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But deep down inside, I know he’s right. I have a choice to make. This is the moment when I’ll decide to either fight for her or quit. Which will it be? Spence is staring at me, taking in the storm that’s happening inside my head. His brilliant eyes are narrowing as he watches me—he’s probably wondering if I’m having a stroke. I am.
“So, the poet I sent you…” he says slowly.
“Eden,” I say on reflex.
“Eden Elliot.” He winces. Why does her name make him wince? He knew it, but he called her ‘the poet’. Am I missing something here? “Ok. Let’s take the whole thing from the start and dissect it. First of all, everything else aside, is she helping you write?”
“Oh, she is.”
He waits a bit, but I don’t volunteer any more information. I can’t. I would trust Wes with my entire soul, but how can I even begin to explain to him what is going on between Eden and me, when I don’t even know myself?
“Right, so that’s one thing answered,” he says, waving his hand as if he wants to wave the rest of his questions away. “Now, I need to ask you a question about something you said before, and I’ll ask it only once, and then we won’t talk about it anymore, ok?”
I lean forward, curious. Then I see that he is frowning and I get scared.
“Lay it on me.” I brace myself.
“Is it true that she nearly died? More than once?” Wes asks calmly, but his eyes are flashing.
I flinch. “It is. She nearly did. Also, me.”
“Pardon?” Oh no, he’s going British on me. He must be well and truly angry.
“Look, you didn’t know about the club, but you know about the waterfall, right? I take full responsibility for that.” That damned lump in my throat is not letting me breathe. “Believe me, I was already in the water before I’d had time to see where she’d landed, I acted that fast.” Ari whistles. I know she’s a diver herself, but I don’t believe even she would have jumped off that cliff any faster than me. “In the end, it was not a life-threatening situation, but I did not wait around to find out. I just grabbed her myself. My men were there as well, but more importantly,Iwas there. Nothing would have happened to her, and nothing ever will. I’d give my life for her.”
Everyone falls silent after my heavy words. They are heavy, but also true. They might be the only true thing I’ve ever said.
“I was pretty terrified,” I add more quietly. “If the water didn’t finish me, I thought fear would.”
“The girls Louisa brought with her…” Wes begins saying, then he stops. “I hear they tried to act like yacht girls. But I can’t allow that sort of thing on my property, you know that, don’t you, Isaiah? I am not that kind of person. Not anymore.”
I nod. I know. “I handled it,” I say.
“I knew you would,” he replies at once. “You’ve never been that kind of person, unlike me.”
“How did you know about the waterfall accident?” I ask him. “Do you keep tabs on the boat?”
“Not the boat,” he replies. “Eden. I keep tabs on all the teens who get picked for my programs. I don’t just stick them in a job and forget about them. I get to know each of them personally.”
He cares about them, I can hear it in his voice.
“Have you gotten to know Eden?” I ask him.
‘I came for you.’
How much did she tell him about me? The idea of him knowing her now, when I no longer do, sends a shiver of jealousy through me.Oh no, not again.This can’t happen.I can’t start being jealous of freaking Weston Spencer, of all people. I’m already jealous as all hell of my only best friend.How did I end up here?Me, jealous of every single person who so much as speaks her name?
I’m losing it.
I’ve lost it.
“I haven’t had time,” Spencer says with regret. “Which I hate, seeing as she is more important to you than I could have guessed. I apologize for that.”
My eyes snap to his, surprised. He what? Apologizes?What on earth?
“However, I have been talking to Eden’s family steadily throughout these two weeks,” Spencer goes on, “and I’ve been keeping a very close eye on her through them.”
He’s been talking to her family? I have never heard her talk about her family—except about her dad. But‘them’? Who is ‘them’? Back then, she had told me that she had no mom or siblings. Just a dad. Yet here is Spencer, talking regularly to ‘them’.
