Our last night on the island was bittersweet. It would have been insufferable if it hadn’t been for the day before, the day after the barroom show, when Brando surprised me by taking me swimming with a pod of spinner dolphins. The thought of them still on my mind helped ease the pain in my heart.
Captain O’Malley had said that the island held many secrets. The dolphins were only one. At first glance, I had thought that they were sharks, fins above the water searching for something to bloody. When I narrowed my eyes and the truth made it to my mind, I clapped like a five-year-old.
She had come back for me—the spinner dolphin that had welcomed me to the island at the underwater resort. I couldn’t prove it, but I refused to argue with the feeling in my heart. She kept by my side, allowing me to stroke her slick head. She’d nod every so often when I’d coo at her, or she would do tricks to make me laugh. The rest of her pod swam around, not really bothering with us, except for one who wouldn’t leave Brando alone. She kept going under, bumping him on his butt with her beak. That’s why I decided she was ashe.
The memory left a smile on my face, but heaviness still lingered in my heart. I sighed at my reflection in the mirror, setting down the makeup brush.
This close to sunset, the sky started to catch fire. I had spent most of the day on the beach with Brando and Captain O’Malley, his men coming and going. They were preparing for tonight’slovo(a Fijian tradition—food baked underneath the ground in a pit) and seafood boil. The scents were strong in the air, mouthwatering chicken, pork, beef, and fish, laced with the aromatic spices from the boiling seafood.
I had been donning island-casual since we arrived, but tonight seemed like an occasion to dress up. Violet had packed a dress with kimono sleeves. The thin fabric fell to my thighs, and the bust was less than modest. When I tightened the matching belt around my waist, it helped secure my—what had Brando called them?—teardrops in. Instead of letting my hair go wild, I tamed the humidity-infused strands with curlers. As I applied some shimmering makeup to my face, I moved in closer, comparing the woman who had stared back at me at the underwater resort to the woman staring back at me now.
There you are.
The core of me still existed beyond the pale, but my face was no longer gaunt, my skin no longer holding the pallid look of someone about to take their last breath. The peachy sheen of the dress enhanced what the sun graciously honored me with, a touch of gold, and there was meat on the skeleton’s bones.I bet the bull shark wouldn’t have turned me down now, I thought, and laughed—but only because I could afford to. My feet were safe on land. Shivers still racked me when the thought came to me of my legs under the water, that humungous beast lurking down there with them.
Then I glanced down at my hands, my three rings shimmering in reflection to the amorous light. Everything in Fiji seemed softer, I reflected, and I smiled.
“No longer broken,” Brando said, walking in on me.
“Ask me tomorrow,” I said, but the smile refused to leave my face. “I’m content here.”
His eyes roamed over me from curled hair to bare feet. And I loved how I could sometimes see myself reflected in his eyes, a glimmer of brightness in the darkness. He told me that I looked beautiful, but he still adjusted the belt so that the top of the dress almost came to my throat.
“You are so ridiculous sometimes!” I laughed, pushing his hands away. “I’m not going to be able to breathe!”
“I doubt that.” He stood back, examining me again, but this time as though it was the last time he would see me. Even without the near-death experience, he did that from time to time, explaining that he was appreciatingmine. He grasped me around the ribs, splaying his fingers, thumbs stroking underneath my breasts.
Brando was as fast as a swimmer, but as brawny as a fighter—and with a pitcher’s swift arm. Every muscle he possessed was sculpted and powerful. I had watched him spar with his brothers, and the only one who came close to beating him was Rocco. The other men usually groaned when they were up next. One man even cried; he was gone the next week. The power in his hands vibrated deep inside of bone, and I could imagine the snap of a rib if he squeezed. I was minuscule in comparison, but safe, always safe with him.
“What?” I said, looking down. “Is something wrong?”
“No, not exactly,” he said. “You’re missing something.”
“I am?”
He turned me toward the mirror, standing behind me so we were both reflected. Moving my hair away from a shoulder, he placed a dangling earring in my ear.
My hand instinctually went to the new addition—two teardrop shapes outlined by diamonds and filled in with grandidierite, a bluish-green, rare gem that stole its coruscating colors straight from the sea.
Securing the other, he placed his hands around my waist, resting his chin against my shoulder.
“Brando—how did you get these?” Grandidierite was rare and expensive. Although we had the money, Brando refused to touch what he considered mine. Too proud for his own good, he would tell me that whatever I made was mine, and whatever he made was ours.
“That’s all you can say.”
“I—I love them. They’re beautiful, more than beautiful, in fact. But—” I watched for a moment as the colors danced in the light and were made tender by the oncoming night. “You took the money from Luca, didn’t you?”
His sudden refusal to go back to work made sense—the logistics of it.
He narrowed his eyes, releasing me from his hold physically, but not from his most powerful tool—that stare could cause water to freeze and then melt. He leaned against the glass shower, crossing his arms over his chest. “If I did?”
“Then I don’t want them. I don’t want anything his hands have touched.”
“You can keep them then. His hands never went near them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I seem to remember telling you that I wouldn’t take the money. Is my word not good enough anymore?”
