Unknown (Unknown Identity #1) Read online

“I’m good,” Leslie said, completely put off by the clichéd and tacky nature of this walking stereotype. It was like he’d watched a bunch of noir movies and applied for this job. What could they possibly have seen in him to think that he was a good fit to the job? It made her question this whole establishment, but as she watched him go she knew that this was the moment where she could act and she wouldn’t actually be judged. If she wanted to talk to Conrad, then she needed to do it now. Liquid courage. She looked over at him and felt a sinking feeling in her gut that was sour and vengeful, probably from mixing fish tacos with gin and tonics.

  “I watch your TV show,” she blurted out. The words felt hollow and almost disappointed, like she wasn’t excited to see him at all.

  He looked at her through his mirrored aviators, like he was some really cool guy who was hiding. It was almost laughable. He smiled and let out a short little laugh that was so sarcastic it stung when she heard it. “Yeah, a lot of people watch that crap,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s a paycheck, you know?”

  “The writing’s terrible,” Leslie said after a moment. “Not to mention that none of it makes any sense.”

  “Yeah?” he chuckled, turning and looking at her. “Maybe I should tell the writers they should look you up.”

  It was funny, almost in an ironic sense, but there was no way that he could have known that he was talking to one of the top producing writers in the entire country. Heck, I’m one of the greatest in the world. There was a moment where Leslie was smiling to herself. She wasn’t a screenwriter, but she was fairly certain she could come up with a better plot than a love triangle with a new character every four episodes.

  Conrad took a drink from his glass of amber liquid and let out a very satisfied-sounding sigh as he glanced back over at her. “What do you do?” he asked after a moment, clearly tired of sitting inside his own head and stewing over the breakup that was so clearly and obviously known around the world.

  “I write some stuff,” she said with a shrug.

  “Write some stuff?” he repeated, taking another drink, clearly not satisfied with the answer she’d given him.

  Leslie didn’t care. The fact that she was talking to him was one of the things on her bucket list she had no clue that she’d actually had. It was like she was marking off something on a fantasy list, like visiting Mars or riding a unicorn.

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Books mostly.” Leslie shrugged again. “It’s not that interesting.”

  He nodded, clearly not sure what he was supposed to do with that.

  Leslie kicked herself, knowing that there was really nothing that anyone could have done with that. She had practically lobbed him a grenade and told him to catch it, hoping that he wouldn’t fumble it and blow himself halfway to boredom. Nice going, Leslie. “So what brings you here?” she asked him, suddenly realizing how obvious that answer was. She was going to look like she lived under a rock by asking him that question. What was she, some kind of backwoods hillbilly who never got to see the internet or television? Or was she just some kind of spiteful person who takes a great interest in jabbing someone who had just gone through a painful breakup? Leslie knew all about that.

  Having lost Michael, she totally knew what it was like for someone to flop down next to her with a big, beaming smile and ask her how her life’s going. It was almost a cliché and everyone practiced their lie that they would feed with practiced precision as they growled through their teeth at whoever their new and fresh tormentor was. It was something that she regretted instantly. What was she doing? It was like some little idiot had hijacked her mind and was now subjecting everyone and everything to its will. With a deep breath, she waited for his inevitable lie.

  He grimaced and took a deep breath before he let it out with an exhausted-sounding sigh, like he’d been wrestling with an alligator that just wouldn’t stop. “Kind of going through a breakup right now,” he confessed honestly as he looked at her. His eyes quickly went back to his drink that was getting dangerously low and no doubt starting to bother him. When everything was going terribly in a person’s life, alcohol was usually the one thing that they found to be the most comforting. It let your mind wander without getting caught up and sucked down certain whirlpools that were going to just leave everything too bitter and too painful to relive. So alcohol was the grease that let the wheels move freely, slipping away and down the tubes.

