Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

I close my eyes and imagine the sea rushing up to meet me. The last thought before my world goes black is that I wish he’d at least kissed me before he opened his mouth and ruined it.

  Chapter Four

  The Ledge

  Hayes

  I break into a sprint when I hear the crack of the wooden railing. My stomach sinks like a twenty-pound stone in water. I slow down just in time to stop myself from following her over the ledge. I stand in the spot where I’d seen the flutter of pink fabric before she disappeared. One shoe and her small gold handbag are scattered on the ground close to where she had been standing. I close my eyes, count to three, and prepare myself for whatever I might find.

  It happened so fast. I know that it’s a long drop from there to the shallow pool of water that’s been formed by erosion.

  Trepidation and horror make my heartbeat slow down even while it thuds hard against the cavity of my chest. I hold my breath and look down.

  Relief floods me, fast and wild, and it makes me dizzy. Her fall was broken by a ledge jutting out of the side of the stone face of the cliff. This cliff has dozens of them. It’s an elite rock climber haven, and every fall, just when the weather starts to clear and cool, they descend to risk their lives climbing cliffs like this all over Tuscany.

  The sound of the sea roaring is gone, and I realize that it hadn’t been the sea I’d been hearing. It was the rush of my own blood as I imagined the worst. It’s actually very quiet here. The water laps gently on the rocky shore, the waves break in the distance. Behind me, the strains of music from the tent create a strange dichotomy. They have no idea what’s happening out here. And, I’d like to keep it that way as long as I can.

  I pull my phone out of my breast pocket before lying on my stomach. I slide forward until my head dangles off the ledge, and I can see her clearly. She’s a little less than ten feet down. Not too far, but not close enough that I could reach her by extending my arms.

  She’s moved since I first spotted her. She’d been lying on her back, legs splayed. Now, she’s curled up in a fetal position. That she’s been able to move herself is a very good sign.

  “Confidence,” I call down. She doesn’t speak, but whimpers loudly and nods.

  I assess the ledge. The thick coating of moss covering it is a blessing and a curse. It saved her from landing on hard concrete, but it’s also slick and will make moving around on it treacherous. The piece of rock she landed on looks to be about ten feet long and eight feet wide. It’s not small, but there are only about five feet between her and its ledge.

  If she rolls over a full body turn, she’ll fall off. I glance up at the sky. It’s dark, but the moon is very bright. The cloudless sky is good news. But even that comes with the caveat of the unexpected showers that are very commonplace in Tuscany during the summer.

  I need to get help in a hurry.

  I dial the preprogrammed number for the villa’s security and explain to Marco, as succinctly as I can, what happened. Just as I hang up, she moves her foot, and a loud, gut-wrenching moan floats up to me on the wind. I drop my phone next to me and clear my throat before I speak.

  “Confidence, can you hear me?” I shout down.

  She nods, and puts a hand on her head and starts to roll her shoulders.

  “Don’t move, please!” I shout. She freezes immediately.

  “The ledge is five feet from your left. Don’t go in that direction. Can you roll backward until you touch the cliff wall?” I ask. “In fact, if you could just not move at all, it would be best. Does anything hurt?” I ask her.

  “Oh my God!” she shouts tearfully. “Everything hurts. So much.” She cries, but she does what I ask. When she reaches the cliff wall, she scrambles up to sitting and looks up and over her shoulder at me.

  I can only see the shadow of her profile in the inky moonlit dark. “I’m really scared,” she says softly, and the vulnerability in her voice twists my gut.

  “I know,” I breathe and then realize I whispered it. “Help will be here soon, okay?” I say in a louder voice.

  “You’re rich, right?” she calls up to me.

  “What?” I call back in surprise.

  “You said so,” she presses impatiently. “It had better be true. Sending a dead body overseas is expensive. My mother doesn’t have the money.” She’s talking quickly, but her voice is thick with emotion and pain. “Since it’s your fault this happened, you have to promise to pay to send me home, so I can be buried next to my grandparents and as far away from my father as possible,” she says.

