“You want more kids?” Grey asks.
“If everything elthe—elsein my life lines up to make more kids, yes.”
“Tell me what happened in Fiji,” Theo says.
Not just thefire in the hole—aka mymouth hole—making me sweat now. “What do you think happened in Fiji?”
“Why were you there?”
“Hiding from the preth—pressand my own poor dethi—decisions.” Talking is actually good. Talking means I don’t have to eat more.
“It true you got divorced because you pulled a bait-and-switch on your wife?”
Maybe talking isn’t good. “Tha’s the bones of it.”
“Fill out the flesh of it.”
I have two options.
I can confess the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life and risk being left here to forage my way to survival if I pick the right direction for the nearest town.
Or I can tell them if Emma wanted them to know, she would’ve told them.
Which also risks me being left in the wilderness.
Good news is, fear is calming the fire in my mouth. I’m starting to get concerned for the hole it’s about to burn in my stomach—pretty sure my intestines are next for dying of hot sauce poisoning—but I can talk.
“I got married because I lived a fairytale life and she was a fairytale princess and we were going to have a fairytale movie star power couple life. I’ve been sheltered and spoiled, and I own it. But when she suggested a project outside of Razzle Dazzle, I got cold feet. Refused to admit it was cold feet and came up with a plan to stall her by telling her I wanted a family right away instead of waiting like we’d agreed.”
They’re both folding their arms again.
Neither’s smiling.
“I hitched the first ride I could find to the most remote spot I could think of when she went public with the news about our divorce,” I say. “Landed in Fiji. Got drunk. Passed out on Emma’s porch. She recognized me and told me to get lost. Didn’t want the press spotting us together while she was already in the middle of publicity hell.”
Theo frowns.
“Know a little about handling publicity,” I tell him. Still sweating. Tongue’s simultaneously still numb and also on fire, but I make my mouth work right like my life depends on it. “My family are champs at it. And I’d seen the video. She was in over her head and also didn’t realize how private the island was. Didn’t know it was safe to leave her house there. So I decided itwas my job to help her make the most of what she had left of her honeymoon.”
Grey hands me another can of kombucha.
I guzzle half of it.
Theo’s glaring at me likesleeping with my sister is not how you should’ve handled it.
The kombucha fizzles on my tongue, reigniting some of the fire.
Dammit.
“Why’d you leave?” Grey asks.
“My family found out where I was, and that the press was on the verge of figuring it out too. They—they basically extracted me in the middle of the night.”
They both stare at me.
I shove a hand through my hair.
This is the hard part.
