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Maybe it’s my imagination, but Adrik almost sounds genuinely interested.
“Because my father cared more about his public image and the family’s reputation than he did about me.”
“Now, look who's being cryptic,” he chides. “What happened?”
I could tell him. It’s not like I’m ashamed of my story. Not anymore.
That’s part of why I left my family in the first place: so I could be honest about who I am.
But trust takes time, and Adrik hasn’t earned the whole truth from me.
“‘You have to give a little to get a little,’” I mock. I hold my hand out and wiggle my fingers. “So are you ready to hand over more answers or…?”
He reclines his seat again and crosses his arms. “Guess I’m going back to sleep.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, watching the way his long lashes flutter while he tries to sleep. He’s too beautiful. A man as complex and complicated as Adrik shouldn’t be so universally appealing. It’s confusing.
Just as I’m about to look away, he turns his head and catches me staring. I expect a smirk, a barb, some backhanded compliment. Standard fare from Adrik Tasarov.
But his smile fades and he gazes at me with a kind of perceptive intensity I’ve only seen glimpses of. Like he’s peeling me open, skin and nerves and muscle, and grazing a finger right over my bare, beating heart.
“Do you regret it?” he asks suddenly.
For some reason, my heart clenches. “Regret what?”
“Giving up your money.”
“Why would I regret it?”
“If you’d kept it, you probably wouldn’t be here right now.”
I’m not sure if that’s his way of making a case for or against me shucking my inheritance. But it doesn’t matter. I already know the answer.
Because, despite Malcolm Waters and the chaos of the wedding…
Despite all of the confusion and heartache…
Despite the games and the exquisite torture and the tears and the anger and the hunger strikes and the forced solitary confinement…
The honest answer is right there on the tip of my tongue.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t regret it. I’d do it again today if I could.”
Adrik’s face is flat and emotionless. He watches me for another second. Then he lies back and closes his eyes.
* * *
We land on a private airstrip on the far corner of a remote island.
The entire time the plane is descending, I am gawking out the window, positive we’re going to crash. “There are no houses,” I say nervously. “Or people. Shouldn’t there be cars or something? Is this place deserted?”
Adrik never once answers me. He continues being unhelpful after we deplane in what appears to be a dirt field.
“Does air traffic control even know we’re here?” I ask as we walk towards the sheet metal hangar. “Is this legal? Do you own this island?”
Instead, he answers Isabella’s questions patiently, which range from whether she can have another slushie for the drive to when she’ll get to swim.
“You want to swim?” Adrik asks as he unlocks an unremarkable black car that has been left near the airstrip. The keys are inside the cupholder.
Isabella slurps on the dregs of her third slushie and nods. “In the ocean. I’ve never been in the ocean.”
He turns to Isabella. “There’s a pool at the house.”
“But I want to swim in the ocean,” she protests.
I nudge her. “Hey. We’ll be here for a little while. I’m sure there will be plenty of time to swim in the ocean. Maybe tonight we—”
“Swim in the ocean,” Adrik finishes, cutting me off. “We need to stop by the house and get settled in, but there are a few hours until sunset. Plenty of time to make it to the beach.”
Isabella cheers with another long slurp through her straw, and I follow Adrik around to the other side of the car.
“Isabella has never been swimming in the ocean before,” I hiss at him.
“Hm, yeah, she did mention that.” He opens the door and hits a button that activates Isabella’s door. A small chair lift slides out for her to wheel onto.
It’s not even worth asking Adrik where he found time to get a wheelchair-accessible car on this deserted island. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to learn he’s Batman.
“I’m not sure it’s safe. And her wheelchair can’t really go through the sand. Maybe it would be better if we—”
He turns to me suddenly and grabs my face, his fingers gently pinching my cheeks until my mouth falls closed. “Stop, Emery. Stop worrying. Stop thinking. Let me do things.”
For a change, it isn’t cruel or harsh. It’s a soft rebuke. Damn near tender.
I swat his hand away anyway. “I’m not worrying, I’m just—”
“Worrying.” He walks around the car and straps Isabella in with effortless efficiency, as if he’s done it thousands of times before. He closes her door and gazes at me over the roof of the car. “How about you trust me and try to enjoy yourself for once, hm?”
Trust him? Impossible.
The relaxing part does become a lot easier when I see where we’re staying, however.
Adrik drives up a long, bumpy path surrounded by palm trees and thick, tropical brush. I’m starting to wonder if this hasn’t been some elaborate plan to dump me and Isabella in the middle of nowhere when, suddenly, the foliage opens up.
And I see paradise.
The house is low and elegant, constructed of pale timber and huge planes of glass. If you weren’t looking carefully, it could almost blend into the surroundings.
We park and get out. Inside, the floors are a rough, natural tile that feels warm against my bare feet. The walls are all sun-kissed yellows and glistening ocean blues.
“The bedrooms are that way,” Adrik says, pointing down a narrow hallway. Then he points to the sunken living room that looks out on a wide deck and the glistening ocean beyond. “This is the living room. And the kitchen is—”
“Screw the kitchen,” I say, walking over to the glass and pressing my hands against it. “You said we’d have time to get to the beach tonight. You did not mention that the beach is right freaking there.”
I hear a low chuckle behind me. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”
“I want to go swimming!” Isabella shrieks, so excited her wheelchair wobbles dangerously back and forth.
“We have to unpack and find our bathing suits.” I glance out the window at the horizon. “And the sun is already starting to set. Why don’t we just wait until tomorrow and give it a try then?”
Isabella’s lower lip juts out and she turns to Adrik. “But you said we could swim tonight. I want to swim tonight! Please?”
“There’s plenty of time,” Adrik says with a surprisingly easy smile. “We’re on vacation now.”
I shake my head. “We’re all tired from traveling. I think it would be good if we stayed in and—”
“No!” Isabella cries. “Mama, please.” She turns to Adrik. “Please?”
Adrik nods. “As you wish, princess.”
I glare at him. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Lucky for both of us, I’m positive it is,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Isabella’s eyes widen. “Now? Don’t I need my swimsuit?”
Adrik shrugs. “Clothes dry.”
He holds his hands out to Isabella, offering to pick her up, and she lifts her arms as high as she can to let him.
“Wait,” I say, already trailing after them as Adrik carries her across the deck. “She needs to change. And her life jacket!”
I worry about Isabella constantly. It’s part of my job as her mother, a never-ending ache low in my chest.
But in the water, the fear takes on a life of its own.
