Chapter Three
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want me to stick around and drive back with you?” Bella hugged Amy so tightly she thought she’d break a rib.
“Nah. I’ll be back at Seaside later tonight. I told Duke I would stay to go over some of the details about the job.” Amy didn’t want to get Bella any more pissed off at Tony than she already was, so she didn’t tell her that he’d told her to take the job. She’d sucked it up last night and pretended that everything was cool, when she felt as though she were dying inside.
“Remember”—Bella narrowed her eyes and pointed at Amy—“negotiate summers at the Cape, or I’ll negotiate it for you.”
“Oh, please. Don’t put that pressure on her.” Jenna hugged Amy.
Jamie and Jessica had left early that morning for their honeymoon, and Leanna and Kurt had left at the crack of dawn so Leanna would be back in Wellfleet in time to sell her jams at the flea market. Leanna owned Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats, and it had taken off over the past few years. Restaurants and stores across the Cape sold her jams, and her flea-market traffic had nearly doubled.
“Are you sure you’re okay with the whole Tony thing?” Jenna asked. “I still think he’ll come around. He’s always been careful with you, Ames. He’s just being extra careful now.”
I don’t think telling me to go to Australia is being careful.
“Speak of the devil.” Bella nodded toward the door to the resort.
Tony came through the doors in a dark suit with a crisp white shirt. His cuff links sparkled, and Amy wondered if he was wearing the ones she’d given him two Christmases ago, but she didn’t dare get close enough to look. His sexy baby blues were serious as he glanced at his watch.
“Why is he dressed up?” Amy asked.
“He has a speaking engagement at the Marriott this morning,” Jenna explained. “Didn’t you know he was staying in Boston today?”
“No. I…I haven’t talked to him since, well, you know.” Since he told me to take the job in Australia.
“Hey,” Tony said with a wave. “You guys heading out?”
Pete and Caden pulled up in front of the hotel in Bella’s SUV.
“Yeah.” Bella handed her suitcase to Caden. “Good luck at your talk.”
“Oh, so you’re speaking to me today?” He smiled at Bella.
Amy sensed that he was purposely not looking at her, and she hated it.
“Yes. Of course I’m talking to you.” Bella sidled up to Amy. “But I hate you for hurting Amy.”
“Bella!” Amy hissed. She felt her cheeks flush.
“What? I do. I mean I love him, of course. We all do, but still.” Bella punched Tony’s arm.
Tony arched a brow at Caden in a what’s up with your woman way. Caden held his hands up in surrender. “Dude, what can I say? I think you and Amy were meant for each other, and I’ve only known you a few years.”
“Oh my gosh.” Amy groaned. “Okay, this has to stop. Tony is not obligated to be with me. And, Bella…” She glared at her. “I can’t believe you told Caden! Can’t we just pretend that things are like they used to be? Please?” She needed to mend the fence between her and Tony. It was giving her splinters at every turn. They’d been friends for too long to let her broken heart come between them.
Tony draped an arm over Amy’s shoulder. Obviously telling her to go to Australia hadn’t affected him as badly as it had affected her. Despite her hurt feelings, her body betrayed her by getting that tingly feeling of anticipation all over. Her stomach fluttered and her mind instantly skipped down the maybe one day path.
“Listen, I love Amy like I love each of you, and that’s never going to change. Right, Ames?”
Tony’s words kicked her off that path and right into the ugly ditch of reality.
TONY’S MOTIVATIONAL-SPEAKING engagements and pro-surfing career earned him a comfortable seven figures a year. Normally, he loved every second of his dual career, from the awed look of the seminar attendees to the repetitive questions about his success. A few years into his surfing career, he’d found that he was continually giving impromptu talks about his path to success. His agent took note and talked him into putting on a seminar about creating one’s own success. Over the years the seminar that had once hosted twenty participants blossomed into hundreds of attendees across the country, with multiple engagements. Tony now spoke not only about creating one’s own path to success, but overcoming fears and other obstacles and paying it forward along the way.
For the first time ever, Tony had to feign the positivity and confidence he usually exuded naturally. He hated knowing that Amy was spending the day with Duke. She’d probably already accepted the position, and now there’d be no turning back. Everything he’d done over the past two days pissed him off. He needed to hit the waves and clear his head, work off some steam.
He looked out over the sea of attendees, wishing every blond head was Amy. He’d felt her body go rigid beneath his arm earlier that morning when he’d said he loved her like he loved the others. It was only afterward that he realized how much those words had probably stung. She couldn’t know that he adored everything about her. She couldn’t know that it was her face he conjured up in the middle of the night, or that half the time he texted her, he did it just to feel the connection to her. There was so much that she didn’t know about the way he felt because he kept it buried deep inside, beneath the anger and confusion of his youth, beneath the womanizing and the refusal to get close to any woman for more than a few nights. Buried so deep that sometimes he wondered if he’d ever be able to move past it. Until this weekend, he’d never wanted to.
He forced himself to focus on the seminar he was giving on creating one’s life. The irony was not lost on him that while he’d created his own life, he was doing a real good job of messing up the only part that really mattered.