Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
“Do you like men, then?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Only him. I’ve never even kissed a man until today. Never wanted to.”
“It’s okay. I get it. You can’t be labeled.” She sniffs. “No one can, really.”
She’s silent then, staring at me, her eyes glistening but hard. “Seeing you kiss him… It broke something in me, Brett. I could be back with Leroy right now. Back with someone who was ready to move the earth to love me again.”
“I love you, Sienna. That hasn’t changed.” The words leave my mouth rough, like they scraped against something sharp on the way out, but I feel them. I feel them so strongly in my heart and my soul.
I’m not even sure she hears them at first. She’s staring past me, jaw clenched, lashes trembling.
But I see the flicker. The way her breath catches. The way her fingers curl into fists at her sides.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do. I hate feeling this way. Like I’m a wallflower again. Like I’m back home that morning when Leroy told me he was leaving, that he’d fallen for someone else.”
“I know.” My voice cracks. “I hate putting you through this. I love you so fucking much. You’re my dancing queen.”
Her eyes flutter at “dancing queen,” but silence stretches between us again.
Until—
“I need time,” she says.
“I’ll give you all of it.”
She nods once and walks away, heading for the path.
She doesn’t look back.
EPISODE 233
AGAINST THE WIND
River
“What the hell?”
I was ready to spill my guts to Emily, the woman I love, only to have someone pound on the door of my suite.
I sit up, my body still humming from release as the knock comes again. Louder this time. More urgent.
“Who could that be?” Emily asks. “And why so bloody persistent?”
“No one that matters,” I say.
Three hard pounds. Pause. Then again.
“Don’t move,” I say. “I want you naked and flushed just like you are when I get rid of whoever this is.”
I pull on my shorts and head out of the bedroom, still barefoot, sweat cooling on my skin. My pulse hasn’t fully recovered, but something in my gut is already tensing.
I get to the door and look through the peephole.
Jake.
I doubt I’d open the door for anyone else in the galaxy, honestly, not after that romp with Emily.
I open the door.
Jake’s blond hair’s damp like he’s been pacing the beach, and he’s breathing hard, as if he sprinted here. His shirt is clinging to him, stained with sweat, and his eyes…
His eyes are raw.
“Hey,” he says, his voice raspy. “Can I come in?”
I stare at him. Anyone else I’d tell to get lost.
But this is Jake.
I brought him here. I kept his secrets for twenty years. I could never turn him away.
I step aside without a word.
He walks in, looking around like he doesn’t want to be here, like he doesn’t know where to put his hands.
I shut the door behind us and lean against it.
“You okay, man?”
He eyes me up and down. “Fuck. I know that look when I see it. Where is she?”
I gesture toward the bedroom.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re good. And we’re done. For now, anyway.”
Jake nods and runs his hand through his hair. “Good. At least I haven’t fucked up your life.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Brett,” he says softly, with more emotion than I’m ready for. Then he stares at me. “You know.”
I’m not sure what gave it away. Apparently my “just fucked” look has a tell.
“I do,” I say. “But I didn’t until we got here, to the island. He never told me, Jake. If I’d known…” I shake my head. “I don’t know what I would have done. I had to keep you safe.”
He nods. “I get it. But damn… I’m pretty sure I just fucked up his life.”
I raise my eyebrows. “How?”
“I kind of told him…” He rubs his forehead. “I kind of told him that I felt something for him back then too.”
I can’t help a gasp. “Say what?”
“I know, I know. Marnie. The baby. Everything. I loved her, man. Hell, I killed for her.”
I grab him and clamp my hand over his mouth. “Are you crazy?” I hiss. “Emily’s right in there. You can’t go around telling everyone what happened. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, or have you forgotten?”
Jake doesn’t need to know I was about to tell Emily everything.
I remove my hand. “You good now?”
He sighs. “Yeah. Sorry. And for the record, I did love Marnie. What I felt for Brett was different. It was like friendship, only more, but I was too scared to do anything about it, and I figured it would go away with time.”
“And did it?”
“I don’t know, Riv. It’s been twenty years. I had to leave all of you behind. I had some relationships along the way—always with women—but I never let myself fall in love. I couldn’t stay in one place too long. You know the deal.”