‘So, why were you scared?’ Zoey asked.
‘Because...everything was so perfect. Grace was so perfect. I was scared I’d screw it up. That I wouldn’t be enough.’
‘That I get.’ Zoey pulled her knees up against her chest, her bare toes with their sparkly aqua nails peeking out from under the hot pink dress. Ash spotted her high heels discarded by the door.
She looked about twelve, sitting like that. Ash felt the familiar protective instinct rising up in him. Ever since Grace died, it had just been him and Zoey, looking out for each other. His parents, as much as they loved him, were generally more concerned with Ash’s ability to perform his role in the family business than the state of his psyche, and Zoey’s parents were worse than useless.
Which meant it was up to him to fix the latest twist in Zoey’s romantic life.
Starting with figuring out which side of that window she really wanted to be on.
‘Is that what this is about?’ He scooted closer to sit beside her. The warm breeze from the open window brushed against the back of his neck. ‘You’re scared that you can’t be what David needs?’
If anything, Ash thought it was the other way around. Of all her fiancés, David was his...second least favourite. Not that he was keeping a list. Well, not a written one.
But then, he and Grace had never thought anyone was good enough for their Zoey.
Zoey pulled a face. ‘Not exactly. It’s more... I don’t think that our marriage will be what either of us are hoping for.’
‘But you didn’t feel that way when you said yes to his proposal. Or when you told me that David was different, and that you’d absolutely go through with it and I wasn’t to let you climb out of a window to escape getting married this time.’
‘Hey! I told you. I’ve never climbed out of a window before.’
Ash raised an eyebrow to remind her that the window really wasn’t the point here.
Because this was the part that Ash couldn’t understand. When they’d had dinner a couple of weeks ago, when he’d been home in London between business trips, Zoey had been so certain, so sure of her love for David and their future together, that he’d resigned himself to boring dinners and holidays with the man for the rest of his existence. Because he wasn’t losing Zoey in his life, whatever idiot she finally married.
He’d really thought that this time she’d go through with it.
But maybe that just meant he didn’t know Zoey as well as he’d thought he did.
‘Zoey. Tell me. What changed in the last two weeks?’ he asked.
* * *
What always changes? Every damn time.
Zoey sighed as she tried to find the words. Find the reasons. How could she explain it to him when it didn’t even make sense to her? It wasn’t one thing that had changed. It was a hundred tiny things she’d finally noticed, all building on each other.
‘Nothing. And everything.’ She shook her head to try and clear the whirlwind of thoughts that seemed to have filled it since she arrived on the island. ‘I really thought I could go through with it this time, Ash. That I could make it work. But then we landed here a few days ago to get everything ready for the wedding...and everything started feeling wrong.’ Pit of her stomach wrong. Instincts telling her to run wrong.
She’d always trusted her instincts. Even when they led her into another engagement, or away from another wedding. At the time, they always seemed right.
‘Everything?’
No. That wasn’t fair to David. He was a good man. She loved him. Had loved him. One or the other.
‘Well, little things, I guess. Like suddenly he wasn’t happy with the ceremony plan and wanted to change it—even though it was what we’d both agreed months ago.’
‘Last-minute nerves?’ Ash suggested.
‘Probably. But then I realised, all the changes he wanted to make, they involved me being with him all the time. Every single second. Even tonight, even though he knows my mother will freak out about it being bad luck.’ And even though they were still doing the stupid abstinence thing the ‘engagement counsellor’ he’d hired had insisted on. Zoey hadn’t even realised that engagement counsellor was an actual job, but David had been adamant that he wasn’t taking any chances. Whatever the counsellor had suggested, he’d instantly implemented. Including the no sex for six weeks before the wedding rule.
No wonder they were both so tetchy and stressed.
‘And why do you think that’s bothering you so much?’ Ash asked, sounding eerily like the relationship psychologist her ex-boss had introduced her to after her third near miss with marriage.
Really, with all these marriage professionals in her life Zoey would think she’d have the mental strength and tools to get through an actual wedding by now.
Of course, getting engaged to said relationship psychologist then calling it off three days before the wedding probably didn’t help.
But she was getting side-tracked. This wasn’t about past mistakes. It was about the one she might be about to make. Whichever way she jumped.
‘Because...’ Why was it bothering her? She was marrying the guy, so why would spending time together be a problem?
Then she realised. The reason behind that feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Ash had already told her, but she hadn’t been listening. It was why she was on this stupid island in the first place.
‘Because he’s not doing it because he wants to be close to me. He’s doing it because he wants to stop me running away.’ God, he’d even planned the wedding for unfashionably early in the day to give her less time to bolt.
Zoey bit the inside of her cheek and stared down at her perfectly pedicured toenails. A waste of polish, really, if she didn’t go through with the wedding. Not to mention all the time, money and energy that had gone into the planning. David might not need to worry about money right now—the company wasn’t doing that badly—but Zoey had put her meagre savings on the line again for her dress and shoes, hair, beauty and all the rest. She couldn’t ask her parents to pay for anything again. Not after all the times before. Even if they did seem strangely more enthusiastic about her marrying David than they had about anyone she’d been engaged to before.
