Knowing she’d done it for Marc had never really helped. Having the approval of both their parents had never really helped. But physical separation combined with a sixteen-year-old’s natural talent for selective memory had made it possible to move on.
After a while.
The whites of Marc’s eyes glowed in the moonlight. ‘You didn’t have to marry him just because you slept with him.’
She knew he’d see the truth in the sadness of her smile. ‘I’ve always accepted the consequences of my actions. Regardless of what else you think of me, that hasn’t changed. I chose to do something contrary to the values my parents taught me. My church.’
Marc shook his head. ‘McKinley was a jerk. It always surprised me that he married you at all. That he didn’t stop chasing you once he.’
His words dried up and Beth swallowed the hurt. ‘Once he had what he wanted? Go ahead, say it. Everyone else did.’ Marc frowned. She straightened her shoulders. ‘I hadn’t planned to sleep with him but once I did, turns out I was a. natural student.’
The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d spent all year trying to come to terms with the blossoming feelings that Marc was beginning to inspire in her, yet she’d barely touched him. But she’d slept with the boy she was physically immune to.
Or maybe that was why?
‘And he was naive enough to make that kind of life decision based on one girl?’ Marc asked.
She swallowed around the large lump in her chest. ‘We both were. Except that Damien grew up a lot in the following few years,’ she went on. ‘Discovered that other women could be good in bed, too. Extremely good, if you knew where to look. And my one piece of power vanished.’
And hadn’t he let her know it.
‘So you left him?’
Beth stared. ‘No. I didn’t. Not until two years ago.’
He gaped. ‘You cannot be serious.’
Heat chased up her icy skin. ‘My vows were serious. I was determined to make a go of it, certain he’d grow out of his … phase and maybe we could turn things around.’ Determined not to lose any more face with her family. Her few remaining friends. Having screwed up so much in her life. ‘Then, somehow, years went by. Empty, pointless—’ passionless ‘—years.’
Only it wasn’t somehow. She knew exactly how, but she wasn’t about to go there. Not with Marc. Telling a room full of strangers was one thing. Telling the man who’d been your closest friend.
He growled, his eyes darkened. ‘Hell, Beth.’
Her laugh was bitter. ‘I thought you’d be thrilled I reaped what I sowed.’
He blew air out from between his lips in a fair imitation of their whale. ‘Look, Beth. Yes, at the time I was pretty much gutted that you chose that moron over our friendship. But I never would have wished that on you. No matter how angry I was. I …’ His eyes flitted away. ‘I cared for you. You deserved better.’
She straightened up, not ready to hear him defend her. Not ready to hear how short a time he’d been impacted. Not ready for all her angst to be for nothing. ‘I think I got exactly what I deserved. Like I said, I always was prepared to accept the consequences of my actions.’
‘For years? Wasn’t that a little extreme?’
She stared at him warily. Better he thought her a martyr. ‘Some lessons take longer to learn than others.’
She shrugged off the comment and the conversation. ‘So … what did you do after we went our separate ways?’
Marc made busy with the sloshing. ‘Kept a low profile.’
Super-low. He might as well not have existed. Which was pretty much what she’d asked of him.
He’d walk through fire if you asked him to …
‘The national skills shortage hit during my summer job up north, right after graduation, and suddenly I was pulling in a small fortune for an eighteen-year-old. It set me up beautifully to buy an old charter boat the next year and refurbish it during the off-season. Now I have three.’
‘So it worked out okay, then—even though you didn’t make it to uni?’ Relief washed through her.
His smile wasn’t kind. ‘Trying to decide how high up the list you need to put me?’
Her make-good list. If she was going to finish the job she’d come for, she had to be thorough. Confession time. She found his eyes and held them, took a deep breath. ‘Top half.’
‘Sorry?’
She cleared her thick throat. ‘You asked earlier which half of my list you were in. I just wanted you to know you were in the top half.’ She clenched her hands. ‘High in the top half.’
His next words were cautious. Almost unwillingly voiced. ‘You seriously have a list?’
She nodded.
His brows dropped. ‘Why?’
Panic surged through her. What a stupid question not to have anticipated. She swallowed hard. ‘Self improvement.’
His frown looked like doubt. But he let it pass. ‘How high was I?’
Somewhere off in the dunes, a bird of prey shrieked out across the night. Her voice, when it came, was hushed. Quiet enough that he’d have to hear her heart pounding. ‘The top. Number one.’
It took a lot to shock Marc Duncannon. But she managed to pull it off. He had a few goes at answering before coherent words came out of his gaping mouth. ‘I’m the first person you’ve come to find?’
Shaking her head made thick cords of salty dark hair, still a tiny bit damp from her dunking earlier, swing around her face. It had to suffice as a screen. ‘Actually, you’re the last.’
‘But did you just say—’
‘Top of my list, yes, but the hardest. I left you till last.’
God. Would he realise what that meant? It was screamingly obvious, surely? The silence was almost material. Even the whale seemed to hold her breath. Emotion surged through his eyes like the waves battering them both. Hope, hurt, anger … Then, finally, nothing. A vacant, careful void.
‘You’ve held onto those memories all this time?’
Her stomach sank. ‘Haven’t you?’
He looked away and when his eyes returned to hers they were kindly. Too kindly. ‘No.’
No? Beth blinked.
‘Give yourself a break, Beth. We were kids.’
His unconcerned words struck like a sea snake. Bad enough to have sabotaged for nothing the only relationship of her life that meant something to her. Now she’d wasted years of angst, endured a mountain of guilt. and it had barely registered on his emotional radar.
‘Losing our friendship meant nothing?’
He sighed. ‘What do you want me to say, Beth? It cut deep at the time but everything worked out. Life goes on.’
Mortification streaked through her. She stared at his carefully neutral face. Maybe Janice had been right? Cut free of her, Marc had gone on to make a success of his life—not what he’d always told her he would do but then how many of her school mates had ever actually grown up to do what they imagined they’d do for the rest of their lives? She certainly hadn’t. While she was literally drowning in her regrets, Marc had rebounded and done a fine job of getting by without her.
Everything