“Where?”
Tim was silent for a moment, but then he muttered, “Nowhere.”
“Tell me,” she said, twisting in her seat to face him.
“At the resort, damn it. I saw them at the resort.”
“It was you!” she exclaimed. “You’re the one who leaked the details. You’re the one who outed Mack.”
“I . . . er . . .”
Kennedy couldn’t believe it. For such a stand-up guy, Tim had violated trust on a level that was unforgiveable. And on top of that, he was letting Sawyer take the fall.
“How’d you get in there? It’s by invitation only.”
“I . . . uh . . . I was doing a security check.”
“AI has its own security,” she snapped. “You snuck in there.”
“Fine,” he huffed. “I saw your father go in there and I was curious. I convinced the girl at the front desk that I’d been called to check on something. I went in. That’s when I saw them.”
“Why would you tell someone?”
“I hadn’t planned on it, damn it. I was upset because I’d been wanting to talk to you and you wouldn’t hear me out. I’d thought about going to your house to try again, but I ended up at Moonshiners. Greyson was there bitchin’ about Sawyer. It just came out.”
Holy shit. And Sawyer thought Greyson was the one who had leaked the information. And it all made sense. Greyson seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on more than one occasion.
“So you thought it was all right to try to ruin my father’s life because you were pissed.”
“I wasn’t tryin’ to ruin anything. I was angry. You haven’t been willing to talk to me and then I heard you were seein’ Sawyer. What did you expect me to do?”
“Act like a grown-up for once,” Kennedy snapped, slamming her mouth shut as soon as the words came out. Fighting with Tim wasn’t going to help the situation. “So what does this have to do with me?”
The silence engulfed them once more and Kennedy sat patiently waiting for Tim to answer. She could sense that he wanted to say something.
Finally, after a couple of minutes, he began to talk.
“I love you, Kennedy. I’ve loved you since the first day I met you. I know that you loved me, too. And I just . . . I want us to try to work things out. When you broke up with me, those were some of my darkest days. I was about to propose to you. I don’t have a clue what happened, either. One minute I thought we were happy and the next it was just . . . over.”
It wasn’t just over, but Kennedy didn’t say as much. Their relationship had been deteriorating over time, falling apart until she couldn’t tell a difference between the relationship she had with Tim and the relationship she had with her friends. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she told him. “It wasn’t anything you did.”
She knew the it’s me, not you spiel wasn’t going to work with him. It wasn’t fair to him either, but Kennedy really didn’t know how to explain it. At least not without hurting his feelings. Looking over at him, she knew she had no choice but to come clean.
“You know this isn’t gonna work, right?” she asked him, hoping the guy at least understood that much.
“I know,” he stated reluctantly, his eyes not meeting hers. “But it was worth a shot.”
“I don’t know about all that. You really freaked me out. Telling me my father’s in the hospital was not the best route to take.”
“I . . . Aww, hell. I’m sorry, Kennedy.”
“I know.” She did know, even if she didn’t like it. Kennedy wasn’t sure Tim had an evil bone in his entire body, so clearly his motives were fueled by emotion. “And I’m sorry for plenty of things as well. It really wasn’t you. I broke up with you because . . .” Kennedy reworded her thoughts in her head, trying to make them as kind as she could. “I think we just grew apart.”
“We did,” Tim admitted. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“It does, Tim. It so does. We can’t work this out. There’s nothin’ there anymore.”
Tim didn’t respond. Even if he’d had the words, the fact that a shiny black Cadillac CTS-V pulled up behind them would’ve cut their conversation short anyway.
“Shit!” Kennedy threw open her door and jumped out, practically running to Sawyer. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” she assured him. The murderous rage she saw in his eyes only scared her a tiny bit. She knew it wasn’t directed at her, but she definitely didn’t want him to cut loose on Tim. There was no doubt Sawyer would beat the shit out of him and then he’d end up in jail.