Sadness swept through her as she met his long-lashed gaze. She didn’t know if she and Lincoln would have ever worked. She’d kept something pretty important from him, and she’d been quite hypocritical by teasing him so much about being a billionaire. He might not be interested in her anymore. She wouldn’t blame him.
But every time she was near him, her skin tingled and the world felt more bright, more fascinating. And she saw that same spark in his eyes, too.
Now she’d never know what it would be like to actually kiss him, or do any of the delicious things that might follow. Her chances of avoiding marriage to an Aberdeen were going down fast. What did her personal wishes matter when it came to the consequences of letting the bequest expire? Wouldn’t it be better for the entire world if she controlled those funds herself and could direct them where she wanted them to go?
She straightened her spine and gave both men a formal nod. “Please excuse me for a bit. Mr. Phelps, make yourself at home. You’re fortunate that we have one extra cot in the visitor tent. Lincoln, can you please show him the way?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, clearly reluctant to leave her.
“Yes. I need to read all this.” She lifted the fistful of papers that included Duncan’s proposal.
After one last lingering look, Lincoln beckoned for the British barrister to follow him. “Come along, then. I’ll introduce you to our roommate and the resident geckos.”
She watched them stroll toward the guest tent. A billionaire, a pilot, and a barrister walk into a jungle…there had to be a joke in there somewhere.
No time for levity, she told herself sternly. She wiped the smile from her face and headed for her own tent to find out what the adult Duncan Aberdeen had to say to her.
17
That night, Rory couldn’t sleep. He tried counting the croaks of the coqui frogs—mating calls, Sasha had told him. He tried imagining himself in a fluffy king-size bed instead of a net-shrouded cot. He silently hummed the lullaby his grandmother used to sing him at bedtime.
Everything he tried just made him more wide awake. Finally he gave up and climbed out of his cot. Maybe he just needed some fresh air. With three people sleeping in it, the guest tent was getting stuffy.
Outside, moonlight filled the encampment with silvery shadows. The moon was full, or nearly so, and it seemed so close he could make out the craters and the lakes. If only he could fly there and leave all his earthly problems behind.
He climbed onto the picnic table and stretched out on his back. Bathing in moonlight…maybe that would help him sleep. The fresh air felt cool against his face as he stared up at the moon. A procession of stately dark clouds paraded across the sky, sometimes blocking the light, then clearing away again. He wouldn’t be surprised if it rained, since it seemed to just about every night here.
A soft footfall made him jolt back to a sitting position. Mathilda was tiptoeing toward him. She wore a thin hoodie over cotton pajama pants, her feet in slippers. Her hair was loose to her shoulders and her eyes glimmered in the moonlight.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she whispered.
“No. Maybe it’s the moon. It’s so bright here.”
“It is. This is the first night of the full moon. The ancient Hawaiians considered the moon to be full for four nights, did you know that? Each night of the cycle has a name. Tonight is Mahealani. It’s still a fairly common name among native Hawaiians. Isn’t it beautiful? Oh, and Hilo is named after one of the full moon nights.”
He smiled to himself. She sounded so nervous, and that made him want to be calm—for her. He offered her a hand and helped her onto the picnic table next to him. “You really love Hawaii, don’t you?”
“I do. It’s the only place I’ve ever felt really free. My parents have never even been here. They kept talking about visiting me, but it’s such a long flight from the East Coast and this,” she gestured at the clearing, “isn’t exactly their scene. Also, my mother is afraid of volcanoes. When I told her the whole island is made up of five volcanoes, and one of them is currently active, she stopped talking about visiting. It’s just as well. They’d want to stay at the Four Seasons or something like that, which isn’t really visiting me.”
She fell quiet next to him. The murmurs of coqui frogs and cicadas and the distant croak of a toad wove a web of night song around them. It felt utterly magical. The warmth of her body next to his gave him a sense of deep peace. Despite the many things that separated them—backgrounds, misconceptions, deceptions, situations—he felt connected to her in a way he couldn’t shake.
“Have you read your…proposal, I guess it is?”
She let out a soft sigh. “That’s what it is. I’d call it more of a business proposal, but it does include marriage.”
His stomach soured and the moonlight seemed to dim from silver to gray.
“And?”
“And nothing…yet. I have to think about it. But I don’t want to think about it. I’m supposed to go to Hilo tomorrow and now it’s the last thing I want to do, because there will be Internet and my parents will be trying to reach me, and I’ll feel compelled to google all the terrible things that will happen if I say ‘no,’ and Duncan wants to meet in person and…” A tear ran down her face. “And I’m never going to find Hector now,” she finished, her wistful tone tearing a hole right through his heart.
“Hey.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. “Hector is probably living his best life free in the jungle. He’s got plenty of platosporum?—”
“Pittosporum.”
“Spitosporum,” he corrected himself.
She giggled. “Pittosporum. Starts with a ‘pitt.’”
