All We Are (The Six Series Book 5)

by Sonya Loveday

  He got up, put his hand out and said, “May I escort you to dinner, my lady?”

  I slapped my hand in his, squaring my shoulders, and said, “Okay, but if they start talking about flowers or decorations…”

  “I’ll start talking about the cannon and balls you want to play with,” Josh said, winking at me.

  I poked him in the side. “Keep your cannon and balls to yourself. I don’t need Summer and Allyson snickering in my ear about our sex life.”

  “As far as they know, we don’t have one,” he chided.

  I stopped him before we made it out of the bedroom. He gave me a questioning look until I put my arms around him, aligning our hips, and swayed against him as I said, “There won’t be any question about it if I shove you onto the table to mount your cannon.”

  Both his hand grabbed hold of my ass. He squeezed as he bent down to nip at my lips. “You really shouldn’t have said that.”

  “You’ve missed the first course, but I asked them to keep your plates warm,” Allyson said, watching me closely.

  “Sorry, we were catching up on our day. I filled him in on our shopping trip and what we’ve come up with so far,” I said, sitting when Josh pulled out my seat.

  “And then we ended up having a lengthy discussion about shooting off a cannon,” Josh added, jerking his leg when I reached under the table and pinched him.

  “Excuse me, sir, the captain would like a word,” one of the wait staff said as he came to stand beside Alex.

  Alex pushed his seat back and set his napkin on his plate, saying, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “I wonder what the captain wants,” Summer said, watching him go and then snickered. “Bitch of the year, coming in hot.”

  It was the overly protective suitcase girl and she wasn’t alone. Behind her were two more girls, wearing almost identical sneers.

  Ms. Vuitton plunked herself down in Alex’s empty chair and took her time settling in. Once her leg was crossed over the other one precisely so, and her dress was smoothed out, she clasped her hands neatly in her lap and turned her focus on Allyson.

  I knew what was coming long before she opened her mouth. It took everything in me not to reach past Josh, haul the smug bitch out of her seat, and toss her overboard.

  CHAPTER 21

  JOSH

  Ella scooted up in her seat and I went on alert. She didn’t have to say a word. The girl holding court beside me curled her lip when I looked at her. Men at least had the common decency to beat the shit out of each other when they clashed. But women? Women were like pit vipers when they wanted to be vindictive. They’d coil and spring. Well, some women anyway. The one to my left, my future bride, was more apt to kick some ass than spar with words.

  “Victoria,” Allyson said, acknowledging her.

  “Oh, remember me, do you?” she said with a dainty sniff.

  “Like we could forget you,” Summer grumbled.

  Allyson flicked a glance at the girls standing behind Victoria’s chair. “Holding court, I see.”

  Victoria stuck her chin out with a sniff. “Manners would dictate that you request seats for them,” she said snidely.

  “Manners would dictate that you ask to join someone at the table before you sit down and claim someone’s seat,” Allyson fired back as she leaned forward.

  Victoria matched her lean. “And you’re all about manners,” she said, venom dripping from her words.

  “When it suits me. What do you want?” Allyson bit back.

  Victoria smirked. “Can’t I come and sit with you? Wish you my felicitations on your marriage?”

  “Big words for a small mind,” Summer chimed in under her breath.

  “Do be quiet. The grown-ups are talking,” Victoria snapped.

  I chuckled, bringing her attention to me.

  “I remember you.”

  “How’s the luggage. No scratches, I hope,” I said, doing my best to channel Jared’s snarkiness. It would be much needed in order to deal with someone like her. It was sort of, in an odd way, like dealing with Samantha. She’d always found a way to show her ass with all of us, but Riley usually got the brunt of her anger. Jealousy did strange things to people. And Victoria was eaten up with it.

  Victoria looked past me, zeroing in on Ella. “So you’re the infamous Izzy? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Ella tipped her head, nodded once and then said, “I am. The same can’t be said about you, though.”

  Summer tipped her head back and laughed as Victoria bristled beside me. It felt like sitting between two lionesses, tails twitching. If they pounced, I’d be caught in the middle.

  Victoria’s two friends stepped forward, but she held up her hand and they halted.

  “Came armed, I see,” Allyson said, lifting her drink and taking a sip. Anyone watching would think a civil conversation took place instead of some sort of pissing contest.

  “Daddy wouldn’t be pleased that you’ve ignored your guests,” Victoria said, ignoring Allyson’s comment.

  “Daddy, is it?” Summer said, pushing her chair back slightly, continuing, “Let me tell you about Daddy—”

  Allyson put her hand on Summer’s arm, quieting her as she said, “I heard your mother remarried.”

  Victoria smirked. “I heard you’re planning a wedding.”

  “And you’re not invited to it. What do you want, Victoria?” Summer said. The patience and humor gone from her tone.

  “What’s rightfully mine,” she snapped, losing her frosty composure.

  “So you came along on this trip with your lapdogs to bully Allyson? You should know better than that. I warned you once already. I won’t warn you again,” Summer said, the tension building so thick it was almost stifling.

