I blink at him. ‘Are you—Are you saying you had acrush on me?’
‘A little one,’ Asher laughs. ‘You were nice to me and even though I didn’t know you at all back then, there was something about you that I…’ He cuts himself off and shakes his head almost ruefully. When he speaks again, his voice is low and quiet in a way that feels private, even out here with nothing but sun and ocean and maybe a few eavesdropping tortoises in a five-mile radius. ‘I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I know circumstances aren’t ideal, but I really think we could make something incredible out of this. Even if it started out wrong. We could make it right. We could make it ours.’
‘I—’ I croak out. ‘What are you saying?’
He takes a breath, like he’s bracing for impact. ‘I’m saying we don’t let them define this for us. If we have to play along and get engaged for the sake of their deal, fine – we do it. But that doesn’t have to be the real thing. Not for us. We’ll treat it like what it is: an arrangement. And then, someday, when you’re ready, when it feels right for you, I’ll ask you again. Just us. I’ll propose for real, and that can be the one we actually care about.’
He’s so close I can see the flecks of gold in his irises and the stubborn set of his jaw that says he’s not just saying this to make me feel better. He means it. Every word.
He gives me a soft, slightly sheepish smile. ‘I’d wait forever if that’s what you wanted. I want you, Imani. Actually want you. Not because of our fathers or because my father told me to, and definitely not because of a deal.’ He leans in, his forehead pressed to mine. ‘I want a life with you. I don’t care how long it takes – I’ll do it your way.’
I want to say yes. I want to yell it, scream it off the deck and let it echo all the way to London and back.
I press my hand flat over his heart and feel it hammering against my palm.
‘Yes,’ I hear myself say. My voice is soft and embarrassingly shaky, but I don’t care. ‘Yes, Asher. That’s what I want. I want you.’
The look on his face nearly does me in. He covers my hand with his own and pulls me against him until there’s nothing between us but sunshine and the dizzy rush of relief. I tip my chin up a little and he kisses me.
For one perfect moment, the world is just us.
And then, because the universe is apparently allergic to my happiness, my phone starts ringing again. I groan, but this time when I glance down, it’s not my father bombarding me with call after call, it’s Sloane, lighting up my lockscreen with a flurry of missed calls and messages.
I snatch it up immediately.
Sloane
Um? What the fuck? Are you okay?
Just saw the news… what is going on?
HELLO
ANSWER YOUR PHONE
I frown and go to message Sloane back, but then my father calls and I decide it’s time to stop delaying the inevitable.
I answer on the second ring, bracing myself. ‘Hello?’
He doesn’t waste a single breath on pleasantries. ‘Imani. Have you seen the news?’ He sounds… wrong. Panicked in a way I’ve never heard from my father before. I have no idea what’s just hit the news, but I know there can only be one thing that would ever rile him up like this.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I just woke up. Is this about the fact we’re broke?’
Asher looks at me like I’ve suddenly grown two heads, but I can’t focus on him right now. My father inhales sharply. ‘How did you—’
‘I overheard you and Mum at dinner. I know the company’s broke. I know that’s why you want me to marry Asher. It makes me sick that you’d use me for a bailout. That you and Georgios think that Asher and I are nothing but some kind of asset to be bartered.’
There’s a brief moment of silence and then my father belts out a deranged cackle. ‘You think Georgios knows about this? Our perceived capital was the only reason Georgios was even interested in the merger! Without that, this whole planfalls apart. Peregrine Airways is over. Over!’ He lets out a noise that sounds like a sob, but I can’t bring myself to feel any sympathy for him.
And that’s probably a good thing, because the next words that come out of his mouth come out in a snarl. ‘You need to come home. Today. I don’t care where you are. The press have got wind of the collapse, the investors are in a tailspin, and unless you want to watch everything I’ve ever built burn to the ground, you need to come home and present a united front with your mother and I.’
I stare at the horizon, at the blinding blue, and try not to let the familiar nausea crawl up my throat. ‘This isn’t my fault,’ I say. ‘It’s not my problem to fix. You did this.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ he hisses. I can picture it: the vein above his eyebrow pulsing furiously, his knuckles going pale as he grips his phone so tightly, it might just shatter. ‘Everything I’ve done has been to protect this family. And now you’ve gone and destroyed it because you couldn’t just do one thing I asked of you.’
I could argue. I could remind him that I’ve spent my entire life jumping through hoops, contorting myself into whatever version of ‘daughter’ would be most useful to him at the time. But I’m tired of appeasing my father.
‘Goodbye, Daddy,’ I say.
