Previously:

After being kidnapped from the Highwind's Casino Night, Kerrigan was desperate to know more about her abductors, Dominick and Ava ... and how her brother was involved with them. Miles danced around the issue, fearing Kerri would never be able to forgive him if she knew the full story. Furious, Kerri cut her brother from her life, while things remained tense with her fiancé, Beau, as well.

Remy began courting talent for a snowboarding exhibition to introduce the Highwind X-Limit extreme sports venue to the public.

Giselle and Elena interviewed candidates for two new positions at the Highwind. Elena was particularly impressed with Scarlet Deshpande, who had worked in Hollywood prior to applying to the Highwind.

 

The Highwind X-Limit

Remy Ormand's friendship with snowboarder Jonothan Albion had always been somewhat contentious. It was off-and-on from the moment they first met, competing against each other in a Junior snowboarding competition. Jono won, of course. He was, by far, the more talented and committed athlete of the two. It was hard for Remy to keep his jealousy bottled up as the accolades for Jonothan continued to pour in over the years.

Now, Jonothan Albion was back at the Highwind for the first time in ages, and Remy was quick to remember all the things that irked him about his indecently smug 'friend.'

"What do you think of our new superpipe?" Remy asked Jono, trekking across a field of snow to a newly-constructed, mammoth halfpipe.

"It's definitely ... pipe-like." Jono lifted his Oakleys to give it a look.

Remy had expected a bit more enthusiasm. "Is that it?"

"What did you expect me to say?" He lowered his sunglasses and forged ahead with the tour. Remy hung back wearing a scowl. "Oh, don't be that way."

"Just wait till you ride it. You'll see," Remy muttered under his breath.

"I suppose I will, won't I?" Jono picked up on his comment, a bemused smile crossing his lips.

Remy turned and pointed up the mountain to a steep slope peppered with rails, moguls, and deadly drops. "That's the X-Limit Executioner, our course for the downhill events."

"Let me guess, you named it yourself?"

Jonothan's career spanned the globe. He was born in the U.S., but he'd lived in England for several years now. Jono was currently one of the top names in the sport, a bona fide celebrity recognizable even outside the winter sports community thanks to his endorsement deals, good looks, and a reputation that was questionable enough to keep him squarely in the limelight.

There was no question he was talented, but Remy knew he was a bullshit artist. He lived on his own hype, and Remy wasn't buying into Jono's newly-acquired English accent or his indifference to the Highwind. As bored by it all as he pretended to be, Remy knew the completed X-Limit had to have been an impressive venue, even to someone of Jono's stature.

"Wanna give it a shot?" Remy challenged. He'd already taken a few test runs, himself. Maybe he'd even be able to beat Jono if he had the home court advantage.

"Right now? I don't even have my board." Jonothan looked at his watch.

"Yeah, you're probably right. We have to get back to meet with my brother and Kerri anyway."

Remy led the way back to the lodge, noticing Jono's eyes wandering back to the superpipe. We've got him, he thought to himself. Jono may have been enjoying playing hard to get, but Remy was confident he was interested in the exhibition.

They walked to the lodge's snack bar for coffee, and, after that, made their way to an empty table.

"Why don't we join them?" Jono suggested, pointing to a table where two dark-haired women sat laughing together. One of the women gave him a sly smile. "They look like they could use some company."

"I wouldn't bother," Remy said, recognizing the women who had caught Jono's eye. Elena Halstrom and the new Highwind employee, Scarlet Deshpande. He rolled his eyes at Elena's shameless flirting with Jonothan. "She's only teasing you because she knows who you are and why you're here."

"Then at least she's got good taste," Jono said, oblivious to his own arrogance. "She must be a fan. If you know her, why don't you introduce me?"

Remy sighed and obliged, only because they needed Jonothan for the X-Limit's grand opening. Judging from her flirting, he was sure Elena was well-aware of that fact, too. If Remy had to kiss a little ass, so be it. But if he could pass that responsibility along to Elena ... even better.

