“Oh, do you not want to join us for breakfast. There’s more than enough food here,” I said pointing to the extravagant spread.
“Thank you, but I’ve already eaten. I’ll go and get your bags ready.”
“I can go and get the bags ready after breakfast. You’re welcome to just sit down and relax for a bit,” I offered. Jackie smiled warmly back at me.
“I’m not overworked, Molly, if that’s what you’re thinking. If anything, from what Henry has told me, it’s the two of youthat are overworked and could use the holiday. So, I’m happy doing my job and making sure that there is almost nothing that you have to think about during your stay here. Maybe I didn’t answer your question clearly enough before, but a lot my time spent here is purely because I want to stay here. It’s paradise. I mean who wouldn’t want to stay here. It keeps me away from the city, which I enjoy. I love this job and it brings me a lot of joy. It’s also how I feel as though I can give back for everything that Henry has done for me."
“Oh,” I replied, after how weird Dylan had acted last night. it was like he was treated like a culinary prisoner out here. But even as a chef, he wouldn’t have hours too different to Jackie’s.
“I’ll go get the bags ready,” Jackie said again as she turned back inside the hours. I stared back at the spread in front of me. It felt rude starting on breakfast without Henry. I spun around in my chair, to see the elevator doors closing in the distance. This was my chance to find Dylan before Henry came to join me. I instantly jumped out of my seat and scurried over to the kitchen. Even if Dylan wasn’t in here, someone else could at least point me in the right direction of where I would find him. But as I snuck myself into the kitchen, it was empty.
“Hello,” I called out, wondering if there was someone inside one of the many walk-in pantries, and just as I called out, I felt two arms behind me, wrapping around my waist. Making me jump, as I spun around pulling myself out of the embrace. My heart began to beat again as I cast my eyes on Henry’s smiling face.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just trying to find you. What are you doing in here?”
“Oh, I um, was just trying to find the chef and to thank him for the incredible breakfast, while I waited for you,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know where he is. We’ll have to find him later. But for now, let’s eat. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
Chapter Eighteen
Isat on the back open deck of the boat, staring out into the deep water. Henry’s island was in the distance. The sun beamed down on us, the wind flowing through my hair as I leaned my body back on Henry. His chin was resting on my shoulder, arms wrapped around me tight. We both looked out at the exact same view.
I decided to rid myself of the thoughts of last night. It’s not like I could do anything about it while I was out here anyway. And whether I needed to tell Henry about Dylan later, rather than right now, it really shouldn’t have made a difference. Right now, I just wanted to enjoy us. This moment, with him, there was no point in adding any potential drama that could kill this vibe. I wanted absolutely nothing to kill this moment right here, because it was perfection.
“Have you given any more thought to what we talked about last night?” Henry whispered in my ear, and I felt my body freeze. What was he talking about? I thought that we had welland truly sealed the deal between us. What else was there to talk about?
I released myself from his hold, spinning around to face him. My hair blew out in the wind behind me. “I’m not too sure what you mean,” I said cautiously.
“About your work, about the potential of coming to work with me. It’s not something that you need to decide now obviously, I’ve just been thinking more about the possibility that’s all.”
With the whirlwind of us and the stress that I was still harboring about Dylan, I had let that part of our chat last night escape my mind. All I wanted to do was to scream, yes, just like the first time that he presented me that rose on this island and just like last night. I wanted to scream a hell yes to coming and working in his many companies and I wanted to say yes before we even decided where exactly I fit.
For so much of my life, I had been so independent. I had prided myself on it. Obviously, there was a part inside of me that wanted a connection, to find love. As much as I had let myself have fun and sleep around, at the end of the day, I knew that I wanted to find my one, the very one which was the gorgeous man that was sitting in front of me right now. I loved my independence. At least I think I did until I met Henry, and now I was willing to completely mesh myself together with him.
“What exactly have you been thinking more about?” I asked.
