by Hart, Hanna
By the time Miranda came around, Ryder was so petrified of losing someone again that he found it hard to get close to her. He loved her once. He could see all the beautiful and wonderful qualities that everyone else saw in her, but he couldn't fall in love with her. He ended up coasting alongside a perfectly nice relationship.
“Do I have to call dad?” he said in a joking threat.
“Call your father!” his mother said in her usual high-pitch. “He agrees with me! We're setting you up with some nice girls, and I'm tired of arguing about it.”
“That makes two of us,” he laughed.
“Ryder, I'm serious. You're broken,” she said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, ma. 'Ryder, you're gonna make it through this!' 'Ryder, you were too good for her anyway!'“ He mocked.
“Oh,” she waved him off in frustration. “Of course, we think that. Your brother is out of this family now and forever. He's out for what he did to you! We never want to speak to them again. Heaven forbid they give us grandchildren. Wolves, all of them! Wolves!”
Ryder batted his hand back and forth and waved her off once more. His mother was prone to the dramatics. “You're not disowning Isaac,” he said lowly and went back to his book. “We love him.”
Even if he was an idiot.
“It's too late!” she insisted. “Family doesn't betray family like that.”
“Fine, whatever,” Ryder sighed.
“Your father and I are calling around for some nice girls to set you up with,” she began once more.
Ryder pressed his eyes closed and snapped his book shut. Sitting up from the coral loveseat, he said, “I am begging you not to. Not only is this the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, as it is not the eighteenth century nor do we live in a country where some quasi-arranged marriage is acceptable, but it is embarrassing. Can you imagine ya-ya picking a man for you when you were my age?”
“By your age, I was already married for ten years!”
Ryder sighed. “You know what I mean. Please, just drop it.”
“You should be angrier at your brother,” his mother lectured. “He betrayed you.”
“Yeah, well, I'm a true believer in forgiveness,” he mumbled.
His mother took a deep breath and stayed silent for a minute before bursting out into laughter. “Far from it!” she bellowed. “You? A forgiver? You were so stubborn as a child that one time your brother broke your favorite truck and you locked your toys in your closet for weeks!” She continued to giggle. “Is that forgiveness?”
“I was five, ma,” he rolled his eyes.
“You're bottling things up,” his mother said, fixing a lock of perfectly curled black hair behind her ear. “I don't like that.”
“Noted,” he said.
Ryder walked to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows beside the red front door and looked out at the furious ocean. The water had not been kind these past few weeks. The year-round sunny weather had taken a leave of absence and flooded the skies with an indisputable gray smog. The normally crystal-clear waters were a heavy blue that raged against the surf in violent, loud waves.
It was perfect reading weather, but not ideal for getting out and away from his parents.
Ryder could go home, of course, but home seemed strange now without Miranda there. As miserable as they were near the end, it still felt empty and somewhat haunted without another person sharing his space.
“It's too late,” his mother said, dismissing him almost entirely. “We want you to find someone who sets your soul on fire.”
“Is that a good thing?” he mocked.
“You know, I've only ever seen you like that once,” his mother began wistfully. “When you were a teenager.”
“I don't need the rehash,” he said, raising a hand behind him to stop her in her tracks. Ryder knew what his parents really wanted—they wanted someone who looked good on paper to get help them suffer the wave of bad publicity they were getting right now. Someone who could bring praise back to their family and help his father retake the limelight by storm.
“We already made the call,” his mother said in a 'and that is that!' tone. “I just don't want you to be surprised when we invite you over for dinner, and there happens to be a beautiful girl sitting across from you eating my famous tomatokeftedes,” she said of her traditional tomato fritters.
While his father was a half islander, half British, his mother was Greek. Very, very Greek. Neither of his parents was what you would call foreign. Neither had accents or grew up outside of the USA, but they had traditional values.
“I couldn't possibly be surprised by it,” he said with a humorous sigh. “You've been talking about it for twenty minutes now.”
“Good,” his mother said, crossing her arms and looking satisfied. “Sunday night then. Dolmadakia and keftethes at six. You'll be there.”
Ryder tried not to roll his eyes. That was the thing with his mother. There was no saying no to her.
“Fine, ma,” he said. “I’ll meet your girl. Okay? Now let’s drop it.”
Chapter Four
Willow
Richard’s words were crisp and clear, but Willow still couldn’t decide whether she had heard him properly.
“What?” she began, wrinkling her nose and contorting her face into a furious frown. “No! No way! What are you even saying?”
What Richard was saying was perfectly clear: the Prescotts wanted their son to marry Willow.
“It’s a big ask,” Richard said, working his palms into a steeple.
“You bet, it’s a big ask!” Willow repeated incredulously, laughing a little at the end for the ridiculousness of it all. “You want me to randomly marry my ex? Um. I think not. And why? What for?”
“The family is in crisis. Haven’t you heard what’s going on over there?”
Of course, she had. Nani Makai was big news all around the world, if only because of its exclusivity. It was island entirely inhabited by billionaires and millionaire tourists.
And even if the tropical paradise weren’t national news, Willow would have known about it anyway, if only for her occasional snooping online.
