Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she crossed to her dresser and opened the jewelry box.
The shell sat exactly where she'd left it a month ago. Pink and gold swirling together like a frozen sunset. Small enough to fit in her palm. Heavy enough to carry everything.
To remember this place,he'd said.To remember everything.
As if she could ever forget.
She ran her thumb over its smooth surface, allowing herself one moment. One breath. One acknowledgment of everything she'd lost when she'd boarded that ferry and he'd stayed silent.
Then she closed the jewelry box and turned away.
You're going to Boston,she reminded herself.You're going to walk into SPECA headquarters and pitch yourself as a serious conservation partner. You're going to build something that matters.
And if he's there?—
She cut the thought off before it could finish.
He wouldn't be there. Or if he was, he'd made his choice clear. Five weeks of silence said everything his mouth never could.
Lily St. John was done chasing men who couldn't choose her.
She was choosing herself.
Whatever happened in Boston, that much was certain.
Chapter Sixteen
Boston in late summer was a cacophony of chaos.
The noise. The crowds. The relentless pace of a city that didn't care about coral reefs or endemic species or the particular shade of green in a woman's eyes.
It seemed a lifetime ago that he was on the island, but Alex had been home for three weeks already and he was starting to question whether the entire trip had been a hallucination.
Except hallucinations don't come with heartache, and that hollow feeling in his chest each morning was very real.
Alex threw himself into work with the desperate intensity of a man trying to outrun his own thoughts. He arrived at SPECA's research facility before dawn andleft after dark. He buried himself in data analysis, sample processing, report writing—anything that required enough concentration to keep his mind from wandering to wild curls and freckled shoulders.
It wasn't working.
"You're here early again."
Alex looked up from his microscope to find Dr. Harold Nichols leaning against his office doorframe, two cups of coffee in hand. Harold was the closest thing Alex had to a friend at SPECA—which wasn't saying much, given Alex's general approach to workplace socialization, but the older oceanographer had been patient with him since Alex's first day three years ago.
"Couldn't sleep," Alex said, accepting the offered coffee. "Figured I'd get a head start on the sample analysis."
"Mmm." Harold settled into the chair across from Alex's desk, studying him with the same careful attention he usually reserved for sediment cores. "You've been different since you got back from Serenite."
"Different how?"
"Quieter. Which I didn't think was possible." Harold sipped his coffee. "Also, you keep staring at your phone like it's personally wronged you, and yesterday I heardyou sigh so heavily in the break room that Janet from Accounting asked if someone had died."
Alex winced. "I didn't realize I was being that obvious."
"Don't get your knickers in a twist. Most people wouldn't notice." Harold shrugged. "But I've known you for three years, and this is the first time I've ever seen you look like you actually give a damn about something besides fish."
The observation landed uncomfortably close to the truth.
"It's nothing," Alex said. "Just adjusting to being back."