  “I’m sorry,” Leslie said to him, looking back at her own empty glass. Where did the bartender go? How long was his break? Four hours! She drummed her fingers nervously on the bar, expecting something to fill the silence. Turning and looking at him, she decided that it was time for her to be open, too. Maybe that was how you got people to open up and actually talk to you. In hindsight, this might seem like a horrible idea, but she was going for it. She was all in at this point. “My husband died a year ago,” she said with a shrug, like it was no big deal. It was like kicking around a nuclear bomb. No biggie or anything.

  He turned and looked at her, suddenly getting some perspective on everything that was no doubt going to make him feel like he was being a little bit of a baby right now. The thought of having to go through life without your spouse rather than your girlfriend might seem like a bigger struggle, but that wasn’t what Leslie wanted. “I need to buy you a drink,” he said with a grin. Maybe it was the comfort that might have come with the unspoken promise that Leslie wasn’t here to explicitly hit on him or to gush over his fame and popularity. That might have had something to do with why he decided to open up. But she watched as he stood up from his stool and closed the gap between the two of them.

  Dropping down on the stool next to her, he raised his glass and presented it to Leslie, clearing his throat and trying to figure out how to craft the words properly in his intoxicated and foggy mind. “To the people we have lost from our lives,” he said after a moment.

  It kind of bothered Leslie that he was comparing his cheating girlfriend to the fact that she had just lost her husband a year ago, but she let it go. In the end, pain was pain and no one needed to measure dicks over it. “To the people we have lost,” Leslie repeated, lifting her empty glass that had once contained gin but was now nothing more than ice and sad-looking lemon slices.

  The glasses clicked together and made the most satisfying sound of ice rattling. It was one of the sounds that made Leslie smile, no matter where she was. She took a drink of watered-down gin and watched as Conrad drained the last of his bourbon.

  “Where’d that guy go?” he asked, fighting against the burn of the liquor as he looked around for the bartender.

  “I think we scared him off,” Leslie whispered as she leaned toward him. Gin got you drunk from the legs up. Your head seemed perfectly fine until you realized your brain had no control over your body.

  “Coward.” Conrad shook his head. “So what if we sit around and nurse a few drinks… What’s wrong with that?”

  “We’re in paradise,” Leslie said with a cute little shrug. “Expensive paradise. Bought and paid for by our hard-earned dollars.” She giggled. “I mean, we’re probably bringing down the excitement level of this place a few marks. Maybe he just got sick of us.”

  “How could he get sick of us?” Conrad furrowed his brow. “We’re delightful. We’re a freakin’ riot!”

  Leslie laughed. It felt good. Really good. “I still don’t know why you’re here,” Leslie said after a moment, playing with the ice in her glass.

  “I’m kind of a vacation regular here,” Conrad said, shrugging, taking off his sunglasses. “My dad was actually a pretty popular producer in Hollywood before he died, and he always used to talk about this place. I think I understand why now, and I’m not sure that it’s something that I wanted to know about him.”

  Leslie smiled at that. There were plenty of things that people never wanted to know about their parents. The fact that Conrad’s dad probably came here and hit on attractive young hopefuls trying to be the perfect secret screw fr
om the millionaire wives club, was something no one wanted to know about their parent, but she figured there was a lot of that around here. Again, she felt the little writer inside of her brain taking notes in a panicked flurry before the alcohol scrubbed it all away.

  When the bartender appeared again behind the bar, Leslie ordered another drink for them.

  He insisted that he was buying.

  “It’s the platinum lounge, sir,” the bartender said with a confused look on his face.

  Conrad stared at him for a moment, blinking until it all made sense to him and everything started firing off inside his brain. “Okay, well, get this lady her drink please, and act like it’s from me.” He shrugged and gave Leslie a what-the-hell-is-his-problem kind of look.

  Leslie laughed and watched as the bartender nodded before going to his business, making Conrad an Old Fashioned, something that Leslie could never, ever hope to master. “That’s a rough drink,” Leslie said, clearly impressed. Michael used to drink those.

  “I try to be classy,” Conrad said after a moment. “Honestly, I don’t get alcohol. You’re supposed to have one cocktail that you can stomach or like at parties to impress people or just to blend in. But who decided that it was important to drink alcohol? I mean, it’s the worst-tasting stuff on the planet, and it makes you feel good, but is it worth it?”

