I really needed to diffuse this situation. I hated the notion that Connor and this woman were fighting in front of—whom I assumed—was her kid. He looked like her in a way with his almond-shaped eyes and button knows.
“Connor, I don’t think whatever the problem is, should be discussed in front of the boy,” I whispered against his ear.
“Don’t you dare tell him what to do,” the woman screeched.
I blinked at her, stunned that this girl invaded our hut and was now trying to push her weight around. Though I was a blonde, I considered myself a smart cookie. Still, I felt as if I was missing something so damn obvious.
Who the fuck was this chick?
“Marta,” Connor snarled.
“She’s the reason, isn’t she.” The woman—Marta—stomped her foot in a sign of an impending tantrum.
Connor sighed. Aggravation stippled his muscles, bunching them in his shoulders and back as shoved both hands through his hair. When he pulled the ginger strands in frustration my curiosity piqued.
I turned inquiring eyes onto the hot-eyed woman trying to incinerate me with a look.
“Who are you?” I finally asked.
“Don’t,” Connor growled. Who was the warning for? Marta? Or me?
He swung his head around and pierced me with imploring eyes. An apology shone on his face, much like how the sun caused the reddish whiskers on his face to gleam. All at once the love bubble I’d been existing in popped.
Foreboding swam through me, and I steeled myself for what was going to come. This was the truth of my life. When everything was going perfectly, a wrecking ball came through and smashed it into pieces.
Satisfaction, and no small hint of malice, gleamed on Marta’s face. She tossed her head, sending a river of silky brown hair to swirl around her shoulders. “I’m his wife.” Her hand tightened the boys, and I knew what she was going to say even before she pulled the crying little boy out from behind her, and shoved him towards me and Connor. “And this is his son--.” She hissed at Connor, directing her last word to him. “Alfonso.”
“Crystal, wait. Please, feckin’ wait.”
Connor was begging me as I stood outside, trying to figure out how I was going to get away from the man who’d just broken my heart. I hadn’t even packed. After Marta’s bomb, I stomped out and called a taxi. That simple title explained so much of what was going on that I felt stupid for not catching the undercurrents before. I had no excuse for why I didn’t realize it. Maybe Connor had fucked me stupid.
Later, I would come back for my things when Connor’s wife wasn’t watching me from the doorway of our hut. I felt her eyes on me, dissecting me every twitch of her lashes. She’d won. Her and I both knew it. I was leaving without a fight.
I was a homewrecker.
“I can’t believe you abandoned your kid! After everything you went through back in Ireland.” Fury, and shame, shrilled my voice.
“I didn’t know about him. He might not be mine.” Connor’s anger bled from him, though I was working myself up into a full-on fit.
“The age fits. Good LAWD, Connor. You were here five years ago, and by the way you two were fighting, you were definitely in some sort of relationship with her.”
Which led reality to come crashing down around me again. Not just a relationship.
“A wife, Connor? You’re married? What the hell!” I could believe that he might not know about a son. Especially if he’d left the island before Marta realized she was pregnant. But the marriage? Oh hell no. There was a lot of things I could forgive. Infidelity wasn’t one of them.
“It’s not like that.” Connor’s accent was as thick as Guinness, and just as hard to take.
The urge to scream at him, or claw his lying eyes out, roared through me like a typhoon. I was wrecked on the shoals of his betrayal. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the damn world for me to draw enough breath to slow down my racing heart.
My toes curled in the dirt, and I glanced down, realizing I’d left my shoes behind. I wasn’t going back into the hut though. Not for anything. “What’s it like then, Connor? How did it slip your head that you were married!”
“It was an island thing.”
“An island thing?” If he even mentioned mana again I could not be held responsible for my actions. I might wind up stabbing him.
“It was a bit of a celebration. There was dancing, and alcohol, and there might have been some kind of ceremony, and something about joining our mana together. I don’t feckin’ remember. I was in a bad place when I was here, Crystal. You know that. But I’m not married. I swear to you.”
