlette Venture Partners.”
“Don’t know ’em.” But something about the name was familiar.
“No, me neither. However, I looked into them the way I always do—”
Luca hummed. “My baby hides his nosiness under a mantle of respectable diligence. Adorable and conniving.”
“Anyway,” Marcel said. “Marlette is owned by Desi Martinez and Warren York.”
My brain started churning against my will. “Wait.”
“Right,” Marcel said, leaning forward and poking me in the shoulder. “Marlette is Marianne York’s maiden name.”
It was like he was constructing a story in several different languages and expecting me to follow it. “What the hell does this mean?” Did Ellison know? When I’d left him alone to question Desi, had he already known about Desi’s involvement in another company with Warren?
I blinked at Marcel. “Why would Desi and Warren own a completely separate investment company?”
“I don’t think that’s the important part of this.”
“Then what is? I don’t understand anything you’re saying.” I looked around for the attendant and waved him over to order a Coke and some food. Maybe that would help my brain snap out of its haze.
Luca sat forward to meet my eye over his husband’s shoulder. “I think his point is, there’s more to this than we realized. Maybe Ellison knew that. Maybe he had to do some negotiating in the background to make this work for you.”
Marcel added, “Or maybe he didn’t know, but he found out about it and tried to smooth it over for you.”
The attendant arrived with the icy soft drink. I took a deep gulp and swallowed. “Or maybe Ellison was part of it all along.”
Marcel rolled his eyes and flopped back on his chaise. “There’s the Doom-Bringer I know and tolerate. At the risk of making too much sense for your hungover brain to handle, Grey, you won’t know the truth unless you ask him.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Not that this has ever stopped you from rushing to judgment before.”
“Mpfh.”
I took a few more sips of Coke before remembering the recording on my phone from Ellison and Desi’s meeting. In all the craziness of that week, I’d never gone back and listened to it.
Marcel was wrong. I could find out the truth without talking to Ellison.
After picking my way through a sandwich and fries, I excused myself to go back to my villa and find my phone.
Hearing Ellison’s voice made me regret eating the sandwich. My stomach tightened with nerves. I missed him so fucking much. It was pathetic how used to him I’d gotten in such a short time.
I found the voice recording and hit Play.
“Hey, Desi, come on in. Grey had to run something downstairs. How are you?”
“A little frustrated if you want to know the truth. What the hell happened?”
Ellison sighed. “Uncle Mark happened, I guess. I’m worried about some of our clients. What if Grey pulls their funding or changes the way we support our investments?”