“I guess I just want to get clearer on what it exactly was, which created that original drive in you when it came to studying and helping people with their business. The drive that caused you to pack up your hometown life and take a chance on your own, move to the big city. I can still see this spark of excitement and drive hidden within you, but I know how much city life has squashed much of it. I’m just curious, I want to know how it started.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as my body sunk into the chair behind me. I had been fading, bored for a while, I was lonely, struggling to find a man, to find friends. My life had turned out so differently from how I originally expected it to go. I had completely lost that part of myself and had felt myself falling backwards. Back into depression, back into grief, lately I felt like I hadn’t grown at all, hadn’t achieved anything. I felt myself drifting so deep that I had completely lost my vision. Last night, as crazy as Dylan was, he had given me a vision of my past self again. A part that I had completely forgotten.
“Honestly, it’s been so long since I left my hometown that it’s quite embarrassing to think about everything that I thought I could achieve back then. Everything that I never really did make happen.”
“It’s not embarrassing if there’s no one here judging,” he said. “Everyone has a different path in life, and I don’t know anyone whose life has worked out completely linear.”
“I guess,” I sighed, half hoping that he would drop the subject, but he sat patiently, waiting for me to continue. “Idon’t know, I find myself interesting that’s all. My life has really been nothing but extreme ups and downs. And prior to meeting you, I felt like I was stuck in a place of numbness and uncertainty. I don’t remember too much about my childhood before the car accident. I don’t know if somehow, I’ve chosen to block it out because the actual reality and pain of losing my parents may make things so much worse. You know that after the accident my sister and I moved into my auntie’s house, and it was as good as it could be. Well, I guess it was because it was all I ever knew. My auntie was just determined as hell to make sure that we had the best upbringing possible, and I believed that she really did that as best she could. I remember being in therapy more than I was in school. That made me more of who I am or who I was. It became clear to me, that whatever had happened in my life, I needed to not let it affect me. I didn’t want to be seen as a problem child, I wanted to rise above the rest. It was the constant therapy and people in my sister’s and my faces that made us feel that way. She became a very protective detective, and she followed through with everything that she wanted.”
Henry raised his eyebrows, “You never told me that your sister was a detective?”
“Yeah, and she’s really good at it, amazing actually, she’s sought out for a lot of major cases, I don’t know how she has the stomach for a lot of things that she sees but she loves it and I’m so proud of her. I don’t tell her that enough honestly…. We butt heads a lot because well, she’s a detective and I am definitely the free spirit between the two of us. As soon as school was over, I did just want to explore, I had this urge to be a part of something that was bigger than me. It sounds so selfish, but I really wanted to see my name shining on something. After studying business, I knew that I wanted my own I just had no idea what that would be. I struggled to make friends. I became more introverted, and it felt like the heaviness that was my life and my reality finally settled on me, like I was living through the feelings of losing my parents so young, feeling alone, wanting guidance and just not having someone there to hold me, or tell me that everything was going to be alright. I know my sister loves me, but her worry for me and the black and white way that she views the world doesn’t feel supportive. I literally let things slide so bad, that I lost everything that I was about in the first place and ended up applying for a reality television show. Not that I regret, not at all, obviously that was what lead me straight here… but yeah, that’s the long story of how I lost my spark, I guess.”
Henry shook his head, grabbing hold of the side of my face, forcing my eyes to be locked on his, our faces so close, our noses almost touching. “Miss Molly, you are the most sparkly, intriguing, and most magical person that I have ever met, you never lost your spark, you’ve just gone through the colors of the rainbow and it’s all of that, that has made you even more beautiful today.” I reached forward, pushing my lips towards his, locking myself in his touch and his hold, the only thing that could stop any tears from running down my face. I hadcried enough on this trip that was meant to be nothing but relaxing and fun. I didn’t want to let anymore tears fall over the next couple of days. I pulled away from his taste, his touch, finding my breath again as my body calmed.
“You never told me what happened to your auntie?”
“Cancer took her early, my sister was eighteen at the time and she left us some money, so it was decided that we were old enough to live by ourselves and I was only sixteen, so I was under my sister’s guardianship for a couple of years,” I said.
Henry nodded, staring back at me with such grace, his smile warm. When I was locked inside his eyes, it really was a place where I felt like I could drift away, and everything that I had just spat out to him, anything about my past it didn’t matter anymore. He made me feel safe.
