I...” Jason put down his mug and stepped toward her. Allie jumped to her feet, hands up.
In that moment, Allie felt like such a fool. “I trusted you,” she said, and realized how dumb she sounded for saying it. What about her life had told her that trusting people ever worked out? They always found a way to disappoint. “How long?”
“What?”
“How long have you been...into this?” Allie held up the coiled whip.
“Allie, it’s... I don’t know, it just sort of happened.”
“How long?” Allie’s voice rose, her blood rushing in her ears.
She glared at him and saw he was tempted to lie.
“I don’t know. A year, maybe more.” Jason’s shoulders slumped. “I always wanted to tell you, Allie. I just never knew how.”
Jason had proposed to her six months ago, smack in the middle of whatever twisted stuff he was doing with Lisa Holly.
“Who else?” Allie demanded, suddenly imagining an army of women wearing dog collars and handcuffs marching through his bedroom. “Besides Lisa.” If there was one thing Allie knew about betrayal, it was that it never happened just once.
“Allie, knowing that isn’t going to help you.”
“So more than just Lisa, then.” Her suspicions were confirmed. Did it matter how many others? A steel wall came down then; she could almost hear the clang of metal encasing her heart. I never should’ve unlocked that gate to begin with. I should’ve known this would happen. My fault. It won’t happen again.
Jason grabbed her shoulders. She shrugged him off.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned him.
“You never wanted to...experiment with me.” Now he was going to make it her fault. Allie felt like laughing and crying all at the same time. “You know, I tried asking.” Jason frowned.
“I told you I didn’t want to play Fifty Shades of Grey,” she snapped, and she meant it. Nothing about pain and sex went together, in her opinion. “I told you that wasn’t my thing. If that’s what you want, you need to be with someone else.”
“Allie...”
“If I was too...too...bland for you, why did you propose?”
“Because I love you, Allie. Because...because my family loves you. Because...you had smarts, looks and everything I needed in a wife...”
“Except a twisted streak.”
Bland. Bland. Bland. She couldn’t get the word out of her head.
“Come on, Allie. This doesn’t have to be a thing. It’s not like I love Lisa Holly, or...any of the others. It’s just something I like to do. A hobby.” Jason rubbed his brown shaggy hair with a frustrated swipe of his hand.
“Are you serious?” Allie couldn’t believe her ears. Was he telling her that him sleeping...spanking...and God knows what else with other women was a hobby?
“Golf is a hobby, Jason. This—” she held up the photo with shaking hands “—is not a hobby. This is—”
“You don’t have to make this into anything.” Jason took another step toward her. She took one more back. He wasn’t getting near her. Not now, maybe not ever. “Actually, it’s good you know. We should start off the marriage being honest with one another. I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time about an open marriage. I was going to wait at least until after the honeymoon to bring it up, but now this is much better. Now we can talk about it.”
Open marriage? Allie felt the room spin. She’d thought all the grenades had exploded, but here Jason had somehow detonated another one. She wanted to laugh. He thought she’d agree to that. He clearly didn’t know her at all.
“God...” Allie thought about calling off all the wedding plans, about losing the deposits they’d put down, about going public with the fact the wedding was off. “This is so complicated.” Allie felt her whole world caving in, everything she thought she knew turned upside down.
“When you think about it, it’s actually very simple.” Jason had the nerve to smile. She wanted to slap it off his face. Nothing about this seemed wrong to him at all. He actually looked philosophical. Not the least bit contrite. The man felt zero guilt about anything he’d done. That realization sliced through Allie like a cold wind. “We’re on much better footing now that you understand my needs. We’ll have an even stronger marriage because of it. This will be better than before. You’ll see.”
“No.” Allie had been a fool to trust him once. She wasn’t about to trust him again. Allie stalked over to his front door, grabbed her coat and stomped her feet into her Sorel snow boots.
“Allie, don’t make this such a big deal. We can talk about it. Think about how great this is for you. You can sleep with any man you want. I can do what you don’t like with someone else. We’ll both be happy. You’ll see. We can talk about it.”
“Nothing to talk about,” she said as she felt the tears burn behind her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her cry. He’d played her for a fool, but she’d manage to hold on to her last shred of dignity.
“Allie...”
“Go to hell, Jason,” she muttered as she spared one last glance at the stacks of beautiful wedding gifts. She’d never get to use them. She’d never have the life she thought of with Jason, or the big, warm, loving family she’d always wanted. Allie rushed outside, half expecting Jason to follow, but he didn’t. She flew into the first open elevator, jamming the main-floor button. By the time she ran across the lobby, her vision was blurry with tears as she burst through the revolving doors into the frigid Chicago air. She exhaled sharp breaths in cold, white clouds as she half ran, half stumbled down the sidewalk, nearly careening into people as she went. She felt as if she was breaking apart, her heart splintering like broken ice.
Her phone blared an incoming call in her pocket. She fumbled for it, hoping that, somehow, Jason would make this all right. He’d beg to have her back, see the error in his ways, tell her he’d been a fool. Maybe she could learn to forgive him if he really was sorry. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it, but at that moment, the pain hurt too much. She just wanted it to go away.
“Allie?” her mother’s voice came through the line, sounding thick with tears. “I have some bad news.”
Allie felt numb. What now? What could possibly make this day any worse?
“Allie, honey, Grandma Osaka died.”
A month later
DALLAS MCCORMICK CROUCHED near the rainwater tank on the Kona Coffee Estate, where one of the pipes had sprung a leak. The warm Hawaiian sun beamed down on him as he whipped off his T-shirt to help himself cool off. From his vantage point, the property sloped on a rising hillside, where he could just see the sparkling blue