 

Diamond Café and Bookstore

After a restless night's sleep, Kerrigan found herself dragging through her morning routine. The baby had just begun kicking in the past few days, and while it wasn't particularly violent or painful, it was still a strange sensation to become accustomed to.

As she walked to the counter, Kerri wasn't certain of her order. She was sure it wasn't harmful to have a bit of caffeine, but she had been extra careful with her diet in the months since discovering her pregnancy. She decided she'd play it safe -- for today, at least -- and get a sugar-free, decaffeinated latte. It might not perk her up any, but at least she could pretend she was still drinking coffee.

She waited as her drink was being prepared and looked around the café, with its rows of bookshelves on one side, its signature Swiss cuckoo clock above the front counter, and its smattering of empty dining tables. Most people were probably already at work for the day. Kerri herself had a meeting to attend later that morning with Jonothan Albion, a snowboarder so renowned even Kerri had heard his name before.

She'd been trying to familiarize herself more with the Winter X circuit since she and Beau started developing the X-Limit, and Jonothan Albion was a huge name. Getting him on board for the X-Limit's grand opening would surely help to raise the business's profile.

"Here you are!" A peppy barista handed Kerri her drink. She gratefully accepted, the cinnamony scent of her drink appealing to her senses and her everchanging morning cravings ... but as she looked to a table at the corner of the café, her stomach quickly sank.

Her brother, Miles, sat near the magazine racks, flipping through something he'd pulled from the shelves. Kerri froze. The two of them hadn't spoken in months, though it felt like much longer to her. She hated that she felt guilty for avoiding him, but a part of her couldn't help but miss talking to him and spending time together.

Still, Kerrigan knew there were things Miles refused to tell her about her kidnapping. From what she'd been able to determine since that night, she figured she was part of some last-ditch attempt to force her brother into paying some sort of debt. But if Miles was really under such pressure, if he knew things were so serious, why wouldn't he have just told her or Beau about it all sooner to warn them?

The entire thing seemed suspect to Kerri, as she wondered how Miles had become so entangled with Dominick and Ava in the first place. Just thinking about it all was still so overwhelming.

Kerri decided to slip away unnoticed and get to her meeting before Miles had the chance to spot her.

But she was too late. The café's cuckoo clock sold her out, chiming on the hour and commanding her brother's attention just before she could walk away.

Miles came over to her immediately, seizing the opportunity after months of Kerri's careful evasion of him. "Were you really going to leave without even saying a word to me?"

 

The Highwind - Lodge

"Oh, great. They're coming over," Elena whispered to Scarlet Deshpande. Remy Ormand and his friend were making their way to her table. Apparently, you weren't allowed to give a stranger a polite smile these days without it being misconstrued into something more.

But her agitation was quick to fade when she got a closer look at Remy's tall, blond friend. He was apparently some big shot snowboarder or something, but all she knew about him was that he'd recently broken up a marriage between one of Elena's favorite pop stars and her film director husband. At least that's what the tabloids claimed...

"Do I look okay?" she quickly asked Scarlet before the guys made it over. Scarlet smiled at Elena's sudden change in attitude, but nodded.

"Hey, Elena. How's it going?" Remy said, stopping before them. "I thought you might like to meet our newest guest, Jonothan Albion. He's a gold medal snowboarder."

"You were in the Olympics?" Scarlet asked, impressed.

"X Games," Jono corrected.

"I don't know what that is? Is that the one for the people with missing arms and legs and stuff?" Elena wondered.

"It's for extreme athletes, like me," he said haughtily. "Do I look like I'm missing any appendages? Rest assured, I'm one hundred percent real," Jono said, offering his hand to Elena to shake for herself.

"I like the sound of your accent." She gave him a megawatt smile and shook his hand, lingering in her touch.

She knew the Highwind was trying to reel in some big names for the X-Limit opening, and she could already tell her brand of persuasion was appealing to this guy without putting in much of an effort.

