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I slide my suitcase off the bed, letting it land with an angry thump on the hardwood floor.
Briar rises off the bed, wrapping her arms around her sides and taking small, reticent steps in my direction.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for us the way we wanted it to.” Her bittersweet tone is apologetic and as low as a whisper. “I wish it could’ve been different.”
I say nothing . . . because nothing I say will change any of this.
The damage has been done.
It is what it fucking is.
“There’s so much more I wish I could say to you right now,” she adds, keeping her voice low like she’s worried someone might hear it. Burke perhaps. This entire exchange has been a mere ten seconds, but it’s already reminding me of a similar conversation I had with Audrina when she handed over the vintage three-carat yellow diamond I gave her—her supposed dream ring—and informed me she’d fallen in love with my brother.
I’m not interested in reliving any of that shit again, so I wheel my bag into the hall, leaving her to wallow in her own self-pity—as she should.
“Regardless of what you think, Dorian,” she says, following me, “I care about you. Deeply. More than you could possibly imagine. And maybe you hate me . . . and that’s fine . . . but I could never, would never hate you. I just want you to know that.”
A door down the hallway creaks open, and out steps my brother with shower-damp hair, wearing linen shorts and a crisp white button-down. Never mind that we just buried our father yesterday; Burke’s clearly back in vacation mode.
“You leaving already?” he asks.
“Yep.” I roll my bag to the top of the stairs, although I’m half-tempted to linger a bit longer to see if Burke questions why his fiancée is stepping out of my room. Changing my mind, I carry on.
My boat is waiting.
And so is the rest of my life.
Everything else I’m leaving behind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BRIAR
Present Day
“Is this you?” I hand Burke a photograph of a dark-haired child standing beside a snowman three times his size. His smile is wide, with a gap where his two front teeth should be, and he’s grinning so hard his eyes look like slits.
He sniffs beside me on the sunroom sofa. “Yeah. I must have been six or seven. We were having a competition to see who could build the biggest snowman. It was Dad and me against Mom, Nic, and Dorian. Dad brought out the snowplow so we could push the snow into huge segments.”
“Safe to say you won?” I ask.
“Of course.” Nicola rolls her eyes. “Burke won everything, always.”
His gaze lingers on the photo for another moment before he turns his attention to the next pile.
Earlier today, Nicola brought out every photo album she could find, wanting to place them all in chronological order so she could send them to an archivist. Somewhere along the line, the task at hand lost some steam, and instead, the two of them were reminiscing about old times.
It is nice to see them laughing and enjoying one another’s company for once.
It’s too bad that isn’t the norm.
People with siblings have no idea how lucky they are to have someone to weather these storms with.
“I should see if Dash needs help putting the kids to bed.” Nicola closes the photo album in her lap and places it gently on the coffee table.
Taking a break from sifting through these old Rothwell family memories, I curl up under a blanket on the sunroom sofa and watch the sky turn from tawny orange to indigo before settling on a deep-Atlantic-blue shade.
This island’s history, views, and isolation set it a world apart from reality.
I can see why it meant so much to Redmond and the staff who have dedicated their lives to maintaining its unparalleled New England charm.
The instant Nicola’s gone, Burke slides farther away from me, leaving an entire sofa-cushion-size space between us. I’m not sure if it’s an unconscious move or if he needs a break from being in my atmosphere. Since Redmond’s passing, Burke has dialed up the intensity of our phony romance to a fever pitch, playing up the brokenhearted-son act while making up for lost time with the fake engagement he thought he’d have all summer to milk.
Either way, I’m not complaining about the space between us.
In fact, I welcome it.
This past week has been nothing short of eye opening, and I’ve come to realize Burke truly is as insufferable as he pretends not to be. Everything about him is fake. Everything he does is for self-preservation.
He’s the worst kind of human, and now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it.
“Have you heard from Dorian?” I ask.
Burke scoffs. “No. Why would I?”
“Just wondering if he made it to where he was going safely.” I didn’t get a chance to ask where he was headed. Earlier, I attempted to google the band’s tour schedule, but my signal was weaker than ever.