She’d skipped a hen night this time—with Grace gone, it felt wrong anyway—and she’d only invited the hardcore friends and family who could make it through another one of her maybe-weddings. Ash, her aunt and uncle, a couple of cousins who were also friends. But David and his parents had invited everyone. She’d be letting a lot of people down.
But...
‘It hurts to know he doesn’t trust you.’ Ash said the words softly, and for a moment Zoey could almost imagine that it was Grace, putting Zoey’s own thoughts into words better than she ever could, just like she had since they were children.
Every time Zoey had shown up on Grace’s doorstep as kids, with some story ready about why they urgently needed to hang out, Grace had just tilted her head and said, ‘They’re fighting again, right? Come in, come in.’ Then they’d sat eating cookies or watching movies or anything to distract Zoey from what was going on at home.
‘My home is your home,’ Grace had told her when Zoey had run away at sixteen. And again at seventeen. Then she’d made sure they ended up at the same university, so Zoey wouldn’t be alone when her parents flaked on her again, because they were too busy with their own misery.
Zoey had done what she could to keep her relationship with her parents going, but she’d always known that Grace was her real family. And Ash, once it became clear that he and Grace were a package deal.
She’d had visions of being part of their family for life. Christmases, birthdays. She’d be Auntie Zoey to their kids... She swallowed hard at the memory, knowing how close that one had been to coming true.
Before the crash. Before they all lost Grace for good, and the world had grow
n a little colder.
Zoey let her head fall to Ash’s shoulder, taking comfort from the arm he placed around her. He might not be Grace, but he was still family.
And right now she couldn’t afford to dwell in the past. She had to decide what to do about David.
‘I know I’m a flight risk. I know I have form. And I know I’m proving him right at this very moment. It’s just...if David doesn’t trust me now, what if he doesn’t ever? What if he’s always just waiting for me to run? I can’t live like that.’
‘Nor should you,’ Ash said. ‘I can understand his reasons, but I can understand yours too.’
She looked up at him, into those strange, light blue eyes that stood out so clearly against his pale skin and black hair. ‘So what do I do?’
‘Well, that’s up to you. Do you love him enough to convince him? Do you love him enough to take a chance? I mean, he obviously knew that asking you to marry him was risky. And, whatever steps he’s been taking this week to make sure it happens, he was only doing it to make sure you go through with it.’
Zoey smiled. Although Ash was obviously trying to be fair to both sides of the story, playing devil’s advocate, she could hear his distaste for David’s methods in his tone.
Suddenly, they heard a voice in the corridor outside their store cupboard. ‘Zoey? Come on, Zo, this isn’t funny. My dad’s waiting to give his speech. Where are you?’
‘Decision time,’ Ash whispered. ‘What do you want to do?’
All at once a feeling of rightness settled over her.
‘Get me out of here, Ash.’
CHAPTER TWO
SO THEY WERE RUNNING. Right.
Ash gave a sharp nod, then whispered, ‘Stay here.’
Easing himself off the table, he opened the door to the cupboard an inch and peered out. David stood with his back to him, staring down two identical-looking corridors branching off from the main one at the far end of the hall.
Perfect.
Ash slipped through the door and closed it silently behind him. Then he took a few steps forward before calling, ‘David! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
David spun around. ‘Have you seen Zoey? She’s been missing for fifteen whole minutes.’
If he’d sounded less irritated and more concerned, Ash might have felt guiltier about lying to him. Or if David had realised that Zoey had actually been gone for more than half an hour. As it was...
‘That’s why I was looking for you. She had a migraine so went up to her room to lie down.’
‘A migraine? Tonight?’ David pulled an exasperated face. ‘Zoey doesn’t even get migraines!’
Okay, now Ash barely felt guilty at all. ‘She’s had them since she was twelve. She had to take a make-up exam our last year at university when she missed one of her finals because of a migraine.’ How could David not know that about her? Wasn’t he supposed to be in love with her?
‘Well, she’s never had one in the eighteen months I’ve known her!’ David snapped. Then he ran a hand over his hair, looking away. ‘Sorry. I’m just...a little anxious right now.’
‘Wedding eve nerves,’ Ash said sagely. ‘I remember them well. Look, why don’t you go back and tell your guests what’s going on. I’m sure Zoey will feel much better in the morning.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,’ David said, already turning back the way he’d come. Ash smiled to himself. Sometimes, people just wanted someone else to tell them what to do. ‘I could do with an early night, anyway. I’ll go say goodnight then head up and check on Zoey. See if there’s anything she needs.’
Okay, that wasn’t exactly what he’d hoped for, but Ash would take it. It bought them a little time, at least.
‘Great. I’ll...see you back in there.’ He waved a hand in what he thought was the direction of the bathrooms and hoped that David would get the hint.
He did. The moment David turned the corner towards the restaurant, Ash slipped back into the cupboard to find Zoey listening anxiously at the door.
