Sunset Key Read Online Free PDF Page B

more courses. Because Letty was drinking out of three glasses, she had difficulty gauging her intake. She tried to pace herself with small sips, but it was simply the best wine she’d ever tasted.
    Over the cheese course, Fitch said, “It occurs to me there will be many evenings to come when I long to return to this meal.”
    Letty reached across the table and took hold of his hand.
    “Let’s try to stay in the moment, huh?”
    “Sound advice.”
    “So, Johnny. What is your passion?”
    “My passion?”
    “For a man who has achieved all the material wants.”
    “Experience.” His eyes began to tear. “I want to experience everything.”
    Angie came over to the table. “How was everything?”
    “I’m speechless,” Fitch said.
    He rose out of his seat and embraced the chef. Letty heard him whisper, “I can’t thank you enough for this. You’re an artist, and the memory of this meal will sustain me for years to come.”
    “It was my pleasure, Johnny. Dessert will be up in fifteen.”
    “We’re done here, and we can handle getting dessert for ourselves. Someone will clean up. You’ve been cooking all day. Why don’t you take off?”
    “No, let me finish out the service.”
    “Angie.” Fitch took hold of her arm. “I insist. Pete’s waiting in the yacht to take you back.”
    For a moment, Letty thought Angie might resist. Instead, she embraced Fitch again, said, “You take care of yourself, Johnny.”
    Fitch watched her cross to the front door.
    As she opened it, she called out, “Dessert dishes and silverware are on the counter beside the oven! Goodnight, Johnny!”
    “’Night, Angie!”
    The door slammed after her, and for a moment, the house stood absolutely silent.
    Fitch sat down.
    He said, “How strange to know you’ve just seen a friend for the last time.”
    He sipped his wine.
    Letty looked out the window.
    The moon was rising out of the sea. In its light, she could see the profile of a suited man walking down a path toward the shore.
    “It begins to go so fast,” Fitch said.
    “What?”
    “Time. You cling to every second. Savor everything. Wish you’d lived all your days like this. Excuse me.”
    He rose from his seat. Letty watched him shuffle across to the other side of the room and disappear through a door, which he closed after him.
    She lifted her purse into her lap and tore it open. Her fingers moved with sufficient clumsiness to convince her she’d gotten herself drunk. She grasped the spray bottle. Fitch still had some wine left in two of his glasses. Reaching across the table, she put five squirts into the one on the left.
    The door Fitch had gone through creaked open.
    He emerged cradling a bottle in one arm and carrying two glasses in the other.
    He was grinning.
    From across the room, he held up the bottle, said, “The jewel of our evening. Come on over here, sugar.”
    Fitch sat down on a leather sofa.
    Letty still hadn’t moved, her mind scrambling.
    I missed my chance. I missed my chance.

CHAPTER NINE

    F itch waved her over. “Sit with me!”
    Letty glanced at her watch as she stood. Seven-oh-five.
    Fifty-five minutes until her rendezvous with Javier at the east end of the island.
    She grabbed one of her wineglasses and Fitch’s.
    He was already tugging the cork out of the bottle as she walked over.
    Letty said, “Here you go and leave, and I was just on the verge of making a beautiful toast.” She tried to hand Fitch his wineglass.
    “We’ll toast with this instead,” he said, showing her the bottle—Macallan 1926 .
    “Oh, I’m not too much of a scotch girl.”
    “I understand, but this is really something. You couldn’t not love this.”
    “Now I’m losing my nerve.”
    She thought she registered a flash of something behind his eyes—rage? But they quickly softened. Fitch put the bottle down and accepted his glass and stood.
    Letty had no idea of what to say.
    She looked up at Fitch and smiled, her mind blank.
    It came to her in an instant—a