Page 10 of Return to the Island

“You need to settle down. And stop drinking. You aren’t going to get answers if you’re wasted.” I downed the rest of the burning liquid in the crystal tumbler, slamming it on the sideboard when I was finished. I sat with a heavy thump in the chair opposite him.

“Why is she doing this?” Both my hands slipped into my hair. I was too warm. My heart raced. I just wanted to hold her.

“Did you ever read her dissertation?” Branson asked.

“No. I was there,” I snarked, but then my eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I think you might have some answers if you had.” Branson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. I slumped back in the leather chair, my hands cupping the edge of the arms, preparing myself for something.

“Paraphrase,” I demanded, assuming Branson had read her study.

“It was a social experiment. Take a convicted criminal, place him on an island. Through self-reflection, and visualization, the convict finds healing, forgiveness, and restoration.”

“That sounds a little hippy-dippy, but I suppose it isn’t too far off.”

“In her report, she imagined you.”

“What?” I shouted, sitting forward again.

“The report claims she saw a man on the island, but she eventually writes it off, decides that the experience wasn’t real. He was part of her imagination. The process was a vision quest. Another study, one produced by a Lillian Varga, refutes Juliet’s. It states, in short, that Juliet was part of a social experiment where two convicts were placed on the same island for retributive purposes. The intention was to study how they fared together, as the victim faced her attacker, when said perpetrator was equally aggrieved with what he had done.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said, sitting back in my seat again. With another hand swipe through my hair, I was certain it all stood on end. Lillian had been her academic advisor and mentor in the restorative program. Had Juliet not understood her own part in the experiment? Or had she played me? “Did Juliet know I would be there? Does it state she knew I was there, a pawn in their research?”

“It doesn’t in Juliet’s. Her report says she visualized you—although she doesn’t name you specifically—allowing herself to take control of her own life in response to what you’d done. She claims she found restoration through manipulating your interactions.”

“Manipulating—” Branson raised a hand to stop me.

“Lillian refutes Juliet’s claim, saying you were both intentionally placed on the island, together, and that Juliet experienced you in a manner opposing her own report.”

“Meaning?”

“What Juliet says she visualized, actually happened in person.”

“Manipulating me. In person,” I barked.

Branson looked up at me with narrowed eyes. “Let me ask you something. You say what you experienced with each other was intense—“

“It was. It was real. It was—” Branson stopped me with a look.

“Let me rephrase. You’re Tack Corbin. Do you honestly think you could be played by that girl? The same girl who you took advantage of first.”

My mouth popped open to speak, intending to refute him, but Branson’s eyes narrowed, warning me not to argue the point.

“Do you think she could turn around and take advantage of you?”

I’d love someone to care for me. About me. Her words whispered through my memory. She didn’t seem like she had the capability to be heartless. I didn’t want to believe she could, but too many times over the course of the past two years, I didn’t know what to believe.

+ +

As she entered the private dining room, my breath hitched. The air around her was different. Confident. Radiant. The white halter dress she wore accentuated her breasts, narrowing at her waist and flowing softly over her hips. Her hair hung long and loose, a touch lighter from the bark-brown color of years ago, but the curve of her neck held my focus. I hadn’t nibbled her there often enough. The sight of her skin reminded me how she smelled. Tropical. She redefined passion fruit in my mind, because I was tempted by her, and I wanted another bite.

She hadn’t looked at me yet, but I watched her. I stood my ground, waiting for her to cross to me. She smiled politely as she greeted each person in the room. She hesitated, standoffishly shaking hands with Grover and Mitzi Huffington, an older couple dressed in island fare, from Cap It Off. Their organization focused on knitting, a skill easily taught to women in deprived areas, selling their wares for educational material and teaching women sex education. Juliet’s Mouse Trap was closely related to their group, and I hoped by inviting them she might have the opportunity to discuss strategies and feminine societal reforms within repressed cultures.

Next were Tom Cross and Mike Alberts, both tattooed and rugged-looking, from RainbowFair. Their organization worked on continuing HIV education, finding experimental drugs and implementing distribution. I liked their group, but they weren’t who I was looking to sponsor. Tom and Mike were smart businessmen, as well as geographically knowledgeable, and I hoped they could help Juliet find additional resources and gain political understanding of segregated groups. When she reached the dark-haired, Native American-looking man near the windows, I had to step forward.

She twisted in my direction, her head tilting over her shoulder. I’d kissed that exposed shoulder blade the last time I took her, bent over a large tree trunk, slamming into warm heat to fill her. My dick was solid from the memory. I’d been struggling since the moment she entered the room. If I’d only known then that was the last time I’d feel her, have her, I’d never have let her leave my sight. Her eyes raked over my suit-clad body before flipping up to mine. Without thought, my knuckles traced down the length of her sun-kissed arm.

“Colton Edwin, may I present to you Juliet Montmore?”