Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“You sure you don’t want me to spike this next cup?” Emma asked the next day, her eyes sympathetic as she made me another steaming cup of tea. It was a gray and foggy day, which was wildly uncharacteristic of the island, and everyone from the crew to the locals were in a tizzy over it.

Theo was working — or so he said. It was the first time since Joel left the boat that he’d spent a full day at his computer. He was locked up in one of the staterooms, and other than breakfast, I hadn’t seen him all day. When I had seen him, earlier this morning, he’d seemed distant, like he had something on his mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking over what we’d talked about the night before.

If he was realizing just as I was that what we had could never last.

“I’m sure,” I said on a sigh, thanking Emma with a smile as I wrapped my hands around the mug. “I tried that once, remember? Didn’t work out well for me.”

“Yeah, well, you were trying to drown your sorrows in a very poorly made vodka cranberry that would have knocked an experienced drinker on his ass.”

I smiled, but it fell quickly, my stomach rolling again just as it had all night. Tea was about all I could think about consumption wise, and even that, I had to sip slowly.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m not sure I know what to say.”

“Is it Joel?” she asked. “Because it’s okay to miss him, even if he was a grimy, cheating thief of a loser.”

I chuckled. “Weirdly… no. I haven’t thought about Joel in weeks. Maybe because, to me, our relationship had been over for a long while before either of us admitted it.” I paused, staring at my hands a while before I met Emma’s gaze. “Does that make me an awful human?”

“No. You’re much kinder than me, I’ll tell you that much. You and Theo both. Because I would have had all their sorry asses thrown into Italian jail if it were my call.” She reached for another mug, pouring herself some tea, too. “So if not that, then what?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Just realizing that the fantasy world I’ve been living in all summer is going to leave a nasty mark when I wake up and it’s all gone.”

“Gone?” Emma frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Em,” I said, leveling my gaze. “Theo Whitman is a hot billionaire who could have anything and any one he wants. No woman has ever tied him down. And now I’m supposed to think I have a chance?”

Emma let out a slow exhale, studying my face. “Well, anything is possible.”

I snorted. “Yeah. I think I heard that in a Disney movie once.” I sighed. “I don’t know how this hasn’t been on my mind from the start, from before either of us even gave in to each other. I mean, Joel aside, what did I think was going to happen? I feel…” I tried to swallow the bitter pill of what I was about to say but came up empty. “I feel like an absolute fool.”

“You’re not a fool,” Emma said. “And hey, who says it has to be forever, you know? Why not just enjoy it now, have some fun, and at the end of the trip… well…”

“I let him go,” I whispered, and my eyes blurred with tears instantly. “ God , why does that feel like an impossible thing to ask of myself?”

Emma smiled sympathetically, pouring some scotch into her tea. “Not everything amazing in life is meant to be kept forever,” she said, toasting her cup to mine. “Sometimes, we’re just meant to enjoy a little slice of heaven, or learn a lesson, or grow into someone new.” Emma shrugged then. “I don’t know what’s to come between you and Theo any more than you do, but I do know one thing for certain.”

“What’s that?”

“If you had the chance, right now, to go back and undo it all in the name of saving yourself from heartbreak?” She smiled. “You wouldn’t.”

My throat tightened again, so fiercely I thought I’d lose the ability to breathe altogether. But then I smiled, because she was right.

Why did she have to be right?

Even after the conversation with Emma, I couldn’t let go of my anxiety. It stuck to me like tree sap, following me all around the ship as I tried to busy myself. By the time I gave up and headed back up to the cabin, it felt like my anxiety was permanent, like I had sprouted a new limb that would be a part of me forever.

And when I opened the door and found the suite empty, Anxiety whispered that this was the beginning of the end.

I had asked too many questions.

And now, I’d chased him away.

Theo didn’t come to the room that night, not before I laid down around nine and not any time after. I knew, because again, I couldn’t sleep, and every little sound had my eyes popping open, hoping to see him crawling into bed next to me. I wanted to apologize, to take back everything I’d said and pretend like none of it mattered. I wanted to go back forty-eight hours and stay in my blissful unawareness until I had no choice but to crash on the cold, hard ground.

Theo’s steel eyes haunted the eerie dreams I had that night when I did occasionally slip into a state of sleep, like even my unconscious brain was hell bent on reminding me how much I’d screwed things up. And when I woke to the bed still empty and the morning light streaming through the windows, I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest, finally succumbing to my tears.

This really is it.

I was still rocking in a ball like that when Wayland knocked on the door, and I told him to come in, although the last thing I felt like was seeing or talking to anyone .

“Good morning, Miss Dawn,” he said, like I wasn’t a complete mess before him. His eyes were kind and wrinkled at the edges like always, his smile polite, voice calm.

“I told you to stop that,” I said.