  “It takes some getting used to,” Leslie shrugged. She’d always liked the way alcohol made her feel, especially when she was alone and knew that her husband was on the way out. There was something comforting about the warm embrace of a nice drink, unless it started to turn on her and get some revenge. “Beer, though,” she said with a shrug, “that one I’ll give you. That’s the most abhorrent liquid ever created.”

  “I hate wine, too,” Conrad said out of the corner of his mouth before the two of them burst out laughing. “That makes me sound like a four-year-old, but seriously, I can’t stand it. It tastes like really evil grape juice.”

  “You’re kind of a freak,” Leslie laughed at him. “Not that I’m judging you or anything.”

  “You totally are,” Conrad shook his head and ran his hand over his face as the bartender set the drinks down in front of them.

  “Ma’am, the gentleman wanted to get you a drink.” Then he disappeared once more to pretend like there was something extremely important at the end of the bar that demanded his attention.

  Leslie wasn’t a fool. She knew that there was nothing down there for him to do but listen in on the intoxicated conversation between the two people who were sitting together now after miserably stewing alone for hours.

  “Well, here’s that drink I owe you,” Conrad chuckled, sliding the tall glass with the clear contents toward her. Leslie took it and looked at it, playing along with the little masquerade. “I’ve spent a fortune on it,” Conrad continued, “and I heard that it’s completely palatable, for your very fancy tastes.”

  “Why thank you,” Leslie smiled, taking it from him.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your husband,” Conrad said to her, swallowing heavily and suddenly feeling the weight of what it was that he was doing. It was something that clearly hit him, bringing up the wounds that both of them were trying to hide from the world. It wasn’t like she was overly eager to talk about it, but it was the common thread that had brought them together after all. She blinked a few times and took a drink, feeling the burn that hit her after a second.

  She watched as he took a drink from the Old Fashioned that he’d been so intent on drinking. Leslie never understood why anyone drank alcohol that didn’t taste absolutely fabulous, but she wondered even more why someone who hated alcohol would order something that was nothing more than pure alcohol. Maybe he was just a masochist by nature. She laughed at the grimace that cracked across his face, spreading like wildfire that made him shiver and swallow the drink quickly, only spreading the incendiary taste all down his throat before he started coughing.

  “I thought I could build up to it,” he said, coughing and choking while Leslie laughed at his expression and patted him on the back. It was the funniest thing that she’d seen in a long time, and as he tried to recover and save face he shook off the bad taste and then looked at her. “So what brings you here to the island?” he asked, trying to move the conversation away from the disgraceful handling of his liquor.

  “I’m trying to get away,” she said honestly, feeling absolutely no need to sugarcoat her life for this man. Sure, he was incredibly handsome, but he’d just gotten out of a serious relationship or something like that. There was no way that he would be interested in her. This was about as safe a situation with a cute guy that she could possibly get into. “Two years ago my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he elected to fight it for a year before it got the better of him. For the past year, I’ve thrown myself into nothing but work and it’s been really rough. Honestly, it doesn’t even feel like a year since he’s passed, but that’s what the calendar tells me. Depressing, I know.” She swirled her glass. “So, I figured it was time to get out and enjoy life a little. See how the other half lives.”

  “Wow,” Conrad said, shaking his head in bewilderment. He stared at her for a long moment, as if comparing his break-up to her loss. He shook his head again. “That had to be horrible. Like walking through hell.”

  “It was.” She swallowed, not sure why she was telling him about Michael. She could barely think about him, let alone talk to a total stranger about how empty she felt. “It was horrible while he was sick. I mean, Michael was fantastic through it all—amazing. But…” she sighed and wiped her cheek, checking for tears, “it still sucked. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Then he died. I was expecting it would happen, and then when he was really gone it was like I hadn’t expected it. It’s hard to explain. So I moved. Buried myself in my work.”

  “And now it feels empty.”

