Page 101 of Painted Truths

Caden has pulled his unconscious wife of mere hours onto his lap, cradling her head in his hands while rubbing absentmindedly at her long black hair. She's motionless but for the slightest rise and fall of her chest.

Giana is quick to return, medics in tow, and it registers that the buzzing in my ears is, in fact, the low hum of a helicopter in the distance. Relief fills my chest cavity, realising that help is close at hand.

One of the medical personnel pulls Cade to the side, allowing the rest access to Layla. They check her vitals, and with several quiet, seemingly brisk words between them, they mount her onto a waiting gurney and carry her from the still crowded pavilion onto the beach and down aways to what looks like a cleared area I hadn't seen before, but it's perfectly shaped into a makeshift helipad.

Cade is led out after her, his face in his hands, blonde locks falling forward, hiding him from the onlookers, with Noah close behind. Nate, Liv, and I are hot on their heels, my arm loosely draped over her shoulder just tightly enough to keep her to my side.

A helicopter begins the process of landing, whipping up a storm of sand and ocean, spraying both over the onlookers, despite the distance between us and the pad. Nate and I turn our backs momentarily to shield Peaches and Layla’s sister, Giana, who’s close behind us.

By the time the sand has settled, Layla is being rapidly boarded with two medics climbing on alongside what looks to be another onboard. Cade and Noah draw up the rear.

At the last second, Cade looks back, meeting first my eyes, then Nate’s, before tipping his head and indicating, using his hands, that he'll call us. Then, climbing into the medivac helicopter behind Noah, they are in the air and moving closer to safety within less than a minute.

The staff have already begun to wind everything down, ensuring that all the guests have somewhere to sleep or a way to return to their own living spaces. In addition to the main house, several smaller villas like ours are dotted across the island for visiting guests.

Nate, who’s staying at the main residence, walks us to a waiting car without so much as a word, but after embracing first Liv and then myself, he says, "I think it's time to call it quits on this shithole. If today taught me anything, it's that this place is as fucking cursed as I'd thought."

Shaking his head, he scrubs his hand from his forehead to his chin, rubbing the dark beard in contemplation for a moment. “Can you have the jet ready for us in Miami tomorrow afternoon?” I nod once, slapping a hand on his shoulder in solidarity, knowing just how hard this will have hit him, considering where this shit has gone down.

“Thanks, Henry. I'll confirm a seaplane for the three of us if you can handle your end."

Our return trip is sombre as Peach nuzzles against my chest, quietly dotting my shirt with her steady stream of silent tears.

Once we arrive at the villa, I shoot off a text to my pilot, alerting him to have the jet ready for tomorrow. We then go about the business of defrocking our finery—an elegant reminder of a disastrous evening.

“Such pain…”

Peach is bent over the bed, placing the last of her luggage in her case as she murmurs so quietly that I strain to hear her. Suddenly, she turns to look at me. The tear tracks marring her cheeks only serve to make her even more heartbreakingly stunning as she tries and fails to stifle a low sob in the back of her throat.

“On their happiest day, Henry. Such pain.”

Closing the gap between us, I envelop her in my arms, wanting so badly to take this pain away—to bear it for her. If there’s one thing I know about my Peaches, it’s that she feels others’ pain. Deeply. Profoundly.

And having witnessed something as traumatic as what had happened on that beach, well, we both need to just take a moment and find gratitude in each other’s embrace.

After a time, she pulls back, her eyes bright and puffy, but a small smile graces her lips where there’d been none before. I feel elated at having brought her even a semblance of the peace she so easily brings to my soul.

“I promise, baby. It’ll all be okay in the end.”

Her smile brightens. “As Father Thomas says, ‘if it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.’”

I chuckle quietly as we both go back to packing up.

Despite having packed her own nightwear, Peaches looks good enough to devour in an oversized grey t-shirt she pinched from my drawer. She's in the process of putting some white cream all over her face when I step up behind her, pulling a surprised shriek from her when I spin her to face me.

Internally chuckling at her reaction, I wrap my arms around her, soaking up the comfort her mere presence brings me. When I'm with her, I can just about believe that there is good in this world. Good in the female species as a whole. Up to this point in my life, women seem to leave me worse than when they found me. Peaches makes me think that, maybe, not every woman will hurt you, that they aren't out for what they can gain, whether it's cash or cock, because it's always been one or the other.

Maybe, just maybe, people don't always leave.

"My heart speeds up when I'm near you. It's like…" I circle my hand around the back of her neck, lacing my fingers through her thick locks. "It's like until I met you, it was only half beating. Just enough to live, but not really be alive. When I met you, it came to life for the first time… recognising the missing beat was within you. As though, only when we came together, our hearts could be whole and beat as one."

There's silence for several long moments as we stand there just absorbing each other. Her breath gently plays across my lips and her big deep blue eyes widen impossibly further.

"Henry, I—"

"Shhh, baby." Placing my finger over her soft lips, I go on, unsure if it's feelings that have been simmering underneath the surface all along, or if the events of the evening frightened the fucking shit out of me.

Or maybe I need to get the words out now, while I still have the balls to say them because fuck knows, she’s waited on my confession for a long ass time now.