“Yes,” she said petulantly, “The dad is accused of embezzling billions from the island. Blah, blah, blah.”
Ryder Prescott. Her first love. Whenever she was in a particularly foul mood, she would look him up on social media or in the headlines. This was done as some sort of sadistic self-punishment. News of him never put her in a good mood. In fact, finding out that he had gotten married had kept a sick pit of anxiety boiling in her gut for weeks.
Even so, Richard explained to her that the Prescott family was in trouble. The president of the luxury island Nani Makai, and the father of her ex-boyfriend, was being accused of some less-than-presidential actions.
After Ryder’s ex-wife had leaked some ‘family secrets’ after their divorce, his family was in need of a complete PR overhaul. And they wanted to start with getting Ryder a new wife.
Not only would this help the public’s opinion of Ryder—because hey, everyone loves a wedding—Willow was also certain that her connection to the United States biggest news giant played a large role in their choosing her.
“The president called it in,” Richard said. “Tag.”
“I know his name,” Willow snorted. “Called it in to whom?”
“Big guy himself, Albert Finch,” Richard said, speaking of the newspaper mogul himself. “They were college roommates. Close as anything.”
“You friends with him, Rich?” Willow asked, cocking a curious brow. Richard was Albert Finch’s cousin, after all. Nepotism had a helping hand in Richard becoming the New York paper’s editor—though it wasn’t widely known that the two were related.
“Meh,” Richard said, giving an unenthusiastic shrug. “We’ve met a couple of times, I guess. Not my type.”
“Wealthy?” she laughed.
“I’d rather not say,” Richard said, sounding unimpressed. “Willow, this could be your s
hot. This could take you from writing about celebrity trash and gallery openings to becoming a household name. This is a huge opportunity to get close to the source, kid. You’ll be the only one with an inside scoop.”
“I am a household name!” Willow whined. “Willow Watkins! How much peppier does it get?”
“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” he reiterated.
She knew he was right. Everybody wanted to get close to the Prescotts, especially since Ryder’s divorce. But getting to Nani Makai was becoming more difficult as each year went on and getting a true scoop on the Prescotts was near impossible.
It was part of the reason Ryder’s ex-wife had become such a media sensation. She was the only one opening up about the fascinating family.
But, could Willow really do this? Marry someone to get a story?
Being a reporter was like being a double-agent. Or, that's how Willow felt, anyway. But this seemed like it crossed more than one moral and ethical line.
Willow blinked rapidly and finally looked back up at her boss. “Is this… can we really do this?”
“This coming from the girl who literally just blackmailed somebody’s mistress?” Richard snorted. “Now you want to draw lines in the sand?”
“I mean, isn’t this just… bad business?” Willow asked with a grimace.
“Bad business?” Richard laughed, leaning back against the wall of her cubicle. “It’s not something we’d want to be made public, that’s for sure. But who you marry is your own business. Just do me a favor and think about it, okay kid?”
Willow nodded slowly.
With that, Richard slapped her lightly on the shoulder and said, “Night, kid.”
Willow lived in Hell's Kitchen on West 51st Street. Her apartment was small, but it had all the New York charm she had ever dreamed of—lovely exposed brick walls and white piping, a tiled kitchen and open-concept dining room and living room. On the roof was a lovely area for tenants to sit on lawn chairs and sip a beer—or a gin and tonic, in Willow's case.
She didn't drink often, but when she did, she would always choose a gin and tonic. Not necessarily because she enjoyed the limey, bubbly flavor over any other alcohol, but because it seemed professional.
It used to be that Willow wouldn't drink anything unless there was a pink paper umbrella decorating the glass. Then she read her favorite author, Penny Graham's, autobiography and discovered that her literary hero's drink of choice was the gin and tonic. She had been sporting the posh choice ever since.
She pat her orange tabby-cat, Anders, on the back and slid her hand down his back until the cat's tail shot up in delight. Anders looked up at her, and she nodded down at him as though he had spoken to her. She walked to her kitty cabinet and poured some kibbles into his bowl.
“Eat up, buddy,” she said, patting him on the head before walking into her bedroom.
Aside from the brick wall, her bedroom was entirely white, just like the rest of the apartment. She thought this was tremendously boring when she first moved in. Willow was not a black and white, minimalist type of person. She was a loud and colorful person.
White walls would simply not do.
But, then she learned to embrace it. She used the white as a canvas for the bright neon paintings by a local street artist she enjoyed. She hung fuchsia chandeliers and used coordinating shades of color in every room. The living room was largely white, yellow, and blue. She had blue candles and yellow bookshelves to complete the look.
Willow thought it looked sharp. Like an art gallery. Colorful, bold, but tasteful.
Others thought it looked like a box of crayons threw up in her apartment—but they didn't have to live there.
Willow removed her blazer and threw her entire work ensemble onto the armchair tucked in the corner of her room adjacent to the bed. She sat cross-legged in front of her dresser and opened the bottom drawer. She dug into the bottom of the pajama section, flinging clothes over the rail of the drawer until she found what she was after.