“Don’t you dare say that, Connor McGrath!” Marta’s voice rose like a fishwife berating her husband on the dock. “We are married in Julio’s eyes!”
Lord, she sounded like a harpy. I’ve never hated someone more than I did in that instant as I twisted in place, and glared at her as she stood at the threshold of our house and tore down my taste of paradise.
Connor flinched beside me, and I knew Marta had struck him where it mattered. From the brief interactions I’d had with Julio, and everything Connor had ever said about the shaman, disappointing the man who’d saved him would tear Connor apart.
Tears stung my eyes suddenly, and I spun back around, hunching my shoulders against the rawness in my chest. He’d made me feel so much earlier, and then he’d reached in and yanked out my heart.
Connor came closer. His heart pressed over my exposed arms, and the scent of him—us—tickled my nose. Had it been just an hour ago when he’d been inside me? It felt like days ago. “I swear, Princess. I haven’t talked to her in five years. You are the only one in my heart. I love you.”
I believed him, yet at the same time, this was a whole barrel full of complications. I couldn’t help but drum up the image of Alonso’s big eyes as he watched his parents fight.
Lord, Connor was somebody’s daddy. My heart constricted, mirroring the anguish knotting my stomach. Nothing would be the same again after this.
“You need to handle this. If that boy is your kid, you have to be there for him. If she goes around claiming she’s your wife, all the credibility we’ve built here is shot. The big fight is in less than a week. If this gets out…” My voice trailed off. I drew upon my job skills, and shoved all the sorrow down into a ball in my stomach.
“Crystal don’t do this.”
I shook my head. “This is why Jeff hired me, Connor. To deal with a crisis like this.”
“Feck Jeff!” Connor exploded. “This is more than a working relationship between us! I love you, and you sure as feck love me.”
I closed my eyes, trying to staunch the river of pain about to leak from them. I failed as a teardrop trailed down my cheek. I kept seeing Alfonso’s puppy-dog eyes, and all the hope he’d had when he looked up at his supposed daddy. It brought my own sadness over losing my father swelling inside me, choking me.
My taxi arrived in a gust of dust as it pulled off the main road, and coasted through the seaside village.
I scurried towards the backseat before Connor could react, and was inside by the time he reached my window. With how hot it always was on Easter Island, and the fact that a lot of places that were away from the tourist areas didn’t believe in air conditioner, the windows were down.
Connor leaned in, his grizzled face a mask of pain and fading hope. “I’ll fix this. I swear it.”
I bit my inner cheek, trying to hold onto the bitchy exterior that would get me through this ordeal. There was so much I could say to him. Deny I loved him. Tell him it was just work. But, I couldn’t do that to Connor. My big, rugged, beautiful, battered Irishman.
Tightening my hands into fists, I bent slightly. I searched his eyes, memorized them. “The big fight is on Saturday, Connor. I’ll be gone on Sunday.”
His jaw tightened. I wasn’t going to wait around once the job was finished just hoping that he and Marta didn’t rekindle their relationship. I knew how he felt about marriage. While I didn’t know
his stance on children, deep down I believed that if Alfonso proved to be his, Connor would never leave him. Not without a fight.
I twisted away from him, the remnants of my heart crumbling anew. “Please drive.”
The driver eyed me in the rearview mirror, but didn’t ask any questions. He pulled away. Right before we turned the corner onto the main highway, I twisted, and got my last look of Connor.
He stood shirtless with his arms crossed. And as I watched, Marta came up behind him and ran her hand down his arm.
I was such a coward, running without a fight.
But the truth was, Connor wasn’t mine. Five years ago, he’d apparently bonded himself with her. He’d joined his mana with her or whatever horse-crap ceremony they’d done. I knew how much that all meant to him, and on a spiritual level, Connor was married. He wasn’t mine. He belonged to this island woman.
Hurricane Marta.