‘I definitely told him about the migraines,’ she said indignantly.
‘He forgot an important medical condition; you’re skipping out on your absurdly expensive wedding,’ Ash pointed out. ‘I think you can call it even. And unless you want him following you, we need to go. Now.’
* * *
Getting out of the hotel, it turned out, was the easy part. Leaving behind the store cupboard and the too-small window, Ash guided them out through the kitchens instead. He’d spent enough of his formative years in hotels, when his father took him along on business trips, to know the ins and outs of most of them. And as a growing teenage boy he’d always, always found the kitchen first.
‘Why didn’t I think of this?’ Zoey said as they weaved their way through the busy kitchens, apologising to the sous chefs and kitchen underlings as they went.
‘Because you’re only used to seeing hotels as a guest,’ Ash pointed out. ‘When you’re staying somewhere as luxurious as this, people tend to forget that there’s a whole world behind the scenes, working hard to make your holiday happen.’
‘But not you?’ Zoey’s eyebrows were raised and Ash recognised that expression all too well. That You’re a rich kid and you’re lecturing me on how the other half live? look.
‘I spent a lot of time in hotels growing up,’ he said. ‘I got to know how they operate pretty well. And that was before I started working in the kitchens of one at the age of fifteen.’
Zoey stared at him incredulously as they burst through the final set of doors and into the only slighter cooler night air of the island. ‘You? Ash Carmichael, heir to the Carmichael millions, worked as a hotel cook?’
‘It’s billions, actually. Or will be soon, if my father gets his way. And I was deputy washer-upper for three months before I was allowed anywhere near the food.’ Ash scouted around the back of the hotel, making sure there were no loitering guests to see them run. ‘My father is a firm believer in earning your place—even if you’re born into it. I worked in every part of a hotel in the three years before I went to university, and after that I worked my way up through every department of Carmichael Luxury Travel before I was allowed anywhere near the top offices.’
‘Huh. Grace always said you worked hard, but she never mentioned all that.’
Ash shrugged. ‘Why would she? It was just a job.’
And his job—and his money, for that matter—had always been the least interesting thing about him to Grace. Which was one of the reasons he’d fallen so hard and so fast for her. She’d loved him in spite of his name, not because of it.
‘So, where do we go now?’ Zoey looked out at the darkening skies, a nervous line marring the skin between her eyes.
A gnawing feeling of doubt settled in Ash’s stomach. Was he doing the right thing, taking her away from this wedding? He’d promised her just two weeks ago that he’d make sure she went through with it. But even then he’d not felt entirely comfortable making that promise.
Watching her with David, he’d been worried. Or unsettled, perhaps. Nothing Ash could put a finger on, but just a sense of wrongness. Maybe it was the way that David’s eyes never left her, especially when she was talking to other people. Or perhaps the way that they only ever said yes to engagements he wanted to go to, and arrived and left on his clock, not Zoey’s.
Or maybe it was just that Ash didn’t like him much.
Whatever it was, Ash had to admit that he was glad Zoey wasn’t marrying him. If she’d gone through with it, there was an interminable future of boring dinners listening to David talking about how important he was, and how magnanimous, supporting Zoey in her little job at the gallery.
Yeah, he was definitely doing the right thing.
‘The company has a villa on a private island, not far from this one. Freshly refurbished and awaiting inspection by yours truly next week. I even k
now where the spare key is hidden. We could borrow one of your guest’s boats and be there before bedtime.’ He nodded to the array of boats moored up at the hotel, ranging from small speedboats to large private yachts. Many of the wedding guests had decided to make a longer trip of the event and hired boats for the occasion to tour the region—relishing the excitement of island-hopping in the tropics instead of yachting around the Med for a change. Ash had been hoping for a chance to take a trip out on one of the boats anyway, so really he was killing two birds with one stone.
Actually, this all sounded like a pretty good plan for one he’d just come up with on the spur of the moment. Hopefully the villa had an equally luxurious drinks cabinet, and he and Zoey could wait out the wedding sipping cocktails by the pool before they headed back to face the music.
‘Borrow a boat from somebody?’ Zoey asked, sounding less enamoured of his plan. ‘Doesn’t that mean going back into the hotel we just escaped from and telling one of my guests that we’re leaving? Kind of defeats the object, don’t you think?’
‘Well, I wasn’t exactly going to ask,’ Ash admitted. He’d always found it better to seek forgiveness rather than permission in situations like these.
‘So you want to steal a boat. From one of David’s friends and family? Because I can’t see that making me any more popular with them.’ As if she thought running out on her own wedding wasn’t going to achieve that on its own. Sometimes Zoey had no sense of priorities.
‘No,’ Ash explained patiently. ‘We’ll bring it back tomorrow. After the wedding that won’t be. And we’ll only borrow a small one, anyway. They probably won’t even notice it’s gone.’
‘I’m not sure—’ Zoey broke off abruptly as another voice filled the air. David’s.
‘Zoey? Are you out here?’
‘Boat?’ Ash whispered.
Zoey nodded. ‘Boat.’
And then they ran.
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