He turned to her, hand bare with a pale indent where the ring had lived. There was a tentativeness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“I’m ready.”
She rose from the bed and crossed the room, proud of him. She didn’t stop until her arms closed around him in a tight hug. “I love you.”
He kissed the top of her head, his arms tightening around her. “Never stop, okay?”
“Okay.”
He took her hand and led her downstairs, pausing only to grab a jacket from the hook by the door. “In case you get cold.”
She smiled at his thoughtfulness.
Outside, the afternoon sun had climbed past the peak of the house, casting the driveway in shadows. He paused at the sight of her rental.
“Yours?”
“For now. I haven’t bought anything permanent yet.”
Jack opened the passenger door of a black Bentley parked beneath a limestone awning and waited for her to settle in before closing it with a soft, decisive click.
“Well,” she said when he climbed in behind the wheel. “This is much nicer than my rental.”
He glanced back at her little Kia as he backed up. “It better be.”
They crossed the long bridge that connected the island to the mainland, the Bentley gliding over asphalt while the sea glittered on either side in shades of pewter and glass. Jack drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on her thigh, his thumb tracing absent patterns on the faded denim as the Isles of Kassel shrank in the rearview mirror.
“You know,” she said, breaking the silence. “Kassel isn’t on Google Maps.”
“It’s a perk. Pay enough, and you can distort any reality.”
“I had to bribe the man who answered the phone at the Seeds of Hope place to give me your address.”
He frowned. “What did you offer?”
“I told him to name his price.”
“And what did he say?”
“That’s between him and me.”
“It absolutely is not. Nick’s my employee.”
“He told me his name was Mr. Carrow.”
“Yes. Nick Carrow. And if you don’t tell me what his price was, I’m firing him tonight.”
She hated to betray the man who had been so helpful to her on the phone, but she also didn’t want to see him punished for helping her. “If I tell you, you have to promise not to say anything. I don’t want him getting in any trouble.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“That’s not the point. We formed an alliance of sorts.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
She smiled triumphantly. “He assigned me a book and made me give him my word I’d read it.”
Jack’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Which book?” he asked through clenched teeth.