"Jono, this is Scarlet Deshpande, our guest relations coordinator." Remy gestured to Elena's companion.

"If you need anything while you're here, just ask," Scarlet offered, rising to shake his hand.

"And this is Elena Halstrom, co-owner of the Highwind," Remy continued.

"Whoa, wait. You own this place?" Jono nudged Remy. "What happened? Did your mom finally kick the bucket?"

"No," Remy said, too floored by the inappropriate comment to take any real offense.

"I'm co-owner," Elena clarified. "Which, unfortunately for me, makes me Giselle's business partner."

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry. I apologize for what I said. I'm sure Giselle Ormand is a lovely woman."

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Elena said.

Remy looked between them with annoyance before pulling Jonothan away from the two women. "I've got to get you to our meeting. You ready?"

"We'll catch up later, I'm sure." Jonothan took Scarlet's hand once more before departing, then Elena's, giving it a quick kiss.

"What a sleaze," Scarlet said, once the guys departed. "Do we have to be nice to him?"

Elena's eyes trailed after him until he was gone from view. She could see why Scarlet felt the way she did, but Elena was still undecided. "I'm afraid we do..."

 

Diamond Café and Bookstore

"Can we sit down and talk? Just for a minute?"

When his sister fired him from the X-Limit, Miles knew she was beyond upset with him. He knew he had a long way to go to make up for the pain he had caused her, but he always thought things would thaw between them in time, that their rift was just a temporary blip on the radar.

He knew Kerrigan had been making a concentrated effort to avoid him for months now, and even today, she didn't appear to have changed her position on the issue in the slightest. At the moment, her face seemed cast from stone, but he couldn't let her leave without trying.

"Congratulations, by the way," he said. "I heard about the baby." She hadn't even told him about her pregnancy. He had to hear about it secondhand from Beau and Remy.

"Thanks," she said absently.

"Please. Just sit with me." He latched on to her hand, hoping to stop her before she walked off.

"I have nothing to say to you that you want to hear," she said, more forceful now and annoyed, as she pulled from his touch. "Nothing's changed, Miles. There's nothing to discuss."

"That's not true," he said. The only reason he'd kept the truth from her for so long was because he was afraid of losing her. And look how well that turned out, he thought grimly. Maybe it was time for her to hear it, if that's what she really wanted.

"I don't forgive you, and I have a meeting to get to. I can't stay," she said, shaking her head in frustration and turning from him.

"Wait!" He chased after her. Her eyes narrowed at him, but her jaw stayed clenched shut, battling with herself to keep quiet and hear whatever it was he needed to say. "I need to tell you some things. I know you have questions, and I haven't been fair to you. I want to tell you what I've done, if you'll listen."

She didn't say a word but was quick to lead the two of them back to the corner of the coffeeshop where Miles had been sitting. No matter how she felt about him now, she needed to know.

Miles hoped she'd get some resolution in hearing the full story, but he knew it was too late to fix the damage he'd caused. He'd already lost her, and once she knew the entire story, there was even less a chance of absolution.

 

The Highwind - Lodge

In the short time since Scarlet had come aboard the Highwind, Elena had come to consider her a friend. Scarlet always had an exciting story to tell about the celebrities who had stayed at the Hotel Terranova, her previous job in Hollywood, and Elena was always up for a good scandal. Hanging out with Scarlet made her realize that she didn't have many close friends at work -- none really, since Monique -- but Scarlet was interesting and easy to open up to.

"I can't believe what that jerk said about Giselle. Can you imagine what she would have done if she'd overheard that?" Scarlet asked. "I think the hardest part of my job is having to bite my tongue and be pleasant when I have to deal with vile guests like that."

"Oh, come on. He wasn't that bad," Elena said. "But I know what you mean. Luckily, you seem to be better at knowing when to keep your opinions to yourself than I am."

"It's taken practice," Scarlet answered with a sly smile.