  Already warned her? Could Victoria be the person behind the threats? I looked to Ella, but she didn’t look back at me. Her attention was focused on the two girls standing behind Victoria.

  Victoria stood, glaring between Summer and Allyson. “Tell Daddy I’m done waiting. Tell him I want what’s mine, or I’ll be forced to take a different approach.”

  Allyson stood as Alex wove his way through the dining area. I saw him when he realized who’d joined us and watched his face change, as if preparing himself. He was almost at Allyson’s side when she said, “You have two hours to collect your things and leave this boat.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Victoria snapped, standing to square off with Allyson. The two silent girls moved in behind her.

  “You really don’t want to do that,” Ella warned, unmoving from her seat.

  Victoria snorted. “I don’t take warnings from low-class people.”

  “For the sake of everyone around us, I’ll let that comment slide. Do as Allyson said. Pack your shit and get off this boat.”

  “No.”

  “Have it your way then,” Ella said, coming to her feet in one swift move.

  “Ella,” I warned, coming to stand behind her.

  I put my hands on her shoulders and felt her body vibrating as she held herself back.

  “Is there a problem here?” Alex asked. He might have asked a question, but his tone held a very hard warning. He would not stand by and allow anything to happen.

  “I was just congratulating your new bride on your wedding,” Victoria answered, smirking.

  Alex tipped his head and then turned to Allyson. “The captain wanted to let us know that a fairly good-sized storm is coming. He can’t keep us anchored here, and will be forced to go around to the other side of the island to ride it out. He’s recommended everyone go to the mainland for the night and once the storm passes, he’ll bring the boat back in.”

  “That’s perfect. Isn’t it, Victoria?” Allyson inquired, giving her a toothy smile that was in no way pleasant before turning back to Alex. “I suppose we should make our way around to everyone and let them know.”

  “We’ll help,” I said, sliding my hand down Ella’s arm and catching her fist up in my hand.

 
Her fist loosened, fingers springing apart allowing mine to lace with hers as we made our way to the pool deck.

  Once outside, she tipped her face to the breeze and sighed, saying, “God, I hate spoiled rich kids with chips on their shoulders.”

  “What was all that about?” I asked.

  “Long story. I’ll fill you in later. But it it’s safe to say that she just made the list.”

  We didn’t speak any more about it until later once we’d made it to our own room to pack.

  While Ella pulled our suitcases out of the closet, I called Oliver to fill him in, along with the confrontation that happened earlier with Victoria.

  Ella and I knew that it wasn’t a solid lead, but it was the only lead we had so far to work with.

  “Doesn’t make much sense though. Victoria might make her threats, but they’re empty. Unless she’s hired someone. I’d bet everything on the fact that she’s trying to weasel money out of Garett. And if that is the case she wouldn’t have extra to blow on hiring someone to harass him,” she said, tossing stuff in the suitcase.

  “She’s his stepdaughter?” I asked, tossing my own clothes in beside hers.

  “Ex-stepdaughter. Garett divorced her mother a few years back,” Ella explained.

  “So what is it she thinks is hers?” I asked, attempting to zip the suitcase and failing miserably at it.

  Ella climbed up on the bed and sat on the suitcase. Together, we managed to get it closed.

  “She probably thinks she’s entitled to some sort of trust fund or something. But I know Garett. He would have had a prenuptial agreement before he married her mother. If there was an agreement for Victoria to have any money, he would have given it to her as soon as the divorce paperwork was signed, or the agreement came to term.”

  “But why come after Allyson? She doesn’t have any control over what her father does. Seems to me that if anyone was controlling everything, it’s Garett,” I said.

  “Always has been. He’s not one to let anyone else make decisions. Case in point, all these extra people tagging along on Allyson’s honeymoon,” Ella answered, stuffing the last of our things in a small tote bag.

  “Why do that, I wonder?”

  “Maybe he thinks the more people around Allyson, the less chance someone would make a move. Money aside, his girls mean everything to him and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe,” Ella said.

  I shook my head. “I can understand wanting to protect someone, but damn… your honeymoon shouldn’t be an entourage of people you don’t even like.”

  Ella gave me a pointed look. “Gives you an idea of what it’s like to be exceedingly rich. Sometimes it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. There’s perks, sure, but at what cost?”

  At what cost was right. I couldn’t imagine someone dictating every moment of my life. I’d feel… suffocated. Trapped.

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” I said, moving around the room to make sure we packed everything.

  “If you think about it, our situation isn’t so different than Allyson’s,” she said, pulling the strap of the tote over her shoulder.

  That confused me a little. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, we don’t have the wealth like she does, but we have someone else constantly making decisions for us. Telling us where to go. What to do. Our lives are dictated to us just as much as hers is,” she answered with a touch of annoyance in her voice.

  “Does it bother you?” I asked.

  She shrugged one shoulder and then gripped the strap with both hands, fists clenched around it. “Not anymore, but it used to.”

