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It makes me jealous to know he was flying women out, though I know it’s irrational of me to feel this way. Marriage is a strange thing. I know that Jasper is mine, and I am his. Not his heart, but body. But my jealousy is quickly replaced with sadness. It finally clicks, the way he acts. He wants to feel something with these women.
“I felt a connection with you, which is one of the reasons why I chose you as my wife. I didn’t want to go into a marriage with a woman only interested in a rich lifestyle where I don’t get anything in return. You can’t force a connection with a person, no matter how hard you try, so I decided on this. I know you felt it, that’s why you ran back to that asswipe.”
The way he said asswipe was so bitter. And he’s right, we do have a connection, though I don’t like it. Not at all. I don’t want to like Jasper, and I don’t know how to be in a normal relationship. My relationship with Link was so toxic and I guess this is what it feels like after the calm following a thunderstorm. I don’t know how to respond, so I dig into the crab cake. I need to change the subject. “So, the chef you hired makes some bomb-ass stuffed crab.”
“Indeed, he does.”
Once we’re finished eating, Jasper pulls out my chair. “You want to walk on the beach?”
We don’t have anything to do at the villa but fuck each other, and sharing one bedroom with him, that’s going to be very hard to do. It’s different now that we’re married. We’re bound to each other for the rest of our lives.
My heart picks up speed as I remove my shoes and carry them. The smooth sand tickles my toes. The waves roll onto the shore, and the water is cool and calm. I wish I could get rid of these butterflies in my stomach or the way my body hums to life when he’s nearby. I’m hoping this gravitational pull I have toward him will wash away like the ocean against the shoreline, and I’m hoping this tension between us will die down.
“When I was in boarding school, I used to look at the stars from my room and take peaceful walks along the trail.” His eyes light up like city lights and the moonlight outlines his jawline.
“Where did you go to boarding school?”
He pauses for a few minutes, picking up seashells and tucking them into his pockets.
“Phillips Exeter Academy.” He continues, “I took a class on astronomy in high school.”
I look at the sky and it feels as if we’re on a globe. “What kind of stars do you see with the naked eye?”
“You mean the cluster of stars clumped together?”
I nod.
He stands directly behind me, and I feel his erection against my lower back, causing my heart to flutter. Arousal dampens my panties. Jasper awakens every cell in my body, and my pulse quickens. My skin buzzes like it’s on fire. He takes my hand, then uses my finger to make some weird line while pointing at the night sky.
“You see the three big stars and how they line up, but the one at the end is to the side?” he asks, his voice a murmur against my earlobe. “That’s Orion’s head.”
I try so hard to look at the stars. “I don’t see anything.”
He laughs. “It’s sometimes hard to see.” Then he stands beside me. “I’m assuming you never heard of Vega and Altair?”
I sit Indian style on the squishy sand. “No. Tell me about it.”
He sits next to me and our shoulders touch. For a moment, it feels as if this is a real relationship and we’re a real couple. “Vega was a goddess of heaven and she fell in love with a human man. It is said that when he first laid eyes on her, he fell in love with her immediately.” He pauses. “She vowed that she would be with him in heaven one day. When her father found out that she was in love with a human, he forbade her from seeing him. And she did keep her word; when he died, they did end up in the sky, but with the Milky Way separating them. Some people believe that once a year, a bridge forms between them so they can be together, and if it rains on the day they are supposed to see each other, that means they weren’t able to see each other. The rain is Vega’s tears.”
“That story is tragic and cruel,” I say.
“Aren’t all love stories cruel?” Jasper says. “Love isn’t kind to people. That’s why I’ll never need it.”
Jasper’s opening up to me, inviting me into his world, makes my heart leapfrog in my chest. He says that in such a bitter way. Was he in love with someone? Was Harper his first love? What about Gemma? It’s a mystery and I want to ask more, but I don’t want to ruin our moment, and Jasper won’t tell me even if I ask him about it. Is that why he is so jaded by love? I want to ask him, but I know I won’t get any answers, and even though he’s showing me bits of himself right now, he might close up like a clam. Being married to him less than twenty-four hours has changed us. We signed a contract that says both of us are stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. Still, I don’t want to get my hopes up when it comes to him, so I need to keep my guard up.
“You see that shooting star? Make a wish,” Jasper says, pulling me away from my thoughts.
I shake my head and look down at the sand. The dream I have won’t never come true, as long I’m still married to him.
Poppy
The next morning, we have breakfast on a yacht, then we watch a dolphin show. Jasper tells me how he became the owner of the private island. Turns out his mother’s sister left it to him when she passed away. After that, we go scuba diving and lie on the beach. Later on in the afternoon, we’re stuck inside the villa because of the storm.
The wind blows so hard the shutters shake, and it sucks because I wanted to go jet skiing. I watch a Disney movie, scooping peanut butter from the jar. After I eat a spoonful, I lick the spoon clean.
Jasper sighs, closes his laptop, and his eyes go to me, watching me closely. His eyes are filled with warmth. He sits so close to me that our arms touch, and he stares into my eyes for a beat too long, so I look away. The tension between us is so intense, it’s suffocating.
The thunder splits the sky in half and the rain grows heavy against the window.