She pulled out a black t-shirt that was one size too big. It was a V-neck indie band tee that featured the phrase: 'Grand Shame' down one side of the V cut and up the other.
It was Ryder's shirt, and one of the only physical objects she still had to prove their love had been real.
“Hopefully this fits,” she said to herself with effort as she pulled the shirt over her head.
It was a little snugger that she had remembered from the last time she'd put it on. But, her curves had become more accentuated since then, she supposed.
She closed her drawer and hopped into bed, flicking off the lamp on her nightstand so that the entire room went impossibly dark, save for the eight squares of light that shone in through the windows on either side of her bed.
As hard as she tried to sleep, the only thing she could think of was Ryder.
Had he arranged this? Chosen her specifically? Did he choose her after thinking over the entirety of their relationship or was it all a game of connections—Willow had a job at the paper, so she took first place?
She could distinctly remember meeting Ryder.
They were both seventeen and Ryder had just moved to the mainland—the closest landmass to the private billionaire island.
She remembered standing on Ryder's immense front lawn in front of his parents’ newly purchased, smooth-stone, yellow villa. It had white railings surrounding the round building and an oval pool in the side yard. The house was extremely Mediterranean, with domed walls and terracotta clay roofing tiles.
“Are you a mover?” he'd asked, knowing full-well that Willow was not.
Willow stood on his lawn with her arms crossed, staring up at the massive home. “Nope,” she said, popping the word at the end. “Just a friendly passerby.”
She found him immediately attractive. He had dark hair and suntanned skin that made him seem like some Roman statue come to life.
“Then why are you standing on my lawn?” Ryder asked, crossing his arms as well and looking over at his home.
“I’m just, welcoming you to the neighborhood!” she said, taking a decidedly friendly approach to their conversation.
“Ah,” he said with a nod. “I’m Ryder Prescott.”
“Willow Watkins,” she said.
“You live around here, then?” Ryder asked.
She remembered being delighted by the expression on his face when he asked this. There was something flirtatious and hopeful in his eyes that made her want to scream with excitement.
“Nope,” she laughed. “But I’ve often wondered what it would be like to live in a house that cost more than it costs to build a small hospital, so I’ve been unofficially trying it out in your abode.”
“Huh?” he asked, smirking but narrowing his brows together.
“I’ve been squatting in your house, genius,” she snorted.
“You’ve been…?” Ryder began to repeat and then widened his eyes. His deep blues met her golden-brown gaze, and he said, “You’re kidding?”
“I never kid about illegal squatting,” she smirked.
“What, are you homeless or something?” he asked with a laughed.
“Do I look homeless?” she snorted. “Don’t answer that! This is fashion, and I will not have it mocked.”
“No, you look good,” he said, giving her an approving once-over. “So… you’ve just been, breaking into my house and… what?”
“Partying there,” she said with a shrug that she’d hoped looked cool and uncaring. Inside, her heart was going a mile a minute. “I and some of my friends like to bust into the new builds in this area. Swim in your pool, eat pizza, pretend we’re celebrities.”
“And now you’re doing what? Saying a fond goodbye?”
Willow smiled. “I left my bathing suit in the outdoor changing room.”
“Wow! Talk about ballsy. You came back to the scene of the crime.
She shrugged. “It’s my favorite!”
Ryder bit his lip, and they both watched as the mo
vers began loading box after box into the Prescott home. Then he looked back at Willow accusingly.
For a moment, she thought he was going to get her in trouble. Tell his parents that she had broken and entered or call the cops or something. Instead, he put on his most charming smile, one she would soon come to know like the back of her hand, and he said, “You’re telling me you swam in my pool before I did?”
“Correct,” she nodded. “You have sadly missed the inaugural event.”
Willow felt a rush of adrenaline through her body as Ryder went quiet again. It was clear he was thinking about what to do or say next, and it made her nervous.
Ryder then offered her a playful smile and said, “Well then, you’ll have to show me how it’s done.”
“What?” she laughed in disbelief, “Swimming?”
“Doggy-paddle, deep dive, the whole dog and pony show,” he dared.
Enthralled but wary, Willow scoffed, “I’m not swimming with you.”
“Why not?” he said, bumping his arm against hers, “I heard you have a perfectly good swimsuit here.”
Willow stared at him with interest, raising a coy brow.
“I mean, it’s either that or I tell my parents,” Ryder shrugged.
“You’re blackmailing me?” she laughed.
“That’s how rich people make their friends,” Ryder teased.
“A new rich friend,” Willow said slowly as if considering. She reached a hand out toward Ryder and winked, “You’ve got yourself a deal, Prescott.”
It was a small thing, swimming with a stranger, but it had endeared Willow to Ryder for many years to come.
It wasn’t the fact that he hadn’t turned her in, that he’d given her the opportunity not only to get her bathing suit back, but that he welcomed her company so easily. He was charmed by her, and it made her feel impossibly alive.
Their afternoon in his swimming pool was the beginning of it all—first love, first fights, and a very complicated breakup.
Usually, thinking about Ryder only left Willow with a host of conflicting emotions, but tonight she had seemed to bypass them all—stuck with lovesick butterflies in her stomach.