Alex lay on the bed, his arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling fan, its monotonous rotation—thunk, thunk, thunk—mirroring the throbbing in his temples. He had envisioned long nights of solitude, not this circus that had stumbled into Ilot Serenite.
"An influencer," he muttered under his breath, the word tasting sour on his tongue. "Of all the ridiculous..."
What were the damn odds?
The walls of the cabin felt like they were closing in on him. To get stuck with a woman like Lily St. John? She represented the antithesis of everything he valued: depth, commitment, and the tireless search for knowledge. She was all surface, shimmering without substance.
Except.
The image of her carefully stacking his papers flickered through his mind, uninvited. The way she'd paused to read his specimen labels. The slight furrow of her brow that suggested actual thought happening behind those bright eyes.
He shoved the observation aside. One moment of basic organizational skills didn't make her interesting. It made her marginally less chaotic than expected. That was all.
He could almost imagine the tippy-taps of her cell phone keyboard as she composed her next frivolous post. The thought made him cringe. Where he sought to quantify and understand the world, she was content to plaster over the complexities of life with a veneer of cheerfulness.
"Fish don't pose for Instagram," he mumbled, the corners of his mouth twitching despite himself.
He rolled onto his side, facing the wall, attempting to exile her from his mind. But there she was, etched into his consciousness—the perky disposition, those damnably bright green eyes, and wild curls that defied the humid air of the South Pacific.
"Life's not all sunsets and sangrias," he grumbled, though the room's quiet offered no reply.
As if on cue, a giggle seeped through the thin wood of the bedroom door, followed by the sound of something—presumably her phone—clattering to the floor.
"Fantastic," Alex groaned. He could already feel the migraine coming on, the pressure building at his temples in sync with each peal of laughter that escaped from the living room.
"Quiet," he growled.
"Sorry," she called out.
But was she sorry? He didn't think so.
Through the thin walls, he heard her moving around—the creak of the couch springs as she settled, the rustle of the blanket, a soft sigh that sounded almost... content? How was she content? She was stranded on a deserted island with a stranger who'd made it abundantly clear she wasn't welcome.
Normal people would be panicking. Normal people would be crying or demanding solutions or having full-blown meltdowns.
Lily St. John was apparently not normal people.
The realization was both annoying and, against his will, slightly impressive.
"Hey, Robinson Crusoe," Lily's voice called, playful and unfazed. "Just double-checking, you got Wi-Fi in this paradise, or do I have to climb a palm tree to catch a signal?"
"I already told you, no Wi-Fi. It's one of the island's best qualities," he shot back, the words leaving his lips before he could stop them. "Now, be quiet. I'm trying to sleep."
"Goodnight, Dr. Crankypants." Her voice held a smile that he could practically see through the wood of the closed door between them.
"Goodnight, Miss Annoying Interloper," he muttered.
"I heard that!" she called.
"Good!"
Her laugh filtered through the door—warm and genuine and entirely too pleasant. He pressed hispillow over his ears like a child, which only made him feel more ridiculous.
With a deep sigh, he conceded to the inevitable. Two weeks. That's all he had to do to make this work. Maybe this was the universe testing to see how badly he wanted this trip to be successful. He wasn't a woo-woo guy, but what were the odds of someone like Lily being dumped on the island at the same time he was doing his research trip?
At the end of the day, he was 100 percent Team Science, but even science had things it couldn't explain.
This was one of those times.
