by Rachel Woods
“I thought I did,” he said. “But I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t wrong,” she told him. “That’s why you gave me the frangipani flower. You told me you hoped that I would put it behind my left ear, and I did, because I am taken.”
“I don’t need to hear any more,” he said. “My family was right about you. I should have listened to them. You’re not the woman I thought you were. You’re not the woman I hoped you would be.”
“But I can be that woman, John!” She looked him in the eye. “I promise, I can. If you just give me a chance, if you let me try!”
“Are you out of your mind? You will never be the woman I thought you were. Even if you died trying, you could not be kind and compassionate and selfless,” he said. “All you can be is what you are, a lying bitch.”
“You’re right, John,” she said. “I lied about why I came to Belize, and I lied about my relationship with Ben, but I didn’t lie about how I feel about you. I love you so much.”
16
The Woodlands, Texas
Carlton Woods Gated Community
“You can’t possibly love me,” Sione told her. “If you really loved me, you would have told me that Ben wanted you to drug me so you could look for that damn envelope. But you didn’t do that. You kept lying to me even when I gave you the chance to tell me the truth. You chose Ben.”
“Because I had to,” Spencer said. “Ben threatened to show the police that video of me taking the money and the watches from his closet!”
“I wouldn’t have let him get away with that,” he said. “I told you I would protect you from Ben. I told you that I wouldn’t let him hurt you, but you didn’t believe me! You didn’t trust me!”
“I do trust you,” she said. “I love you!”
“Don’t say that,” he warned. “You’re not in love with me. You’re a liar and I don’t want you in my life.”
“That’s not true,” she told him. “I know you love me. You want to be with me as much as I want to be with you. Please, John, remember why you gave me that flower.!”
Sione thought about the flower. It had looked so perfect behind her ear, where he’d hoped it would be and where he wished it could stay. His memories of the frangipani bloom were distracting, making him think that his decision to tell Spencer to leave was a mistake.
“The flower doesn’t matter,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Don’t say that,” she pleaded. “You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t care that you put that flower behind your left ear,” he said. “I don’t want you.”
Gasping, Spencer dropped to her knees before him, clutching her stomach.
“I want you to leave,” he told her, while he still could, before he lost his nerve.
Dropping her face into her hands, she burst into tears. Horrible sobs of raw, searing grief tore into him, ripping away all the rage and hate he’d held to so tightly. The rage and hate he’d relied on to tell her to leave. The rage and hate that now disgusted and shamed him.
Sione could hardly stand, knowing he was the cause of Spencer’s anguish. Knowing her tears were the result of his fierce stubbornness, his unwillingness to forgive her. More than anything, he couldn’t stand knowing that what he wanted most in the world was to pull her into his arms, wipe away her tears, and tell her he loved her and never wanted to let her go.
Slowly, gradually, her sobs subsided to plaintive whimpers, which sounded even worse, as though she were some delicate, wounded animal suffering from the effects of being trampled by something bullish and brutal.
Finally, the whimpering died out, and Sione felt more in control of his emotions, more resolved in his decision.
“Get out,” he said, forcing the words past the hot mass in his throat.
“Is that what you really want?” Sniffing, she wiped her face and stood, staring at him. “You want me to leave?”
Gazing at her, at the tears welling in her eyes, he felt empty and forlorn and worried. He didn’t want her to go. But she couldn’t stay. He couldn’t let her get away with all the lies she’d told. He couldn’t allow himself to forget she was Ben’s Trojan horse.
“You should go,” he said, afraid her tears would make him change his mind.
She nodded. “I’ll get my things and then I’ll go.”
“I want you to leave now,” he said. “I’ll send your stuff to your sister’s house.”
“Fine…” she said, looking at the floor. “I’ll get dressed and—”
“I said I want you gone now,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Get out of my house. Forget about getting dressed, just get out!”
“John, wait, please!” she said, imploring, trying to stop him, unable to yank away from him as he forced her out of the home office and into the hallway. Tightening his grip on her arm, he marched her down the long hall, not caring that she could barely keep up with his long strides.
“Don’t, John, stop!” She tried to twist away, screaming and crying.
In the foyer, Sione walked her to the double doors. Her cries increased when he opened the right door and shoved her over the threshold. Out on the portico, she stumbled, went down on one knee, and then the other, crying.
Shaking with rage and too many other emotions he didn’t want to identify, he rubbed his eyes and tried to silence the voice in his head telling him he’d made a mistake.
“John, wait,” she said, rising to her feet and wiping her face. “I have to tell you something, I’m—”
Sick of her lies, he slammed the door in her face, locked it, and turned away.
Moments later, he heard her banging on the door, screaming and yelling.
Panic grabbed him like a hand around his throat, and for a moment, he struggled to catch his breath. The urge to turn around, open the door, and tell her he’d made a mistake and didn’t want her to leave was so strong it was almost tangible.
He fought the urge with every conviction he had.
It was a fight he barely won—a fight that left him shaken and desolate.
