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If the house was filling with water—if Amber was in it—well, it didn’t signify a thing how furiously he paced the deck, did it? It didn’t count for shit that he believed it when he told his boys, I’m doing everything I can. She’ll come back. I promise.
He had to dive in the water.
If that meant he lost the house or had to give up the only part of his work he liked, so be it.
He’d built this house for her. He’d started Mazzara Homes in the first place because she’d encouraged him to do what he liked, to do work that meant something to him. If he lost her, he wasn’t going to give a shit about the house. He wasn’t sure he’d give a shit about anything.
“I’m going to bring her home,” he told his son.
It was the only answer Tony had.
CHAPTER FIVE
She wasn’t picking up his calls. Jamila had given him the room number, but Amber wasn’t in the room. She wasn’t by the pool or in the lobby or along the resort’s stretch of beach.
She wasn’t in the restaurant.
Tony stood in the open-air bar, turning in a slow circle, reluctant to admit to himself that she wasn’t here, either.
This hadn’t been part of his plans, but his plans had more or less gone to shit, and they hadn’t been anything to boast about in the first place.
Fly to Jamaica. Find his wife. Fix things.
He’d spent the hours after Clark woke him sorting out tickets, reassuring his kids, asking his older sisters and Amber’s sister, Katie, to check in on the boys and keep their spirits up while he was away on this marriage rescue mission.
Then he’d had to drive to Columbus, twenty miles over the limit because he was late and he had to make the plane—only to get there and park and deal with the steady rise of his blood pressure all the way through security, a sweaty sprint to the gate, and the announcement that the flight had been delayed.
Two more delay announcements, a missed connection, a rebooking that got him to Montego Bay hours later than he’d planned.
His bag was getting heavy from hauling it all over the resort, and he still had no idea where to find Amber.
He hadn’t told her he was coming, because whenever he’d imagined putting his plan into words, it sounded too dramatic. Too desperate.
I’m flying to Jamaica.
Why?
To bring you home.
I’m coming home on Friday.
I know but …
But everything he’d thought of to say after that sounded stupid, even inside his own head. It would sound worse out loud. He’d figured it would be better to just find her and take it from there.
He saw only a few scattered groups of people at the bar. A crowd at the back that had pushed together two small, round tables. All ages—maybe a family reunion or a wedding. Talking up a storm. Smiling a lot. None of them people Tony knew. None of them with long, dark hair and big brown eyes.
Over by the railing, a blond couple took in the ocean view. A single man was talking to the bartender. Another couple stood at the bar, a man in a sport coat smiling, leaning over a brunette with a short, choppy haircut and red spiky shoes and a black dress cut so low in the back, he could see the full length of her spine.
She had a birthmark like a hyphen on her shoulder blade.
Tony looked again.
Amber.
Amber with her hair chopped off, wearing a dress and shoes he’d never seen, holding a drink.