  “You’re not going to die. It’s lucky I’m here,” I call down.

  “Yeah, in the same way it’s lucky to be mauled by a bear,” she yells. The bark of laughter that springs straight from my gut, surprises me. And she has a sense of humor.

  “I don’t know how that’s lucky, but we’ve already learned that you and I don’t share a lot of common perspectives,” I joke back.

  “I can’t believe you’re making jokes when I’m about to die!” she screams, and the pitch of terror in her voice is enough to squelch my little burst of levity.

  “You’re not going to die,” I tell her.

  “I will never forgive you. Not for what you said and not for killing me. I will haunt you from the grave,” she shouts. I remember about Gigi’s threat earlier and almost laugh. Almost, but I don’t dare. Not yet.

  “I haven’t asked forgiveness. I gave you an honest assessment. And for the final time, you’re not going to die,” I tell her.

  “What do you mean for the final time?” she cries up to me. “You mean you’ll stop reassuring me? You’d just let me sit here and panic about dying and not try to make me feel better?” She’s nearly screaming and her words are punctuated by sobs.

  “You’re making yourself hysterical,” I call down in a voice that I hope doesn’t betray my unease.

  “You’d be hysterical if you were the one down here facing impending death,” she cries angrily.

  “I promise you’re not going to die,” I repeat.

  “Don’t say that. You can’t promise that. Everyone dies. I had a feeling something significant would happen while I was here,” she says mournfully. “Twenty minutes ago, I thought it was that I would get to have a fun little fling with a sexy stranger. Hahaha, what a joke,” she cries.

  She turns her head more so that nearly her full face is visible. A beam of moonlight breaks the dark shadowing them. I can see those eyes that tempted me so much tonight. Her face, even while twisted with pain and fear is like a painting—with features that separately you’d never think to pair together. Big eyes, a tiny nose. That lush, but small mouth … Yet they come together and create an expressive, very interesting, and beautiful masterpiece.

  My phone rings, and I answer it with my head still over the side so I can keep an eye on her “One sec, it’s about the rescue,” I tell her before I put it to my ear. Marco starts speaking right away and my heart sinks when he gives me the status.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks as soon as I hang up.

  “Nothing’s wrong—”

  “Your face says otherwise,” she snaps. “Just tell me because I’m freaking out down here,” she says.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I reassure her. “The station’s rappel team is one man short tonight. One of the guy’s wife went into labor about an hour ago,” I tell her. Her eyes widen in horror. She pushes up to sitting and scoots closer to the cliff wall. I listen for signs of cracking or shifting in the rock. I hear nothing and exhale in relief. “There’s a team thirty minutes away, and he’s already on his way to them.”

  “This is what I get for being so goddamn selfish. I’m going to die on a cliff in Italy and all because I wanted to live a little,” she cries.

  “You’re not going to die,” I repeat what has become my refrain.

  “Oh, the irony,” she shouts and throws an arm over her eyes.

  “Well, it will certainly be a loss for the theatre, if you decide to throw yourself to yo
ur death,” I say dryly.

  “It’s not funny. You come down here and see if making jokes seems like a nice thing to do,” she says, her eyes still covered by her arm.

  My anxiety and guilt are tangling with each other. I don’t know what to do and everything I say seems to only make her more upset.

  “Do you want me to go get your friend?” I ask, feeling like a failure.

  “No. Please don’t leave me.” Her hand stretches out to me. And she looks up over her shoulder again. Her eyes are full of sorrow. “She’s having the time of her life. I’ve already ruined her trip by coming in the first place. I don’t know why I did,” she says.

  “I’m sure she’s glad you came and maybe—”

  “I need to confess something,” she calls, lips having been pursed in pain and now they twitch. I feel a prick of unease.

