The Reef

“Yeah, you go ahead and simplify. We keep the schedule as is, we cut out the sex. How’s that for simple?”
    “You won’t make me fall apart,” she said, terrified she would do just that. “I’m going to see this through. It’ll be interesting to find out if you can do the same.”
    “I’m game if you are, sweetheart. I guess that covers it.”
    “Not quite. I want to contact Hayden.”
    “No.” He lifted a hand before she could spit at him. “Let’s try this. We haven’t found the amulet, and can’t say that we will. If and when we do, we’ll bring up the idea of calling in your backup scientist.”
    It was a compromise that made sense, which was why she was instantly suspicious. “I have your word? When we find it, I can contact another archeologist?”
    “Red, when we find it, you can take out an ad in Science Digest. Until then, the lid’s on.”
    “All right. Will you promise to reconsider your plot for revenge?”
    “That sounds pretty dramatic for something so straightforward. I’ll give you a straightforward answer. No. I lost everything that mattered to me in my life, and VanDyke had a part in all of it. Leave it alone, Tate,” he said before she could speak again. “The ball started rolling sixteen years ago. You’re not going to stop it. Look, I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
    “Matthew.” She waited until he’d stopped at the companionway and turned back. “You might consider the idea that rather than your ruining my life, I might have made a difference in yours.”
    “You did,” he murmured, and walked out into the dying storm.

C HAPTER 23
    T HE ROUGH CHOP postponed the morning’s dive. Tate was grateful to have some time alone, so she closed herself in her cabin with her work.
    But work wasn’t on her mind.
    She indulged herself, lying on her bunk, watching the ceiling. A woman had a right to sulk when she discovered that eight years of her life had been determined by someone else’s decision.
    She’d already gone over all the standard lines in her head. He’d had no right. He’d broken her heart for what he’d deemed her own good. Every relationship in her life had been shadowed by what had happened on that beach in her twentieth year.
    It did no good to go over it all again and again. But the arrogance of it, the unfairness of it stewed inside her.
    Now he claimed he’d loved her. Loved her still.
    What a crock, she thought and flopped over on her stomach. Obviously he’d seen her as a dim-witted child who hadn’t been capable of making her own choices. She’d been young, yes, but she hadn’t been stupid.
    What games had fate been playing to have brought them full circle?
    The hiatus had made her stronger, she acknowledged.She had used her opportunities and her brains to make her mark. There were degrees tucked away in the window seat in her room in Hatteras, an apartment in Charleston that was tastefully decorated and rarely used. She had a reputation, colleagues whose companionship she enjoyed, offers to teach, to lecture, to join expeditions.
    Professionally, she had everything she’d ever wanted.
    But she had no real home, no man to hold through the night. No children to love.
    And she might have, she would have, if Matthew had only trusted her.
    That was behind her now, she thought, and rolled over again. Who knew better than an archeologist that the past could be examined, analyzed and recorded, but it couldn’t be changed. What had been, and might have been, was as calcified as old silver in seawater. It was the moment that had to be faced.
    She hoped it was true, that he did love her. Now he could suffer, as she had, when a heart was offered and turned aside. He’d had his chance with her. This would be a case in point where history did not repeat itself.
    But she wouldn’t be cruel, she decided, rising to glance at herself in the oval mirror over her dresser. It wasn’t necessary to pay him back in kind. After all, her own emotions weren’t involved this time around. She could afford to be generously, certainly politely, forgiving.
    Not loving him would help her be carefully detached. They would continue to dive together, work to salvage the Isabella as partners, colleagues. She was certainly able to turn aside her personal past in order to explore history.
    Satisfied that she’d reached the only logical solution, she left her cabin. She found her father on the port deck, busily checking gauges.
    “Wild night, huh, honey?”
    In more