  CHAPTER 22

  ELLA

  I’d avoided talking about Trent since the moment I’d lost him. At first it was because I couldn’t bear to say his name. The hurt had broken something inside of me. The pain of it almost crippling. Then as time moved on, I didn’t want to talk about him because to bring him up felt like raising a ghost. A ghost I didn’t want to haunt me. Then finding out he hadn’t died gave me all sorts of other reasons why I avoided talking about him.

  But mostly it was anger.

  I was angry he’d left me to live a solitary life without him before we’d even had the chance to live. When Trent had finally admitted how he felt about me, it had been one of the happiest days of my life. And it hadn’t been a grand gesture he made. It had been raw and real. He’d been agitated I’d snuck in under his defenses, but he’d let me in regardless. And he’d loved me. Really loved me. Or at least I thought he had.

  Once I’d broken through the wall he’d built around himself, he’d decided that we should leave the tightly monitored rules of Cole Enterprise and start a new life together.

  We’d built our future out of words. And with one swift moment, it was all over. Gone before it could start. His cover had been blown, but he’d managed to get away only to die, supposedly, in the hospital.

  After that, I didn’t care what I did or where I was. The structure that I’d fought was the same one that kept me together.

  “You can talk to me about him, you know. I don’t mind,” Josh said, touching my shoulder with a feathered caress.

  I nodded. Breathed deeply and pushed Trent back into the recesses of my mind where I’d kept his memory since the day I was told he’d died. “You might not mind, but I do.”

  He jerked back as if I’d slapped him.

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Josh. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about him. I just don’t want to talk about him at all,” I explained as I opened the door to our room.

  He hung back a little as I led us down the hallway. Guilt ate at me, and I found myself getting angry because of it.

  I didn’t owe Josh any explanations. My past relationship with Trent was personal. Had Josh and I been in a real relationship, I might have tried to talk to him about Trent, but even then, I might not have. Time hadn’t healed me. If anything, time had only put a bandage over the gaping wound of my broken heart.

  Worse though was thinking about Trent when there was no reason to think about him. He’d left me as surely as if he’d died. Everything we’d shared couldn’t have meant anything to him at all if he could just forget it and continue living his life as if we hadn’t promised to love one another until death.

  Once on the mainland, we gave the taxi driver the address to the hotel Allyson had thoughtfully called ahead to, making reservations for a block of rooms for all the guests on the boat.

  Once the weather picked up and the rain began to fall, there wasn’t much we could do but hang out in the bar of the hotel or the dining area. The pool had closed in the event there was lightning, which was expected to be heavy during the storm.

  I wasn’t in the mood to sit around and make ideal chitchat and, thankfully, Allyson and Alex weren’t either.

  Josh and I waited until they’d been whisked off to their room, and then we headed for our own.

  I curled up on the bed, one pillow tucked under my head, the other pulled against my chest as I watched the night sky light up as if it were daylight and then go pitch dark.

  The bed dipped behind me, and then Josh’s hand was on my shoulder. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Ella. I’d like to think that you know I wouldn’t pry or try to make you feel uncomfortable. I just want you to know that no matter what happens with us, I’ll always be your friend.”

  He pulled in another breath. “And for what it’s worth, I have no regrets. If this is,” his arm tightened before he continued, “all we are.”

  The first tear slipped past the corner of my eye, catching me off guard. I wasn’t a crier, so it surprised me to feel the hot burn for the briefest of seconds before it was gone, soaking into the pillow, leaving me wondering why I was crying. Was it his words? The kindness he’d always shown me? Or was it all the resurrected memories of Trent? I had a feeling it was everything. And no matter how much I didn’t want to feel anything at all, I did feel it, and it was staggering.

  Josh’s arm went under my pillo
w while the other one draped over my side and he pulled me close, holding me against his chest. The steady beat of his heart bumped against my back.

  “We were going to leave Cole Enterprise and start our life together,” I said, wondering where the words came from, because I hadn’t thought about it at all. They just bubbled up and out, shocking me.

  “Any particular place you had in mind?” he asked, chin bumping against my head as he spoke.

  I nodded. “There’s an island just off the coast of South America. Chiloe Island. We’d planned to go there and spend the rest of our days living our lives diving and fishing. Soaking up the sun. It would have been peaceful there. No missions. No drug cartels or child traffic rings. Just the two of us ignoring the world while someone else took it on their shoulders to clean it up.”

  “Sounds nice,” he said, thumb gliding against my arm in slow, sweeping motions.

  “It would have been. But reality is a fickle bitch and just when you think you’re about to make your dreams come true, they disappear before you can blink. Everything changes before you can wrap your mind around what was and what no longer is.” I closed my eyes, feeling more tired than I’d ever felt before.

  “Rest, Ella. There’s nowhere we need to be right now,” he whispered, shifting to let go of me.

  I caught his arm and pulled it against my chest. “Stay. Please?”

  “For as long as you want me to,” he answered as my eyes fluttered closed.

  CHAPTER 23

  JOSH

  “How can the first few days drag on, but then before you know it there’s only a week left?” I asked, eyeing the bed where the outfit I’d wear to marry Ella was laid out. “And what the hell is this?” I said, lifting a piece of turquoise material that look like a silk scarf.