The nickname popped into my mind. It was fitting. She’d torn through my life, and dashed everything I’d wanted, hoped for, dreamed of with Connor, into smithereens.
17 - Connor
Sweat ran down my face, and my heart pounded harder than it had before any fight. A ball of anxiety leaped up from my stomach to my chest, trying to exit. I clenched my fists as I watched the love of my life ride away, leaving a trail of dust.
I arrived here with a fashionista for a roommate, and she’s transformed into an almost tomboyish--when she wanted to be--cowgirl with the kind of curves I longed to lose myself in. Did get lost in. I fucking loved the woman, and right now she was making me eat her dust--literally. I coughed at the trail of haze the taxi kicked up speeding across the dirt road.
I whipped around, and Marta was standing there with a half smile on her face. She reminded me of the smirk I usually sport before a fight when I knew I was destined to destroy my opponent. When she looked at me though, she seemed to look through me, past me, as if I were a ghost.
A chill went over my spine as I heard the rumble of the taxi fade out in the distance over the countryside, and simultaneously Marta stepped closer toward me. It was as if she knew how much I was aching with the loss of Crystal’s presence, and so she stepped in to fill that void. Maybe it was me who thought of her as a ghost, and not the other way around. But there was no doubt she made me uncomfortable.
She touched my arm, and I fought to find the words to articulate my feelings. Currently, the only things coming to mind were a load of Irish swears. And not only for the fact that she’d just killed my chance with the one girl I’d ever loved.
If what she said was true, she’d robbed me of five years of my son’s life. The possibility of that scared the shit out of me.
The kid was right next to her. He had a blank look on his face, sort of staring up at me in awe. I smiled at him, rubbed his hair and leaned down. Harnessing all of my available self-control, I spoke in a cheerful tone to him. “Hey buddy. You want to go play with the neighbors for a little while? Your mom and I need to have a talk.”
He paused for a moment, looked up at me with those puppy dog eyes, then took off running across the road where a couple of other neighborhood kids were kicking a ball around.
“Finally,” she said as she ran her hand over my bicep. “I get to have some time with my man.”
I recoiled at her touch. “Marta, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re joking!”
She snorted. “I wanted to tell you. I just wanted to wait for the right time.”
My eyes bulged out of my head. “The right fecking time?! Fuck me sideways! After I’ve been on this island for eight weeks, now is the right time? Oh. Oh.” I could barely speak I was so irate. On the other hand, how the hell was I supposed to act in the presence of my possible baby’s momma? As experienced as I was in all types of touchy situations, this was uncharted territory.
“Ohh, honey,” she cooed, grabbing my arm again. “You are so sexy when you’re mad.”
I didn’t move. I looked her dead in the eye. My face was full of anger, dread, and ire. “Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me.”
She jumped back, startled. “Don’t be so mad, Connor. Just a little bit.”
I clenched my jaw. “You don’t want me to be so mad? Marta, either you have known this was my kid for years, and didn’t tell me until now. Or, you are just trying to fuck with me now that I’m back in town. So, which is it?”
She gasped. “But Connor!” Her accent came out, and I remembered the way she used to say my name. And it annoyed me. I wanted to hear Crystal saying it, not her. “I would never be so mean to mess with you like that.” She continued, then smiled devilishly. Something was damn fishy, and I was going to get to the bottom of this.
People were starting to stop and stare at us in the street, so I guided her back toward my hut, and we stepped inside.
Once we were in, I crossed my arms as I stood right in front of her. “Tell me everything. Tell me how it happened. Tell me why you didn’t inform me I had a young offspring running around out here.”
Her lips twitched and she got a little glassy eyed. “I didn’t know how to tell you! I thought about it, so many times. But what was I supposed to do, call you and tell you to drop everything? Change your life for me? I watched you on the TV. I know you were fighting all over the world. I didn’t want you to lose any time worrying about me.”
My jaw dropped and I raked a hand through my hair. “So the right time to tell me was five days before the biggest fecking fight of my life.”
