The Lies He Told | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER ROMANCE |

CHAPTER THREE

The impromptu fresco dinner took place on the upper rooftop of our private cliff house, with its glass railing balcony, lounge-style seating area, undulated marble fire pit and panoramic views of the starry night and the sandy coastline.

Unlike the other talkative gormandisers strategically seated around the marble-topped table, festooned with crisp white linen, pillar candles, polished silverware and bottles of white wine, I stared at the strip of twinkling lights below, where, at the heart of the town, social butterflies explored the pedestrianised square of live entertainment and timeless thoroughfares of quaint alleyways, cobbled streets, bars and restaurants.

"What's happening with the boat?" Solomon Everett, Daniel's close friend and fellow golfman, wants to buy our well-protected multi-million-pound superyacht in the harbour. "Is it still for sale? I am happy to take it off your hands. All you have to do is ask."

Daniel, whose arm casually rested across my shoulders, turned to me, an unasked question aflame in his eyes. "Olivia?"

"No," I declined Solomon's offer before he could even present it. "I am yet to understand why the harbour committee impounded the yacht in the first place."

"I told you," Daniel whispered for my ears only. "You forgot to pay the harbour's annual berth fee."

That's right. Pre-accident-Olivia was unreliable, irresponsible and forgetful. Of course, she neglected her duty of care to her father's most prized possession. He loved that yacht and only parted with it because I promised to take care of it.

"The harbour committee does not mess around, Olivia." Daniel lifted our joint hands to his lips and gently kissed my knuckles. "If we fail to comply with Bye-Laws, the Harbour Master is not afraid to present penalties and breaches in the court of law."

I gave him a morose smile.

"Luckily for you," Daniel said throatily, his teeth nipping the shell of my ear, "I am friends with the chairman of the harbour committee. He returned the boat for the right price."

And for that, I am grateful. I might not board the boat often, but she will always have a special place in my heart. I spent many a summer at sea with my father in the cabin, operating the marine radio, safety equipment and steering controls, whilst my mother, clad in swimwear, oversized sunglasses and a floppy hat, soaked up the sun on the deck.

"The yacht is not for sale," I told Solomon, and he side-eyed his wife, Rochelle, who's had her eye on that boat since Daniel's at-sea birthday party four years ago. "It belonged to my father."

"Why do you care?" Jacqueline Vargas scraped smoky cuts of chargrilled meat onto her plate. Her husband, Oscar Vargas, received a second helping, too, when she dumped a leafy salad onto the stone-baked bread he'd previously mauled and dismembered. "You hate Ezra. Fuck his boat."

Yes, that's how the story goes.

According to everyone attending tonight's dinner, I disowned my parents seventeen months ago when my father assaulted my husband during a charity event for not agreeing to bail him out of gambling debts.

Thanks to the uncompromising part of my brain, I have no memory of the argument, the fight or the event itself. But I do know that my mother used to call most nights, when she was drunk and weepy, because of the consequences of my father's gambling addiction, so an emotional outburst on my father's part does not come as a surprise. He is renowned for throwing a gasket when life knocks him down.

My father quite literally gambled away his fortune and declared himself bankrupt. And my mother, who should have divorced his arse years ago, blamed her son-in-law for our family breakdown and took her husband's side.