Roger’s hand on my arm stops me. “What’s going on, Tristan?” he asks, and cold fingers squeeze my heart at his edgy tone.
“What do you mean? We’ve got nothing to do?—”
“I know, but rumors are going around that you aren’t really engaged to Lexi? You’ve beenpretending?”
I don’t know how to answer him, so I just nod. I can’t even look the guy in the eye.
“How?” Roger sounds stunned.
This.Thisis one thing we never imagined. Having to deal with questions from people who trust and respect us. “Because we’re idiots?” I mutter under my breath. “We were both desperate. Lexi for a new job, and I to finish my TV series.” I look up at Roger, but he now averts his gaze. “Roger.”
“I thought you loved her.” He says this as if nothing else matters. “Like I love Deshni. Now I see you’re not the man I thought you were.”
No. I’m not the man he thought I was. I swallow as I drag my hands through my hair. “Let’s just get through this morning, okay? We can talk after the dives. It’s all more complicated than that.”
“Is it?” Roger’s frank stare only magnifies the truth in those two words.
I’m punched straight in the chest. It isn’t complicated at all, is it?I do love her.I love Lexi like Roger loves Deshni. I’m still reeling from that truth when Nathan Beaumont walks into the dive center, ripping me out of my haze.
“Care if I join you?” he asks.
Every brain cell seems to malfunction at once, but I have to get a grip. Filming my TV series won’t be in the cards anymore, but that’s not the primary reason I’m here. Not now, anyway. I need to keep it together, not only for the guests’ safety, but for Roger’s future too.
“Sir.” Roger nods at Nathan. “I’ll see you on the dinghy.” He files out with the last of the guests, leaving me with the man on whom my whole future suddenly hinges.
“No problem. You’re qualified?” I know the answer. Nathan, after all, interviewed me.
“I’m a dive master,” he says. “I’ve been coming to Ne’emba for more than thirty years. Started with snorkeling as a kid and got qualified as a dive master when I turned eighteen. This place is magic.”
“I know.” Here’s someone who gets it, and I hate that I wasn’t open about my real work off the bat with this guy. “Do you need help?—”
“I’m good. Just the oxygen tanks.” Nathan walks toward the wetsuits.
I prep his scuba gear while he suits up. The air around us is charged with a thousand unsaid things. Might as well put a dent in them now and advocate for Roger’s future. “I’ve been teaching Roger to dive,” I tell him as I connect the regulator to the oxygen tank. “He’s qualified for Open Water Two now and is logging hours toward master diver.”
“I never knew he was interested.”
Neither of us has to play dumb here. “We both know you need a local to run the show. You good to go?”
“Yes.” Nathan heaves his scuba kit over his shoulders as I gather my camera and fins. “That’s a pretty impressive setup you have there,” he says as we head out. He’s eyeing my underwater camera and lighting equipment. “Care to tell me more?”
It’s time to put my cards on the table. “I have a deadline for television series I sold to a streaming service. I’ve been filming on the side since I arrived here,” I confess. “I’ve been workingon it for so long, but as karma has it, as soon as you have a deadline, things start going wrong. When this opportunity came up…well, Lexi and I thought we could kill two birds with one stone.”
Nathan shoots me a look, but we’ve reached the dinghy. “I see,” he says as he lifts his scuba gear into Roger’s outstretched hands. “We’ll discuss this later.”
Roger is clearly on edge with Mike on the boat, and the guests I’ve gotten to know over the past few days are looking on, likely sensing the awkward tension between us. Yep. I’ve crashed straight into a dead end, but I need to get through these dives.
With Nathan’s last-minute addition, Mike is taking up a seat we can’t spare. It’s cramped. “It’s fine, Mike,” Nathan says. “We’re good.”
Mike reads between the lines, gives me a curt nod, and jumps out of the boat.Well, thank fuck for that. The last thing I need is Jem’s husband’s eyes on me the whole morning as he wonders where I hid the cocaine.
I settle in next to Nathan, and we hit the waves. Luckily the site for our first dive isn’t too far from the island. It’s when thefloatplane flies overhead that the tense grip in my stomach twists. “You’re staying a few days?” I ask Nathan over the noise of the dinghy’s engine. To my knowledge, no new guests are arriving today, and the pilot is probably heading home.
“That would be Lexi flying out,” Nathan says.
My heart stalls. “Lexi? On the plane? Did you fire her?”
He shakes his head. “She wanted to go.”