With a fury he could barely contain, Sione took one step away from the door, and then another, and another, until he was hurrying out of the foyer and then running up the stairs, desperate to escape the sound of Spencer’s mournful screams.
17
San Ignacio, Belize
Belizean Banyan Resort – Owner’s Office
TWO MONTHS LATER
Sione Tuiali’i stared at the invoices scattered across his desk. He needed to approve them but knew he probably wouldn’t.
Not when Spencer was in his head again. She was always in his head. He seemed to always be reliving the night he’d told her to leave, always hearing her heart-wrenching cries, the heaving wails that had scared him and made him want to gather her in his arms and comfort her.
He’d resisted the urge but just barely. Denying her his love and compassion had felt unnatural and vengeful. He hated seeing her in pain. But Spencer had brought the pain on herself when she decided to align with Ben and participate in his scams.
He dragged a hand down the side of his face.
She’d gotten what she deserved that night.
Had Sione gotten what he deserved? Did he deserve to stay up all night, tossing and turning, reaching for a woman who wasn’t there? Did he deserve to wake up in a panic when he realized she wasn’t in bed next to him, like she should have been, like she would never be again? Did he deserve the forlornness creeping up on him when he remembered she wasn’t coming back? Did he deserve to feel so broken and alone? Especially when he’d done the right thing? His lingering doubts and suspicions about Spencer had been confirmed. He couldn’t forgive her. She’d had to go. She wasn’t the right woman for him, and she never would be.
Still, her absence from his life felt detrimental.
Sione missed her like he was missing something crucial for survival.
The feelings were unusual and unfamiliar.
It made no sense that aft
er two months he still couldn't concentrate and couldn’t focus. He had moved back to Belize and was no longer living in Houston where everything reminded him of Spencer, but he couldn’t walk into his casita without remembering Spencer had been there. He couldn’t sleep in his own bed without thinking about how Spencer used to lie there next to him.
The night she’d left the mansion in The Woodlands, he’d had too much to drink. Close to passing out, he was eager to fall into oblivion for the next ten hours. Approaching the bed in the master suite had been like walking toward a death chamber. Beneath the sheets, the bed had been as barren as the desert, as cold as the grave.
Sione thought he would finally get a good night’s sleep once he was back in Belize.
But for some damn reason, in the master bedroom he’d shared with Spencer in the casita, he could sense Spencer’s presence. Not just her perfume, but her hair and her skin. She was there, but she wasn’t. He was in bed with a ghost. Changing the bed linens hadn’t done any good. He’d had to leave his bedroom and sleep in one of the guest rooms. Still, he’d tossed and turned all night, plagued by dreams.
Nightmares of Spencer taunting and teasing him. In the dreams, he’d been chasing her, but she would always manage to slip away from him. She would walk through a door and close it behind her. He would open the door, and the room would be empty. She would rush around a corner, and he would follow and find himself in an empty alleyway. And through it all, he swore he could hear Ben and Richard laughing at him.
Sione had expected the disillusionment and depression to be over by now, but the disappointment was lingering like some viral infection he couldn’t shake. Disappointment he brought upon himself, he suspected.
Because he’d been too prideful to forgive Spencer.
His uncle had always told him that pride came before a fall, and that was true. The whole situation had knocked him right on his ass, and he’d be damned if he knew how to get up.
Which didn’t make a damn bit of sense.
Telling Spencer to leave had been the right thing to do, he knew that. So why the hell did it feel like he’d made the worst mistake of his life?
A mistake so disastrous he might not recover.
18
Houston, Texas
Torrey Chase Subdivision
A flash of sun peeked up behind the trees towering over the modest two-story brick homes on the left side of the quiet street in the sedate, peaceful north Houston neighborhood. Slowly revealing more and more of its radiance, the sun seemed eager and yet hesitant until, finally, its brilliance was majestically exposed.
Spencer Edwards stared at the cloudless sky, a bright expanse of blue above her as she power walked around the corner, heading back to Shady’s house. For the past two months, she’d been staying in one of the extra bedrooms at her sister’s place, unofficially helping Rae house-sit while Shady was off on a missionary trip.
A month ago, Spencer had started slipping out of bed just before dawn to walk around the neighborhood, watching the sunrise as she struggled to make sense of her life and the mess she’d made of it.
She greeted each day ruminating on the mistakes, bad choices, and stupid decisions she’d made, imagining what her life might have been like if she had never decided to start “dating.” She wanted to believe things would have been better for her and, eventually, she would have found another job and become a productive, contributing member of society.
Those elusive fantasies were always eclipsed by a conclusion she couldn’t deny that disturbed her.
If she had never agreed to start “dating,” then she never would have met John.
Their encounter could be traced back to her decision to “date” Ben. It was a disastrous mistake Ben had been able to use against her. That fateful choice had led her to Belize where she’d been forced to get close to John.