  “No, you don’t need to confess anything. And it wouldn’t even count, I’m not a priest,” I call down. “Save your energy and try to think about something—”

  “You will listen, you owe me,” she yells in a high-pitched, primal voice that is rich with anxiety and fear.

  I give a sigh of resignation. I need to do whatever it takes to keep her calm and still while we wait.

  “I’m listening. But not because I think you’re going to die,” I say.

  “I got fired from my job three months ago. It was my dream job. And I was supporting my entire family with it. And I haven’t told my mother what really happened. I’ve lied to everyone,” she says in a rush.

  “You don’t have to—” I try to stop her, but she just keeps pushing forward.

  “I wish I hadn’t because I’m going to die, and those cunts who were making fun of me are going to think I’m really someone who uses men for money,” she says angrily.

  “Aren’t you?” I ask her.

  She glares daggers up at me. “Really? I mean, if I were, I’m clearly terrible at it. You practically threw me off a cliff to get rid of me,” she says.

  I laugh despite the real anxiety I’m feeling waiting to hear back from Marco.

  “I thought you were about to confess lies. You’re just telling more of them,” I quip.

  “Just because you didn’t put your hand between my shoulders and shove me, doesn’t mean you’re not the reason I’m out here,” she snaps.

  “Sorry.” I feel instantly contrite.

  “I heard them talking about me. Out there on the balcony,” she says quietly. “I was leaving and came back for something and overheard them. I just wanted to make them think that I didn’t care. But, of course I care. But all anyone knows are the rumors. And they would rather believe the most ridiculous theories, with no basis in fact, than hear the boring truth,” she says. I know exactly how that feels. Renee dragged my name through the mud and I know most people believed her.

  There’s an instant kinship, an invisible knitting of recognition and connection that I feel for her. I’ve been struggling with this very thing since I moved back to Houston. And I’ve had to endure gossip, not respond to innuendo and have everyone think Oh, look at the size of him. Of course, he choked her out or whatever. The gossip campaign that Renee started has died down in fervor, but I know that these people think they know things about me. And they know absolutely nothing.

  “Tell me what really happened,” I hear myself asking before I can think about it. It would be bad form not to ask, I tell myself. But, I can’t deny that I’m eager to know more about this woman who has me lying on my stomach with my head dangling off the edge of a cliff in the dirt, playing the role of confessor.

  “I was living in Nashville. I had a great job at the Southern Poverty Law Center right out of law school. But the money was shit and I wanted to be able to do more for myself and my mama. So, I started applying for jobs in law firms. Big ones where I swore I’d never work. I went to a shitty law school, but I was first in my class and I wrote an article that the Harvard Law Review published. So, I had no problem finding a job. I moved to Washington, DC. It was great. The cost of living was crazy. But, I was renting and took the train in. Everything was great until I started seeing someone at work,” she says.

  “Well, I don’t know how you could have foreseen that wouldn’t go pear-shaped,” I say sarcastically.

  “Oh, it gets even worse. He was my boss,” she drones.

  “Oh.” Damn.

  “That’s not the best part.”

  “What? Was he married?” I joke.

  “Engaged,” she says quietly.

  That was the last thing I was expecting to hear.

  “Shit, I keep putting my foot in my mouth with you, don’t I?”

  “You did say you were terrible at small talk.” She laughs, with real humor and shakes her head in what I have to guess—because I can’t see her face—is chagrin.

  “I lived in Rockville. That’s a suburb of DC. It was affordable and not crowded, you know. I didn’t really spend much time in DC beyond work. I didn’t have any friends there, so my time in the actual district itself was limited to my office in China Town. But earlier this year, I ended up having an unexpected free afternoon after a deal closed early. You have no idea how rare that is. It’s fucking brutal, that life. I worked like a mule at harvest time. On the days we were prepping for a deal to close, I would go forty-eight hours with no sleep. I never complained. I was proving to be something of a wunderkind in the practice that dealt with large insurance settlements. We were charting courses no one had ever even thought of. I was making an impact and I was making money. I never complained about the shitty treatment, the shitty hours and the constant sexual harassment.”