"You've been doing such a great job. I knew we wouldn't regret hiring you. And I'm glad we get along. I've been told I can be difficult."

"I don't see that in you at all," Scarlet said, looking up to Elena to appraise her. "Who wouldn't like you? You're strong, you have a ton of energy, you're passionate about ... pretty much everything I've seen you do."

"Those all sound like euphemisms for 'bitchy' to me," Elena laughed.

"Shut up. That's not what I meant."

"I know," she said, a little embarrassed by Scarlet's compliments. "But a good friend is hard to find. Harder than you'd think. Maybe I'm too selfish to be a good friend. I think I have only-child syndrome. I never had many friends, even when I was young, so cut me some slack if I screw up."

"I'll try. But I see what you mean. I'm an only child, too. Wait, I thought you said you had a brother?"

"Pete, yeah," Elena said. "But I was adopted, so I was their only child."

"You were adopted? So was I!" Scarlet said.

Elena was surprised to find yet another thing the two of them had in common. "What are your adoptive parents like?"

Scarlet smiled warmly. "They've always been great to me. That's why I came back home to be closer to them."

"That's nice. Sometimes I wish I got to see more of my family," she said, stopping herself before she got too down about it. "Anything else going for you, now that you've moved back? Do you have your own house? A boyfriend? You must, I mean, look at you."

"No. I'm unattached," she answered. "Why? Are you interested?"

There was a playfulness in Scarlet's dark eyes that caught Elena off guard. Maybe she was only joking, but something about the way she was looking at her ... was Scarlet flirting with her?

"Oh! No! I mean, I'm not ... like that," Elena said, lowering her voice. "Not that I'm saying you are!" She tried to glean any sort of reaction from Scarlet, who was only sitting back and watching with amusement. "Are you?" Elena asked weakly. She was thoroughly confused now.

For a moment, Scarlet didn't answer, but she gave a nod, confirming Elena's suspicions. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I guess I got the wrong impression. This doesn't happen to me, normally..."

Now that the cat was out of the bag, the awkwardness faded as fast as it'd developed between them. "Wow," Elena marveled, "I never had a clue..."

"It's not some dark secret, but not exactly the way I tend to lead off, either." She smiled, and Elena was pleased to see she hadn't freaked Scarlet into thinking she was judgmental or uneasy with her. In fact, she felt better knowing Scarlet was comfortable enough with her to share a more personal side of herself.

"You're right. It's only a big deal if you make it into one." Elena paid for lunch and the two of them left the table. "The way my luck with guys has been going, maybe I'll end up converting, too!"

"That's not really how it works..."

"I know! I'm just playin'!"

"But hey, if you ever consider it ... I'd better be the first to hear about it." The two of them hooked arms, laughing, and escorted each other out the door.

 

Diamond Café and Bookstore

"Why now?" Kerri said once they were seated across from each other. Her voice was soft as she spoke to him in a tone he hadn't heard for quite some time. "I begged you to tell me everything before, and you couldn't do it."

"Because I knew it would change the way you looked at me. I didn't want to lose you. That was the only reason I kept it all from you."

Kerri nodded her understanding.

"But I guess that's no longer an excuse." He gave a wry laugh.

Their relationship was sorely fractured, for sure, but Kerri gave him hope. "I'm frustrated with you, Miles. Okay? I don't understand any of what's been happening with you, with me, with those people ... but that doesn't mean I hate you. I only want an explanation. I want to know why this happened."

Miles leaned forward, his head in his hands as he tried to put the story together in his mind for her. He wasn't sure how much she knew -- how much she heard while being held captive by Dominick and Ava -- so he didn't know where to begin...

"How do you know them?" she asked, helping him along. "For starters, how did you get involved with those two?"

"I worked with them. For them, I guess," he answered. That part was easy enough, at least. "Their father was a businessman, or at least I thought, and we all worked together. I didn't realize what kind of business he was running."

"Something illegal, obviously."

