Silence descends, broken only by the gentle lapping of the pool water and the frantic pounding of my heart. I slowly lower my hands from my face. West is grinning down at me, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.
"See?" he says. "Told you she'd like me."
"She threatened you with a bedpan!"
"A sign of deep affection in the Cooper family, I assume." He hands me back my phone. "Crisis averted. Mostly."
"Mostly," I echo, my voice a little hoarse. "Remind me never to let you near my phone again."
He chuckles, dropping a kiss on my wet hair. "Deal. Now, let's get dry before we turn into prunes.
We walk back to our casita in comfortable, damp silence, the morning sun warming our skin. It feels… normal. Domestic. Like we're just a couple returning from a swim, not co-conspirators hurtling towards an emotional cliff.
The illusion doesn’t last long.
"What the…" I stop dead.
West's expression hardens, all traces of the easy warmth from moments ago vanishing.
Sitting squarely in the center of the teak outdoor table, dwarfing the fruit bowl, is an enormous basket. It isn't tasteful. It's a grotesque explosion of exotic orchids, lurid birds-of-paradise, and violently pink anthuriums, all wrapped in ostentatious gold cellophane and tied with a ribbon thick enough to moor a yacht.
West breathes out. "Stay here."
"It's flowers, not a bomb—"
But he's already moving—pure athletic instinct—puttinghis body between me and the basket like it might actually explode. All 230 pounds of muscle and protective male.
It's absurd.
It's also doing things to my nervous system that are deeply unhelpful.
He plucks the card from its little holder, reads it, and his expression does something complicated.
"It's from Blake."
He hands me the card. The handwriting is an aggressive, slanting scrawl:
West & Jane,
Apologies for my… exuberance last night. The open bar at these things, amirite? Ha! No hard feelings about the little misunderstanding. Consider the punch to the gut water under the bridge. Magnanimous of me, I know. Rest assured, I won't be involving my father's lawyers. This time. ;) Enjoy the flowers. Try not to drown in the pollen.
Blake
P.S. Jane —still think you're aiming too low. The offer stands. Upgrade anytime.
Nausea rolls through me, hot and sour. The casual dismissal. The threat veiled as a joke. The sheer, unadulteratedsliminessof it. My fingers tighten on the thick cardstock, crumpling the edge.
"Water under the bridge?" I whisper, the words tasting like ash. "He accosted me. He grabbed me. He insulted you. And he thinks…flowers?"
West plucks the crumpled card from my hand, his touch gentle despite the fury simmering in his eyes. Then he crushes it into a tight ball and tosses it with lethal accuracy into a nearby ceramic planter.
"He thinks he's untouchable.” His voice drops to something cold and lethal.
“Thinks money and Daddy's name erase everything." He stares at the gaudy basket like it's a physical manifestation of Blake's ego.
"Narcissist's apology. Classic. I'm sorryyoumademebehave badly, but here's a shiny thing to distract you."
He picks up the entire basket, walks to the edge of the patio overlooking a dense patch of tropical foliage, and unceremoniously dumps the whole thing—flowers, cellophane, ribbon and all—over the railing. It lands with a soft thump anda rustle of leaves.
