When I finally breach the surface, he doesn’t offer me his hand. Instead, I awkwardly flop onto the plastic like a beached seal and slip into the seat in front of him. I’m suddenly conscious of my white lacy bra. It’s soakedthrough, and if there were any more moon in the sky, there wouldn’t be much point in wearing it at all.
He grabs hold of the paddle and digs it into the sea like he wants to teach it a lesson. It doesn’t matter that Caleb has wanted me from the start. Doesn’t matter that I had everything all wrong. Whatever this attraction is between us, it’s just attraction, no matter what Caleb thinks. And as soon as we’re back on dry land, we’ll forget about each other and go back to our lives. Anything that’s happened between us will be just another fleeting vacation memory.
So why is it that I feel like I’ve just made a massive mistake?
19
Caleb’s “Fiji midnight” quickly turns into Fiji three a.m as I try every trick I’ve everheard of to get myself to sleep. But my brain is still reeling over Caleb. Idon’tregret my decision. I swear. Whatever this bizarre attraction is between us, it’s just that: attraction. And it absolutelycannotbe allowed to turn into anything. But as soon as I close my eyes, I see him. I feel the glorious orbit of his body next to mine. And suddenly, my hand on my stomach ishishand. The tropical breeze from my open window is his breath tracing the contours of my neck—his lips on my skin. The blanket above me is his weight on my hips. His strong fingers pushing into my ribs to draw me close to him. The sea-salt taste of his lips brushing against mine…
I bolt up and pull the hair-tie on my wrist.
Snap.
Caleb is what Jane Austen might call an unmitigated ass. He’s more stuck up than the barnacles Jim has to scrape off the bottom of the Vela Bianca.
Snap.
He’s so concerned with keeping up his nauseating hero routine that he can’t even tell when he’s being a complete jerk.
Snap.
His face is so frozen in a perpetual frown that if he keeps it up, he’s going to have the forehead of a bulldog in ten years and his stupid eyebrows are always pinched and his eyes are so beautiful that even when he’s angry it feels like they’re boring into my soul and?—
Snap! Snap! Snap!
This isn’t working. I can think of all the reasons in theworldto hate Caleb and my body would still betray me. I groan, casting off the rumpled sheets and rolling out of bed right into the thick, white monogrammed robe that’s waiting for me on my desk chair. I have the desperate urge to call Marianne, but she’ll swim out here just to slap me if I wake her up before sunrise. Instead, I lie in my bed and stare at the upholstered ceiling, wondering how I could possibly have handled thisworse.
Needless to say, a night of no sleep doesn’t exactly work wonders for my appearance. As soon as my alarm goes off, I get up and plant myself in front of the mirror, taking stock of the bags under my eyes. If Caleb isn’t already running for the hills after last night, maybe my haggard appearance will help scare him off. Which is exactly what I want.
Isn’t it?
Even though I’m basically a zombie at breakfast, nobody seems to notice. Arthur is inordinately excited about our day at Mamanuca resort, which is apparently his favorite place in the Pacific, and I’m as eager as he is to put some distance between myself and Caleb. Unfortunately, the universe seems to have other plans. I curse under my breath when I catch sight of him waiting in the tender, eyes sunken—lips pinched. From the looks of him, I’m not the only one who didn’t sleep last night. He doesn’t even have the energy to give me his usual condescending glance. Instead, he just looks…broken.
“Easy does it,” he says listlessly as he reaches out a hand to help Patricia into the tender. He doesn’t even bother to makesome charming comment about the fact that she’s ditched her usual black blouse in favor of a peach-colored silk top.
“Patricia, you’re a vision!” Jim cuts in instead. “Embracing the island life?”
“My other tops are being steamed,” she replies.
Reluctantly, I follow her down into the boat and take Caleb’s tentative hand.
“Miss Olsen.”
Miss Olsen?Could he be any more suspicious?
Even though everyone’s chatting up a storm in the tender, I spend the ride silently pressed up against the rubber as far away from Caleb as humanly possible. Only Jules notices my weirdness, and mouths a reluctant “you good?” at me from across the boat. I give her a thumbs up. The last thing I need is for her to get suspicious.
I check my phone again—for some reason I haven’t had service since last night. All I want is to call Marianne—to tellanyonewhat’s going on so it doesn’t feel so bizarre. For a second, I even consider telling Matthew now that we’ve bonded over the terror of his family’s wrath. But something tells me his ‘brotherly love’ only goes so far.
I practically spring out of my seat when we unload from the tender onto the beautifully polished dock at Mamanuca island. This is no Narara. A smiling man in a white shirt helps us tie off as the whole family files onto the dock, marveling at the beautifully polished wood and glistening, white shells that decorate the rail posts. Well, at least Jules and I are marveling.
It’s almost beautiful enough to distract me from the fact that Caleb doesn’t stay in the boat—he steps out right after Steven and shakes the hand of the uniformed dock attendant.
“What are you doing?” I blurt out, fully aware that Harry and Arthur are standing right behind him.
Caleb glances up at me without moving his head, and eventhat one motion sends butterflies exploding in my nether regions. I mentally squash every single one of them.
“Tying us off?”
