Knight and Day

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dylan sat alone on the deck of the Love Tug a couple of weeks later, his eyes on the beach even though his mind was miles away. He’d tried to tell Kara the truth, he really had. The burden of lying sat heavily on his back. He’d gone over events a million times in his head, trying to make what he’d said and not said into less of a lie and more of a misunderstanding. But the plain truth was that there had been no misunderstanding. He’d invented a name because he didn’t want to be the person he’d always been, because he didn’t want all of the negative associations of his old life or the people in it.

He’d lied to make his own life easier, and in the process he’d made other people’s lives more difficult. Lucien was lying for him, or at least covering for him. His mother was lying to anyone who asked where he’d gone. And then there was Kara.

Kara, who’d given him so much of herself and asked only one thing of him in return. Honesty.

He placed his empty beer bottle down on the table in front of him and pulled the battered brown envelope Justin had delivered towards him. Dog-eared and bent, it remained unopened, but Dylan had known all along what he’d find inside.

His stomach turned over with clammy nerves as he picked at the edge of it.

Papers.

Legal papers.

Divorce papers.