He reached for the box, but Cassie reprimanded him. “No,Travis! Keep your mitts off.Shemust be the one to touch it first.”
He pulled back, folded his hands and waited.
With a nod of encouragement from her, I took the small box and opened it. Inside, on a bed of black silk, was an iridescent pink moonstone with delicate veins of purple and blue in a simple bezel setting. I took it out and held it in my hand. “Oh my God, it’s beautiful.”
“Do you recognize it?” Travis asked, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.
“Wait! Is this one of the ones I found? But how?—?”
“When your clothes were drying in the cabin, the stone fell from your pocket. I took it and gave it to Cassie for her to work her magic.”
Cassie was a witch, so I knew what this meant, but I wanted to hear her say it. “Magic?” I asked, holding my breath. “What kind of magic?”
“You found the moonstone, so I was able to imbue it with your memories.” She gave a little shrug, like it was no big deal. But it was averybig deal! A huge fucking deal!
With his warm hand on my knee, Travis looked at me as if I were the only one in the room. “If you give her your bracelet, she’ll solder it on while we wait. That way, you’ll be able to cross the island’s charmed barrier without losing your memories of your time here.”
I tried to undo the clasp myself, but my fingers were shaking so hard my hands wouldn’t cooperate. Travis had to do it for me and handed the bracelet to Cassie.
Of your time here, he’d said. Notof me. Did that mean when the contest was over I’d be leaving the island…alone?
Travis and I enjoyed a candlelight dinner on the rooftop terrace of Cucina Vincenzo overlooking Darkaway Bay. Soft Italian music played on hidden speakers while boats bobbed out in the harbor, their lights flickering on the dark water. It would’ve been romantic if not for the camera crew and several tables of gawkers, but we did our best to ignore them. He had the spaghetti bolognaise, and I had the chicken piccata, both of which were delicious.
Before tonight, I’d have thought that when he fed me a bite from his plate, it was simply for the cameras. After all, the romantic gesture by a talented actor played right into the dating show theme. But given what he’d had to orchestrate to get me a memory stone, and the possessive way he’d touched me at Baubles and Barrels with no cameras around, I didn’t think it was just for show anymore.
I cut him a piece of my chicken piccata, making sure to get plenty of capers. With a hand underneath to catch any sauce, it was my turn to feed him. His lips closed over the tines of my fork, and I slowly pulled it out. He groaned softly as he chewed, and I couldn’t help but think of that night in the cabin when he’d made a similar sound.
When I reached for the bottle of Chianti to refill our glasses, I heard his phone vibrating with an incoming call. It wasn’t the first time either, but he was choosing to ignore it.
“Do you need to get that?” I asked, filling our glasses back up.
“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s not an emergency.”
How did he know? He hadn’t even looked at it. His phone buzzed again. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He leaned in close and cupped a hand to my ear. “I can’t let the cameras hear this,” he whispered. “It’s one of my littlenieces. Matthew, my brother-in-law, sometimes lets the little one play games on his phone in the evening. Jada would lose her shit if she knew because she has a strict no-screens policy at night. I was there this morning, and my niece asked if she could call me tonight. I told her no, but—” He gave a little shrug. “She’s four.”
It was my turn to cup his ear. I tried to ignore how amazing he smelled. “We could video-call her.”
He pulled back from me slightly. “Really?”
“Sure. I’d love to meet her.”
He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, and over a shared dessert of tiramisu, we concocted an elaborate lie so as not to get Matthew in trouble. He sent the camera crew away, saying we needed a few minutes alone, and then he video-called his niece.
“Uncle, I’ve been trying to call you. I want to show you a picture I colored.” His niece was utterly adorable with her big brown eyes, space buns and dimple. A family trait, I wondered? I was pretty sure Jada had a dimple too, but honestly, I had paid little attention to hers. The girl held up a page with random scribbles that were vaguely wolf-shaped. You could tell her father was holding the phone because it was very steady.
“Wow, Ginnea, that’s really good.”
Ginnea frowned. “Is that your gull-fend?”
Travis bit his lip to keep from laughing and glanced over at me, his gaze searching my face. “Yes, this is my girlfriend, Daphne.”
Why did an introduction to a four-year-old make me all melty inside? My ovaries were obviously very much in charge here.
“Hi, Ginnea, it’s really nice to meet you. You’re such a talented artist. Is that a mama wolf and her puppies?”
“No,” the girl said, sighing dramatically. “It’s a daddy wolf and his puppies. The mama is over there, telling those people what to do.”
