He wondered what her home was like. She’d said it was small. Was it cluttered? Sparse and clean? Did she have plants on the windowsills? A rusty fire escape she climbed out onto when she wanted a bit of fresh air?
One day, when this nightmare was over, he’d show up at her doorstep.
“There seems to be a problem with your card,” the receptionist said. “I ran it twice. Maybe your bank doesn’t know you’re out of the country?”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Monroe said unconvincingly. Her movements were stiff as she dug through her wallet.
Funny how much he wanted her to turn toward him, her brow furrowed cutely, and ask for help. But he knew she wouldn’t, and he also knew she didn’t want him witnessing this, so he strolled toward the bar. The glass doors were closed tightly, but he could see the bar was packed.
Snatches of conversation jumped out at him when he opened the door.
“… Flights canceled until tomorrow afternoon at least…”
“Can’t get through to my mother.”
“Is it getting any coverage back home? They preempted the game here and I about lost my mind. I had to leave my hotel room to get away from it…”
As he entered the bar, he caught a familiar scent. Tara. He didn’t know her, but because she was Monroe’s best friend, he’d deemed it wise to make a note of her scent and sound. She was in a far corner with several other people, some of whom he recognized, some he didn’t.
A glance behind him showed that Monroe was still at the receptionist’s desk, but now she was on the phone.
He couldn’t help the small twist of remorse he felt. He should have insisted, but she was weird about money, for amounts big and small. She’d almost caused a scene when he gave her money to buy an ice cream cone. His perfect woman had one flaw.
Two flaws, if he took into account that despite everything, she still seemed open to working things out with him. Given how that was in his favor, or would be, once he got his life back, he wasn’t going to complain.
He wove through the crowd until he reached Monroe’s friends. Tara was deep in conversation with a slight, dark-skinned woman, and she broke off when she saw him.
Her gaze darted around, no doubt searching for Monroe. He wondered what Monroe would tell Tara about their sudden breakup.
Tara’s eyes widened. “You own planes! For the love of all that is good, can you please fly us out of here?” She sounded a little hysterical. That didn’t surprise him given the tumultuous cocktail of scents she was giving off.
“I can’t,” he said. Spencer would be able to get a small plane out without trouble, but Tara’s group was too large.
“Or a boat?” A man he hadn’t met before had materialized at his shoulder. He wore a Harvard baseball hat and smelled faintly of sour sweat. “I’ll pay well for a crewed charter. Or I can captain. I’m licensed.”
Koenraad looked around at the assembled group, and a smile spread across his face. Here was the answer to his problems.
“It so happens that I do have a boat,” he said, and a small cheer went up among Monroe’s friends. He used his hands to indicate they should keep the volume down. “And I’ll let you borrow it free of charge under one condition.”
Chapter 15
Monroe signed the two credit card slips and returned them to the receptionist, then she turned to look for Koenraad.
He’d wandered away, thank goodness. Both of her banks had been “unable” to authorize a transaction over five hundred dollars, so she’d had to split her section of the bill in half. It had been utterly humiliating.
Then she saw him through a closed set of glass doors. He was heading toward her, moving through the crowd easily, a smile turning his angular face breathtakingly gorgeous. She wondered what he was so happy about.
When the door opened, Monroe heard the roar of people talking loudly. Sports game, she imagined, though the bar was so upscale, she couldn’t imagine what sport the people at this hotel would be getting so excited about.
But for all she knew, tonight was the World Series or something. Though she was pretty sure baseball season was over.
“All set,” she said triumphantly as Koenraad came to a stop in front of her.
As they stepped into the elevator and the doors closed, Monroe felt something wither inside her. She liked this man. She liked his ways and his humor and his seriousness. And she regretted the way she’d acted on the beach. A little more compassion and patience might have made all the difference.
Not that she thought she was wrong.
He’d apologized, but she wanted more than that. She deserved an explanation. Why hadn’t he told her before? Yes, the day after it had happened, she’d said she didn’t want to know the details.