Taking deep, measured breaths and pumping her arms, Spencer strode past a one-story brick home with a sign that read “For Sale” in the yard. If she hadn’t met John, she wouldn’t have her precious little one growing within her. For that reason alone, she couldn’t bring herself to wish she had never met John.
She was still in love with him. She didn’t know how to not be in love with him.
Part of her wanted to hate John.
His cruel rejection still sent her emotions spinning out of control. She’d wanted the memories of his hateful words to choke all the love she felt for him from her, but her feelings seemed to have increased. Time wasn’t healing her broken heart; if anything, as the days passed, she seemed to love John even more than she did the day before.
Absence was absolutely making her heart grow fonder.
A whisper of a breeze floated across her, lifting her hair from her shoulders.
Being in love with a man was a frightening, unfamiliar situation. A situation Spencer had never experienced; a situation she hadn’t planned to be in. She wasn’t supposed to have ended up like her mother, desperate and alone and in love with a man who didn’t want her.
But she had.
With no references of former heartbreak to draw upon or to use for strength, she wasn’t sure how she would get through the pain. There was no comfort to rely on, no belief that everything would eventually be okay.
Being away from John was hell.
Spencer dreamed she would wake up in his arms again. So far, it hadn’t happened. After so much time had passed, Spencer believed it never would. At first, she’d foolishly allowed herself to hope John would come back into her life. Maybe he would realize he loved her and wanted to be with her.
Strangely enough, Rae had inspired that wishful thinking. Her older sister had become kinder, if not gentler, for some reason. Contrastingly, Shady had come at her with tough love and routinely reminded her to focus on the most important thing in her life right now—the baby.
The child growing and thriving within her had been her saving grace. As she cradled her little burgeoning “bump” and reveled in the excitement of meeting her little one in seven months, the deep wounds of John’s rejection began to hurt a bit less.
She would eventually heal, but she would never forget the pain of losing John and her chance to be with him and to experience the happily ever after they had dreamed about. The scars would remain even when the pain lessened and then faded away.
Cradling her stomach now, hurrying across a boulevard separated by several grassy knolls, Spencer couldn’t help but feel forlorn and regretful, knowing John wouldn’t be there to share her euphoria and elation when the baby was finally born, when she held her precious little one in her arms for the first time.
Both Shady and Rae—surprisingly—thought she should tell John about the baby, but Spencer couldn’t risk it. She had to be selfless and think about what was best for her child. She couldn’t let herself get overly stressed.
As she rounded the corner, breathing in the early morning air, picking up a hint of cut St. Augustine grass, a thought she would never share with her sisters made its way into her head.
John didn’t deserve to be in the baby’s life.
A terrible selfish, shameful thought, but she couldn’t ignore it.
Spencer increased her pace, unable to stop herself from thinking about that horrible night, two months ago, when John had been so heartless and cruel.
The next day was even worse. Opening her eyes, Spencer had found herself in a bed she was unfamiliar with and didn’t belong in. She had been in one of the guest rooms at Shady’s house. Curled into the fetal position, in a lonely bed where John wasn’t lying next to her, she felt strange and unnatural, not waking up in his arms.
John’s rejection had been heartless and destructive. Her heart broken, Spencer had known she’d lost him forever. She suspected she had never had him. How could a man like John ever belong to a woman like her? At times, she was furious with John. But what the hell had she expected? That he would let her get away with lying to him? That he would forgive her for making a fool of him? Had she expe
cted him to give her a chance to explain?
There was no excuse for what she’d done.
She’d hoped her love would have mattered, would have meant something to him. John had made his feelings painfully clear. He wanted nothing to do with her.
So why the hell would John even care that she was having their baby?
19
San Ignacio, Belize
Belizean Banyan Resort – Owner’s Office
Sione stared at the computer on the desk in his office at the resort’s administration building.
On the screen was an email with an attachment titled “Transfer of Land-Draft #1.” His lawyers had closed the deal with the owners a few days ago. The land Sione wanted for the resort expansion was now his. Following legal formalities and closing, he would meet with the architectural firm he’d hired to design the luxury tree houses.
Sione read a paragraph and realized he’d read that same paragraph twice before. He couldn’t concentrate despite two cups of coffee. Exhaling, he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
He knew the reason for his lack of focus.
Spencer.
Focusing on the document, Sione tried again to read it but soon found his thoughts drifting.
Every time Sione tried to remind himself of Spencer’s deception and her collusion with Ben, another voice in his head would point out she’d only agreed to help Ben because he’d blackmailed her. Ben had told Spencer to drug him and get close to him so she could look for that damn envelope.
Thoughts of the envelope reminded Sione of its fate.
Back in Belize, Sione had directed Truman, his cousin, to take the envelope and put it in a secure place until Sione could decide what the hell to do with it.
Cursing, Sione told himself to focus on the draft of the land transfer. Right now, he had to concentrate on what was important: his expansion plans for the resort. He wanted to break ground on the tree houses as soon as possible. Uncle Siosi’s sons had reluctantly approved his ideas, and he was anxious to have them laud his success.