"Obviously," Miles said, feeling like an idiot for his naiveté at the time. "I was friends with Dominick first. I never 'signed up' to work for any of them, but I guess started helping him out, driving him and his father around, doing odd jobs for the family. I didn't steal or anything like that, but the D'Amatos did. And I helped them get away with it."

Kerri didn't comprehend. "Why, Miles? You've never needed to live that sort of life. We've never been hurting for money or anything..."

"I know," he conceded, "but there were a lot of things you didn't know about me back then."

"I'm getting that impression!"

"I had some expensive hobbies. Gambling, drugs.... I took on their lifestyle the more I was around them. I'm not trying to justify anything, but that's how it started," he said, hoping to calm her down. He wasn't even to the worst part of the story. "When I realized what was happening and stopped to think about how wrong it all was, I decided I had to get out."

"And were you really so valuable to them that they wouldn't let you go?"

"Not really, but I owed them a lot of money. They weren't so keen on letting me slip through the cracks. And there were ... other complications. It wasn't easy to break away from them. I thought I got free once before, then I came here, and I never thought they'd follow me. Never," he said to himself, regretting it all. He truly thought he was out when he came to St. Laurent. It was supposed to be a new beginning for him. He'd never expected Dominick and Ava to track him down.

"I still don't know why you didn't just tell any of us sooner. Why take the risk?" Kerrigan digested the story, while Miles sat at the edge of his seat, his skin crawling. He knew there was more he had to say to her.

"I thought I could handle it myself. Until they involved you." Miles took her hand, honed in on her open expression, praying she'd give him another chance. It was the first time she didn't recoil from his touch. "There's something else. The reason I didn't just run from them years ago..."

"Years ago? This has been going on for that long, and you didn't tell anyone?" she asked, pulling away from him.

"They were dangerous, Kerri!" he said, crashing into the table as he jumped in his seat. "I was supposed to pay them back years ago, and I never had the money. I tried to avoid them, to hide, to make whatever payments I could scrap together -- but it was never enough. So, they went after the only thing of any value to me. The only way to get back what was owed to them."

"What are you talking about? What did they do?" she asked, his hysteria contagious as she rattled off her quick questions.

"They went after my boat -- the houseboat -- telling me the insurance payment would be enough to settle our debt," he admitted.

"I don't ... oh my God." Kerri's hand covered her mouth, as she pieced it all together.

"I didn't know you were there," he mumbled as if it would make all the difference.

It was all perfectly clear now to Kerri. Miles could see the wheels turning. "You let them do that to me?" she growled, her face twisting into something unrecognizable in its intensity.

"No! The second I found out what Ava was planning to do -- that she was going after the boat -- I raced to stop her, but I was too late. I didn't even know you were there until later. Nobody knew you were onboard, and then we thought--" He couldn't even complete the thought, his throat caught in a sob.

Kerri shot up from the table, collecting her things through a blur of tears.

"Kerri, wait!" He jumped up now, too.

"Get away from me!" she fired.

He ran in front of her, hoping to block her. He couldn't let her leave like this.

"Do you even know what you've put me through?" she asked, her voice a mixture of disbelief and disgust. "I don't care what your intentions were, you let me go on for years wondering why this happened to me ... wondering who could do something so horrible to me. And you knew the entire time! It was you!"

She brushed him aside, running past him and out of the coffeehouse.

Miles was too stunned to do anything but see Kerri's car peel out of the parking lot from the corner of his eye. He couldn't make a move to stop her. He couldn't make a move to do anything, until, to his embarrassment, he remembered where he was. The barista gave him a sympathetic look, having caught the tail end of their fight.

"Want my advice? Flowers. Works every time."

Miles gave her an exasperated glare and walked away before he made an even bigger fool of himself. He felt sick to his stomach. Flowers? Sure, that would solve everything. Or not. Kerri was never going to forgive him this time, and for the life of him, he couldn't see any reason why she should.