  “That intense,”I say.

  “It was. But like I said, it had its upsides,” she says and she sighs up at the sky in nostalgia. “On the first free day I’d had in a year, I woke up feeling like doing something special.

  “I decided to go to Dupont Circle and walk up Connecticut Ave to Nigel’s favorite store—so I could buy him a fucking tie. He was in California for the week and I thought I’d be wearing it, and nothing else when he got back in a couple days ...” The image she paints turns me on until I remember that she did that for another man. The surge of jealousy I feel is dismissed for the ridiculousness that it is. She’s not mine. Nor do I want her to be. But, I have to admit that seeing her naked with only one of my ties around her neck would have been fucking nice.

  “Well, turns out his ‘I’m going to be in California for work all week’ was a lie,” she says.

  “He was at the store?” I ask.

  “Yup, with his fiancée. I saw him, and at first, I was excited. I called his name. They both turned around. You should have seen his face.” She snickers, and it makes me smile, too. “It was the classic, I think I’m going to shit myself, so I’m clenching my ass as hard as I can face.” She laughs to herself and I find it miraculous that she can laugh at the memory even while she’s lying there in pain.

  I feel my first pang of doubt about the conclusions I drew about her.

  “Can you believe that at first he tried to act like he had no clue who I was?” she says, and I guffaw incredulously.

  “No fucking way.”

  “Oh, way,” she says.

  “I mean, hello, motherfucker. Your tongue was buried between my thighs two days ago, remember that?” She laughs and I do, too. But my laugh isn’t a loose, easy one. It’s knotted around the discomfort I feel every time she refers to her sexual relationship with that man.

  I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit, and I have no idea why or where that feeling came from. Because honestly, half an hour ago, I didn’t give two shits whether I saw her again or not.

  “‘Come on, Rebecca, look at her, would I date a girl who shops at The Gap?’” She says this in a deep voice that I’m assuming is meant to be the boyfriend. “I mean, who says things like that?”

  “Well, apparently, your boyfriend. So, what’d you do? I hope it was worse than throwing yourself off a cliff because what he did was
way worse than what I did … and look how you’ve punished me,” I quip.

  And when she laughs, I feel a swell of pride. And then immediately wonder who the fuck I am. Maybe I’ve had too much to drink.

  “I didn’t throw myself off a cliff, and I wasn’t trying to punish you. You’re so vain. Not everything is about you,” she says angrily but with no malice.

  “Anyway, I wish I’d done something to punish him then. It would’ve been much more satisfying getting arrested if I’d actually done something to earn it,” she says irritably.

  “You’re like one of those Russian dolls. So many layers,” I say in wonder.

  “Huh?” she replies.

  “Nothing, keep going,” I prompt, eager to hear what came next.

  “He had the nerve to call security. In seconds, they swooped in and escorted me out. I was truly speechless. Shocked beyond belief.”

  I can be ruthless with people I’m not happy with. But, I can’t imagine pretending not to know someone you’ve been intimate with.

  “What next?” I ask, intrigued beyond belief.

  “I get back to work and find out the girl he was with is the daughter of our firm’s managing partner. Overnight, my job became a different kind of hell. It wasn’t just long hours and hard work. It was impossibly long hours, being assigned to cases in practice areas like white collar crime—places where I had no expertise and no interest. They gave me all these extremely technical questions to answer for super valuable clients. Then they’d tell me they needed the answer back in a matter of hours. These questions required a full day’s worth of work in less time than I was given to complete the job. So of course, I made mistakes. I fucked up assignments. I took too long to return phone calls. Whatever you can think of, I did it. I was constantly being called to task,” she rants. “They started saying things like, maybe I couldn’t do the work because I didn’t go to Harvard or Cornell like everyone else. For nearly an entire month after the incident at the store, they did everything they could to get me to quit.