‘Sometimes, I still can’t believe this is my life,’ she says, leaning into me. ‘That he’s mine. That he loves me…’
Her words start to fade beneath the sudden hum in my chest, a prickle along my spine, a charge that means one thing: Axel’s watching. My head wants to turn, but I fight it. My hand lifts instead, fingers caressing the sensitive skin behind my ear.
‘Champagne?’ Charlie appears like my saviour, offering a tray of filled flutes, and I gladly take one.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ She smiles from me to Sadie. ‘We’re ready to serve dinner, if you are?’
‘Oh yes!’ she says, pressing a hand to her stomach. ‘I swear I could eat a horse.’
Charlie laughs. ‘We’ll get straight on it.’
‘To say it’s Sterling’s boat,’ Sadie says to me as Charlie heads inside, ‘the crew make me feel like I’m running the show.’
‘That’s because you’re the bride – and he’ll have made it so.’
‘He’s a good guy, isn’t he?’
I spy the man himself talking to a blushing Anna. ‘He is, yeah.’
And that reminds me…
‘I told him I’d speak to Theo, put in a good word for him.’
‘It’s going to take more than a good word after your olive-oil joke.’ She rolls her eyes and I grimace. ‘Thanks for that, by the way.’
‘It was just that: a joke. And the man does need to realise he’s being a hypocrite. He’s only getting shirty because she’s the older party.’
‘No, I think he’s getting shirty because she’s his mum and he doesn’t want to see her broken again. You know how it was after they lost his father.’
I remember it all too well: Theo holding it together while she fell apart. The weight she lost, the colour, the joy…
‘Yeah, I do. But look at her now; you can’t tell me she isn’t long overdue some fun of her own?’
Sadie laughs into her glass. ‘And we all know what you mean by fun… You know one day, someone’s going to deliver on your no-strings rule and surprise you with more.’
‘We can but hope,’ I mutter softly – just not the ‘more’ Sadie has in mind.
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, sis.’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
Axel’s silhouette flickers at the edge of my vision and my pulse kicks up a notch.
‘You mark my words,’ Sadie says, ‘it’ll happen and it’ll bite you on your blasé arse… and I, for one, can’t wait.’
Me neither.
Axel
Fuck my life.
If the Devil were a woman…
And she’s dressed in red too.
The second she steps onto the deck, my whole body snaps tight, every sense blowing wide open. It’s like my pulse recognises her before my brain does. And one damn glance is all it takes to nuke whatever calm I clawed back after the jet-ski incident.