But there were details and then there were details. Obviously she’d believed it was a random shark attack, and he’d encouraged that misconception. Knowing that it was Koenraad’s son…
And what was that about? What did it mean about Koenraad? About shark shifters in general?
Even if she and Koenraad had no future together—because the tingling between her legs and the humming of her heart in her throat wasn’t a good reason to force a relationship—he owed her more.
But he clearly thought kicking her off the island was preferable to coming clean, and that was an insult. “Given all the outrageous crap I already know about you,” she said loudly and a little belligerently, “it must be a doozy of a secret you’re hiding now.”
Koenraad made a noise halfway between a growl and a snarl, but when she looked at him, his face was stony.
He yanked open the door to his SUV so she could get in. Despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t hold back a laugh; his gesture had been both chivalrous and frustrated. He wasn’t even the kind of guy who usually opened doors, which was something she liked. Given everything he’d done for her, the few times he had opened a door had made her uncomfortable, like he was a servant.
She buckled her seatbelt and thought about Thomas, who had always opened doors. But Thomas was a different species of man…. If he hadn’t gotten a door, it would have been intended as an insult.
Her hands were folded peacefully on her lap. She felt like she was going to her execution, but she also felt calm. Accepting.
Good thing, too, because the hard set of Koenraad’s jaw was proof that trying to fight him on this wouldn’t get her very far.
She craned her neck to stare at the sumptuous hotel they were leaving, then twisted to take a final look at the greater resort area. She hadn’t even spent a week here, but it felt strangely like home. The whole island did.
It was probably just familiarity, and twenty-four hours in New York would erase all of this.
The realization made her stomach hurt, and suddenly she was blinking away tears, wondering if Koenraad would somehow know she was crying, would smell the salt or something. Despite all the things about him that made her crazy, she adored him, too, had fallen completely and hopelessly for him.
And in return, he was about to toss her away like so much trash.
“This is really unfair,” she said, her voice trembling slightly on the final words.
He didn’t answer, and frustration swept away her sadness and self-pity. Yelling at him wouldn’t get her very far, she knew, and she crossed her arms tightly over her chest and stared morosely out the window.
They weren’t heading toward the airport or the marina, she realized with a start, but she would be damned if she was going to humiliate herself further by posing more questions for him to ignore.
Fifteen minutes later, she knew the answer. He was taking her to the dock where they’d boarded that horrible boat, Free Luv. As he drew closer, she saw that she was right.
And she also saw Free Luv.
She didn’t know how it had gotten back to Tureygua, but there it was in all its tacky glory.
Koenraad parked illegally and took her bags out of the back. She didn’t want to show how much she was hur
ting, so she followed him up the wooden dock without hesitation even though her limbs felt like they’d been infused with lead. She even scrambled abroad Free Luv without waiting for Koenraad to offer a helping hand or lower the ramp.
To her surprise, after he stowed her bags inside (the thought of her stuff touching the purple shag carpet made her shudder), he hopped easily down to the dock again.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He shielded his eyes from the overhead lights as he looked down the road. She saw nothing, heard nothing, but he must have because he nodded slightly before turning toward her.
“I’m staying here. You’re going to Aruba, and from there you can get a flight to Miami.”
“Oh, ok,” she said snippily. “That makes complete sense since I’ve got so much experience with boats.” There was a mean part of her that wanted to say ugly boats, but she restrained herself; meanness hadn’t helped when she’d fought with Thomas, and it was unlikely to help now.
Instead of screaming or rolling into a teary ball, she hopped back onto the dock. She didn’t do it nearly as gracefully as Koenraad had.
“I can get myself home.” she said.
“We both know you can’t. Not with the airports closed, so I found someone to take you.”
In other words, he was handing her off like an unwanted puppy. “Why are you so secretive all of a sudden? What have I done to deserve this?”
