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“Fried plantains, please.” Time to focus on the important and more urgent things.
“Winter. I can smell how unhappy you are under everything. I canseeit.” He caressed my cheek, then picked up my wrist and kissed the soft inside. “Remember how I grew up? I know what I see. What has he done to you?”
Maybe I should have gotten that full spa treatment. “If one more person tells me tomove on, I am going to bite through a bone.Especiallyyou, when you smell so jealous while telling me to do things that will make you evenmorejealous.”
“My jealousy is ameproblem.”
“It’s also a distraction you don’t need.” I damn near threw up my hands.
“I can handle distractions.”
“Let’s talk about something else. Like this gift you promised me.” Although him in that suit was a nice gift. Especially once I got him out of it.
Sterling held me tighter. He bent and kissed me, hard and quick, then released me and turned towards the tablet on the coffee table. He held it in his hands before offering it to me. He was wearing his wedding ring. Mine? Still missing.
“A tablet?” I teased.
That jolted him out of his movement. He turned the tablet around. It showed a picture of a gorgeous, green island in a sea of blue. The island was lined with a broad, white sandy beach along one side, and rose up from smooth green into a tall mountain with a defined ridge and a steep drop into the ocean on the other side. There were some structures on it, like a dock leading out into the ocean and what looked like a white concrete strip, but not much else.
“Wait,that’s my gift?” I pointed at the tablet.
“I seem to recall you asking about private islands.”
“You know I wasn’t serious.”
“Forty acres, still being developed,” Sterling said, not paying attention to my comment. “The airstrip and dock are in. Very discreet and very clandestine. Uninhabited. Bahamas. Private. Not even the crews currently working on the development know who they’re actually working for.”
I took the tablet and panned through the pictures, which included blueprints and progress pictures of turning the untouched island into a private paradise. It was miles from anywhere, accessible only by boat or plane. There was more information—charter companies, jet shares, and it all blurred together as it dawned on me what it was.
Sterling took the tablet back, set it down, and held my hands in his. “I don’t trust that we aren’t going to get double-crossed this summer. Or if I die, they won’t find a way to exploit and betray you.”
Nothing would stop a determined wolf, but an ocean and a remote private island was a solid proposition.
Sterling squeezed my hands. “I know I asked you to promise me you would make a life with Searle. I know I asked you to promise me to be happy. And Iwant those things for you. Ignore that I’m jealous. Of course I am. He’s with you when I’m not. But if we’re betrayed, ifyou’rebetrayed, in July or later,run. I can’t be with you, but I can give you a den. I know it isn’t what you want, and it’s not finished yet, but it’s there, and it’s safe.”
I barely could squeeze my throat around the lump in it.
He kept talking. “Take your passport and several thousand in cash to the Meeting. If I win, and we’re betrayed, run. I’ll follow, butrun. Get to somewhere in the Caribbean and charter a way to the island. Memorize the coordinates. The island doesn’t have a name, but it is on navigation charts.”
Not that I wasshockedat the thought we’d be betrayed if he won. “Have you heard something? Has someone said something that makes you think we’re not going to win even if we win?”
“No, and it’s that refusal to discuss eventualities that makes me not trust them. Like their safety plan for revealing you are still alive. Basic things. In the beginning, I understood the situation was dynamic, but we’re eight weeks out, and there does not appear to be any plan for if I win. My inquiries are ignored. My father’s inquiries are ignored. I don’t trust that, and I sure as hell do not like it.”
I slipped my fingers from his grasp and returned my arms to around his neck. “They won’t talk to me either. I get aggressively stonewalled. But they have a plan. I’m sure there is a plan for what happens if you win.”
“Which is why I have my own plans, for all it may seem I am being inconsistent. No matter what happens, Idolove you. You are the other half of my soul, and we belong together, even if that becomes impossible.”
I tugged on his pocket square. “It’s a very lovely gift.”
“Would you like to go see it? It’s only a few hours’ flight away.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but no. Not especially.”
“I understand.”
“Haveyouseen it?”
A wicked smile. “I saw a few islands. I decided you’d like that one best. Hopefully we’ll be able to go together when it’s finished, and I’ll let you uncover why I think it would please you.”