He shrugged. “My apologies. Habit, now that you and Mr. Whitman are…”

Wayland paused, not finishing that sentence, and my stomach cramped because I wasn’t sure there was anything to even finish that sentence with .

“Just call me Aspen. Okay?”

Wayland smiled. “As you wish.” He held up the carafe in his hand then. “Claude is making breakfast now, but I thought you might like some coffee.”

He set down the carafe first, followed by one mug — not two.

“Will Mr. Whitman be joining me?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as pathetic as I felt.

“Unfortunately, he’s already gone to shore. Business. I’m sure you understand,” Wayland said.

I nodded, throat squeezing tight again. “Of course,” I croaked out.

He watched me for a long time, and I felt the weight of his sympathetic eyes until he sat on the bed next to me. “We have a saying in Jamaica, one my mother said many times to me.” Wayland paused, furrowing his brows before the thickest accent I’d heard yet from him made an appearance. “ De more yu luk, de less yu si. ”

He poured some coffee into the mug he’d brought for me then, handing me the steaming cup.

“The more you look, the less you see?”

Wayland nodded. “Exactly. It’s a reminder that it’s impossible for us to know all the details about everything in life. And usually, the more we badger ourselves to try to figure it all out, the narrower our scope of understanding becomes.”

I frowned, staring at the black liquid in my cup and watching the steam rise slowly.

“What I’m saying is, I can see that you are troubled — and perhaps what’s troubling you most is that you’re trying to get a concrete answer for something that may not require it. Perhaps letting your mind rest is the best cure for what ails you.”

Wayland arched his thick, dark brow at me then, tapping my knee before he left me. But regardless of how beautiful the sentiment behind what he’d shared, I still slumped back into the bed once he was gone, determined to waste the entire day away there.

It didn’t matter that the sun was back, that it was a perfectly beautiful day on one of the most gorgeous islands in all of Greece. There was nothing I could do to block out the black clouds hanging over my heart, and they were all-consuming, the kind of despair that couldn’t be erased by anyone other than the person who caused it.

I didn’t eat breakfast. I didn’t eat lunch. I didn’t do anything but lay in bed, wafting in and out of a restless sleep. I was too tired to do anything active, but too anxious to let myself fully rest. It was the most exhausting push and pull, like an unrelenting barrel of waves taking me under over and over, barely letting me catch my breath in-between.

Sometime in the late afternoon, Wayland knocked again, and this time, he entered carrying a piece of clothing on a hanger covered by a black fabric protector.

“I’ve been instructed to take you to shore at six this evening, Miss—” he caught himself, smiling sheepishly at me as he said, “Aspen.” He hung the mysterious clothing item on the back of the closet door. “You are to wear this.”

I sniffed, squinting through my hazy sight at the black bag, then at Wayland. “Where am I going? Will Theo be there?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any further information,” Wayland said, but there was a small smirk on his lips, and he ducked away before I could pepper him with more questions. “I’ll meet you on the main deck at ten til six.”

“Wayland!” I tried, but he just waved me off and shut the door behind him with a soft snick .

I sighed, staring at the black bag hanging on the door like it was a bomb waiting to go off. I didn’t know why my anxiety was prickled even more at the lack of information and demand to be ready to go ashore, but it was.

Is he kicking me off?

Is he going to take me to dinner and then have Wayland pack my bags?

Is this it, is this when I let him go?

I steeled a breath against the onslaught of what ifs , wrapping myself up in the bed sheet and tip-toeing over to the closet. I unzipped the bag, and when I did, I gasped.

Hanging inside was a cream, long-sleeve top that weaved together in the front in a stunning criss-cross of thick, ribbed wool. It had a deep but elegant V neck, and around the hanger, there were three delicate gold necklaces of varying size to illustrate how they should lay on my neck. The shortest was just a chain choker with small balls of gold, the next was slightly longer with a small key, and the longest ended with a gold heart about an inch wide.

Below the sweater, there was a gray knee-length skirt with pockets and a thick cotton belt that tied around the waist. There was a clip to the side that held a tortoise shell thin-strap watch. And finally, at the bottom of the bag, were simple nude flats.

I tilted my head to the side, unable to fight off the smile at how much I loved the entire ensemble. It felt strangely… me. The colors were neutral, but the style was fun and quirky, as if Theo had jumped inside my head and picked out exactly what I would love to wear if I knew anything at all about fashion.

And yet… I was confused.

This wasn’t his usual choice of a long, flowy, sparkling dress to take me out on the town to wine and dine. And besides, we were on an island … why in the world would I need long sleeves?

I searched the bag for a note, but found nothing, and one look at the clock had me panicking at the thought of figuring out what to do with my hair and makeup in the hour I had to get ready.

So, for the moment, I put my anxiety on hold and flew downstairs to find Emma, begging her to help me.

She obliged with a squeal of delight, and at six o’clock sharp, I was on the tender with Wayland and headed to shore.