  “Yeah.” He’d hit the nail on the head with that simple comment. She stared down at her right hand. “My heart. Everything inside me. Even my hands feel empty. What I wouldn’t give to hold his hand again.” She forced a smile. “So, anyway. It’s a year later now… almost to the date, and here I am.” She raised her glass. “Moving forward.”

  “Fuck,” Conrad shook his head again. “It makes all of my problems seem like nothing.”

  “Loss is loss.” Leslie was glad the drinks were numbing some of her pain. “It hurts no matter how it happens.”

  “Yeah, but still…” Conrad’s beautiful green-blue eyes held her gaze. “I just ended things with my wife. Stupid, I know. You went through hell for love and I’m nursing my broken heart because my wife told me she’d been cheating on me. She admitted it out of guilt and then tried to turn it around to prove to me that she actually loved me. She said she wouldn’t have told me if she didn’t actually love me.”

  “Guilt doesn’t prove love,” Leslie replied. “It sounds like she was just trying to clear her conscience.” It wasn’t her place to judge, but she hated this woman for breaking Conrad’s heart.

  He scoffed. “And then she went on to say it was my fault that she was cheating and she didn’t plan on breaking off the relationship with the asshole she was fucking.”

  “I’ll beat her up for you if you want me to.”

  Conrad blinked and burst out laughing. It was a deep, throaty laugh that sounded incredibly sexy. “Could you just leave a bottle of something?” Conrad asked the bartender. He waved his hand as he stood up and leaned over the bar. “Charge it or whatever. Hell, I’m going to take it.”

  “Sure thing,” the bartender said, offering them an awkward smile like he wasn’t listening to how miserable their lives were.

  Conrad reached across the bar and brought a bottle of gin over to him and set it between the two of them.

  “Tell me about your wife,” Leslie said after Conrad added gin to her melted ice, and accepted the glass with fresh ice from the bartender for his own. Misery did love company.

  “Not much to tell.” Conr
ad accepted the wedge of lime Leslie offered from the dish on the bar, ignoring the chuckle from the bartender. “I fell in love with her when I was in high school. Her dad was a music video director and got me my first gig when I was young. My dad wanted me to make it on my own and my mom wasn’t much help. All she cared about were pills and parties. So we sort of grew up in love. I had my first crush on her and I was sticking with her through all of it. When I finally got discovered, I made all those stupid, naïve promises that every rising actor makes to his hometown girl, and told her that I wouldn’t be tempted or swayed by anyone through all of it.”

  “You cheated on her?” Leslie said, suddenly not liking Conrad nearly as much as she had when she’d walked in to the bar.

  But Conrad just smiled and shook his head, pouring himself another glass of gin and swirling it before he parted his lips and downed a fifth of the glass. “Nope,” he answered, grimacing and wincing. “I was totally faithful and committed to her. The past eight years, I kept her with me and I took her to every party, award show, everything. When I was twenty-one and bought my first house, we moved in together and it was great.”

  “Maybe you should’ve given her a ring first,” Leslie suggested. She could see where it might have gone wrong on his part. What was he thinking, keeping a beautiful woman around and not marrying her?

  “No way,” Conrad shook his head. “I was traveling for small jobs everywhere I could and she was modeling and doing way better at it than I was. Once I hit it big, we got married. Whole magazine cover and everything. She loved all of it.” He pressed his lips tight for a moment. “It was perfect. Fairytale wedding, sweetheart romance, all of it.” He put his glass down and poured more liquid onto his melting ice. “And the whole bloody time she was sleeping with other guys, trying to get her stress out or something like that.”

  “What?” Leslie furrowed her brow.

  “She said that the best way to relieve the stress and tension was to just have a quick, meaningless fling with someone.” He threw another lemon in his drink. “She said it never meant anything and that she hardly knew any of them.” He looked up at Leslie, his eyes bright with pain. “How the fuck is that supposed to make me feel better, or more forgiving for that matter? Hell, I was so furious I packed up and left the moment she told me. I came here. I doubt she has a clue I’m here. There’s like seven different places she’s probably looking for me. I bet it’s only a matter of time before she shows up here.”