“I didn’t want to upset your training,” she cooed. Her words came out so tender, but they cut like knives. Something didn’t sit right with me about this whole thing. Still, I needed to exhaust every possibility.
“Marta,” I shook my head. For now, I had to go along with her as if she was telling the truth. “I just...I feel awful. I haven’t been there for you. For Alfonso. How could you have let me live the past five years like this?” I took a deep breath.
“I should have told you,” she said, ran a hand through my hair, and paused. “But we can be together again now. I’m so happy.” She put her hand across my chest, right where my phoenix tattoo was. I stared into her dark eyes, and I saw a siren trying to seduce me. Did Marta think she’d break me just like that, and I’d crumble? Then again, Crystal and I hadn’t exactly advertised our relationship to the general public. Or our love.
Shit, I wanted to tell fucking everyone about us. I wanted to climb up on one of those mana statues and tell everyone I loved her. But it was only this morning that we found out all of our running and hiding was for naught.
I backed away from Marta, and her wrist fell to her side. “I’m in love with Crystal,” I spoke firmly. “If Alfonso is mine, we’ll figure out what to do, but I need to take care of something right now.”
“I’ll be waiting here until you get back.”
She stared at me as I threw on a t-shirt and grabbed some sunglasses, and headed out the door.
The sun was closer to the horizon now, and it made for a sort of orange glow falling on the houses across the street. I watched Alfonso kicking a soccer ball, having the ludicrous, silly fun a five year old has. My heart sank. If I’d missed five years of the boy’s life--my boy’s--I’d have a hell of a lot of catching up to do. I’d never forgive myself.
But right now, I was worried Crystal might be on the brink of making a rash decision, one we couldn’t take back. I needed to catch up with her and explain everything in a way she would understand. I could make this better. She just needed to hear me out.
Plus, if I were to make it down the next five days--and process the last five years of my life--I was going to need her at my side.
“Crystal. I know you’re in there!” I banged on the fourth floor hotel room that we had blessed earlier today. I slammed my fist in, repeatedly. “Open up!”
A couple of doors opened on the floor, they heard me yelling at the top of my lungs like a madman. As soon as they opened up their doors and saw a tattooed, raving mad lunat
ic of an Irishman, they quickly shut their doors again and hid from me.
After I caught a glimpse of myself in a nearby window, I had to say I couldn’t blame them. I looked like I was about ready to unleash.
“Please, Crystal,” I softened my voice. “I need to explain some things. Princess.”
A feeling washed over me that felt largely unfamiliar. I felt like I was groveling to her. Fuck, maybe I was, though. I’d do whatever I could to get her back at this point, and I had to face that.
I heard sniffling. “Just go away, Connor! You’ve done enough damage already. You’re reckless, and I should have never fallen for your charms, I should have known this was going to happen.”
The ball of anxiety creeped up my throat again. This was much worse than any fight I’d ever been in. “Crystal,” I begged. “I fecking love you. I know it looks bad, but it was five years ago! I was barely a boy. I’ve changed since then, so much. What we have--our love--I wasn’t even capable of it until I met you. You brought it out in me. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up this easy on us.”
She was full on sobbing. I tried the doorknob for the hundredth time, and the key. The deadbolt was still activated. “Please, just go away, Connor!” She yelled, her voice shaky. “It’s never going to be the same, and you know it!”
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed so loud, the entire fecking hotel heard me. Shit, they heard me on the beach outside. I swallowed as I came to the only logical conclusion:
Crystal didn’t love me. She’d never said it; now it was starting to make sense why not. I’d told her multiple times that she was the one for me.
My knees caved in like I’d just had the wind knocked out of me. It was in my own mind, sure, but it was a sucker punch stronger than any I’d ever taken during a fight.
When I regained control, I was dizzy. Crystal was talking, still crying, but I couldn’t hear her words.
“You don’t love me, do you,” I mumbled through the door.
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