“I’ll explain tomorrow,” Seth promised, reaching back to squeeze each of their hands.
All the while, Addison drove quietly through the blustery island, grateful that she remembered the route back to that beach house. It was bizarre how much had happened since she’d last been on the island. She remembered meeting Charlotteat that fancy restaurant and sobbing so hard that they’d had to leave. Addison had felt pathetic back then. She didn’t feel pathetic anymore. She wondered what had changed.
People grew stronger in difficult situations, she knew.
Back at the beach house, Addison and Seth hauled the suitcases inside and helped their children gather their pajamas and toiletries to get ready for bed. The kids had a surge of surprise energy, then, which required a bit of television-watching to come down. Eventually, they all fell asleep on the sofa, their mouths open. Seth carried each of them to bed, then returned to the living room in a big T-shirt and a pair of sweats. Addison had put on a nightgown, but she kept her makeup on, wanting to look pretty even if she cried as they spoke.
“Do you want something?” Seth asked, ruffling his hair in that way she’d always loved. It made him look like a cartoon character.
“Maybe a glass of wine,” Addison said. She thought it might make it easier to say the things she needed to say.
“I want one, too,” Seth said.
He returned with two glasses of red and sat beside her on the sofa. The television was off, and the lights were dim, so that the snow fluttering past the window looked especially white.
Addison had no idea how to proceed. She filled her mouth with wine.
“You’re here,” Seth said finally.
“I’m here.”
Seth scratched his thigh. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been here. You knew how to get to the house.”
“True,” Addison said. “I came a few months back. It was still warm then, and the only people here were Charlotte and Nina. I don’t think they could have imagined that everyone would come together again. And they had no idea where you were. It made me feel so lost and strange. But they were warm, kind, andgenerous. They let me stay here. They fed me wine, sweet treats, and nice meals, and they talked to me. I’d been feeling so lost in Hawaii, so unsure of myself. When I connected you with this house, I came out to dig around. At first, I assumed you had a second family that you’d run off to live with.”
Seth inhaled sharply. “No. I never would have.”
Addison laughed darkly. “How was I supposed to know that? And do you really think disappearing like you did is so much better than having a second family?”
Seth hung his head. “It made sense in my head when I left. I thought I was protecting us. I thought I was protecting myself and my lies and everything I’d told you, so that we could keep living as Seth and Addison Green. I love Seth and Addison Green. I love our life in Hawaii.”
Addison was quiet for a moment. She thought of her father, giving away his life’s savings to protect the emotional life he’d built. It was selfish, the sort of thing a child without foresight did. But she also understood it, she supposed. She understood that the instinct came from love, sort of.
But anger continued to rage through her. “I don’t know if I can forgive you. I really don’t.”
“I know. I get that. I keep searching my mind for a way to convince you to see things the way I saw them, but I see how insane that all was. The thing is, when I met you, Addy, I was running so far and so fast from my past that I had whiplash. I was running from my uncle, from the lodge, and from my family, yes. But I was also running from everything that happened with Charlotte in my twenties. I was running from the car accident that had nearly killed Charlotte’s fiancé. I’d lost my family, and then I’d found Charlotte again, and then I felt that I lost her a second time. I was broken up and reeling. And when I met you and built a life with you as Seth Green, I told myself that I would kill Jack Whitmore. I didn’t want anything to do with him. Now,I see that entire act as a kind of mental illness. But it was a mental illness caused by my love for you and the kids.”
Addison realized she was shaking. She put her wineglass on the end table and tried to calm down. “You didn’t trust me enough to bring me into your world,” she said.
“I should have,” Seth said. “I should have told you from the very beginning. But everything happened so fast.”
Addison remembered how, when they’d fallen in love, it had felt like nothing in the world had mattered, save for them and their plans. She remembered that she’d immediately forgotten about Chris and everything she’d wanted with him. She remembered wanting to move in with Seth almost immediately, to build a life as soon as they could.
It had been fast. Seth was right.
But did that make the lie understandable?
“I want to trust you, Seth,” she whispered. “Jack. Whatever your name is now.”
Seth closed his eyes.
“I want to be with you. I want to raise our kids with you. I want this,” she said, gesturing to the air between them, an air that seemed to simmer with their love.
Seth nodded. “It’s all I want.”
They were quiet for a moment. Addison could tell that Seth wanted to touch her, to hold her hand, but she couldn’t bring herself to allow him. She had to explain a little bit more. She had to let him know that the situation was far more complicated than he bargained for.
“My father was blackmailed,” she said. “They took everything. We had to sell the hotel. There’s nothing left.”