His gaze jerked to hers. For a moment, she saw immeasurable pain written there, but then he shuttered it away, and perhaps that was the most difficult to accept of all.
“Nothing,” he said wearily. “I made a mistake. You and I… We have fun together, but we’re not right for each other.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You were ready to make this thing between us permanent and now you’re saying we’re incompatible?”
He bent closer, and his expression was hard as stone. “Neither one of us was convinced. You know what happened? We narrowly avoided making the biggest mistake of our lives.”
“All this so you don’t have to tell me about your son? It doesn’t make sense—”
“All this to get you away from me,” he snarled. “Let it go, Monroe.”
Her vision blurred as tears flooded her eyes, and her mouth filled with the bitterest of tastes. Humiliation. This was what complete and utter rejection felt like.
Two minivan taxis pulled up, and Monroe wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand while she tried to even out her ragged breathing. Doors opened, but she couldn’t see anything behind the blinding headlights. Then she heard Tara’s voice, high and excited, calling out her name.
Squinting, she tried to make out her friend among the mass of shapes getting out of the van. “What?” she murmured. She looked at Koenraad, thinking that if he’d had the foresight to call her friends so she wouldn’t be alone after he’d dumped her, then that was a sign he still cared, right?
Tara, lugging two suitcases, bumped up to her and threw her arms around Monroe. “Your boyfriend is a life saver.”
Monroe sucked in air as fresh tears stung her eyes, but Tara was already turning away. “Fucking Lee,” she said.
“What happened with Lee?” Monroe asked.
“You want the short story or the long story?”
“Both.” Even though it was probably going to be about him leaving the toilet seat up, Monroe needed a distraction. Any distraction.
“He’s been cheating.”
Monroe slapped her hands over her open mouth. Lee cheating? He’d always been a bit of a flirt, but he adored Tara. “I don’t believe that,” she said.
Tara turned an angry eye toward her, and Monroe nearly took a step back. “You know how we have the same phones and I put a pink case on mine? Well, I dropped mine and broke the case yesterday. This morning he accidentally took mine and left his. He’s been having an affair with his boss for at least three months.”
“Tara—”
“I don’t need pity. And you know the last thing I need?” Tara pointed at a third taxi that had come to a stop, and her voice climbed in volume. “To be stuck on a boat with a big, stupid, cheating liar!”
Lee was halfway out of the van. He had to have heard Tara, but he ducked his head and went about pulling out his suitcases and paying the driver.
“Why is he here?” Monroe said. “Not just him. All of you. What’s going on?”
“Your boyfriend, who by the way agrees that Lee is a Grade-A douchebag, is lending us this boat. Otherwise we’re all stuck on the island, and I have to get home so I can pack my stuff.”
“But who’s going to navigate the thing?” Monroe asked. “Koenraad isn’t.”
“You don’t know?” Tara’s eyes went big, and she jerked her head around to stare at something behind Monroe. “He is.”
Monroe turned to see Koenraad in conversation with someone else. And while she couldn’t see the other man’s face, there was something very familiar about the way he held himself. And that crimson red hat? Too familiar.
“But he flew out hours ago,” she said, not believing her eyes.
“Obviously he didn’t. He’s stuck here like the rest of us. He’s been going around, offering people insane amounts of money to get him off the island. He has some big meeting first thing tomorrow morning.”
“But why would Koenraad—”
Tara cleared her throat. “Technically, he doesn’t know. Thomas was buying us drinks in his fancy-schmancy hotel. He wanted me to pretend to be pregnant.”
“You do not look pregnant,” Monroe said.
Tara squinted. “I didn’t think I did,” she said, and she didn’t sound offended. “Then Koenraad walked in like a twelve-foot-tall island god. When he heard we were looking for a boat, he offered a yacht for free on the condition that we take you. Thomas said he’ll sail it—”
“It doesn’t have sails,” Monroe said.
“You know what I mean. Anyway, it was fine but then Lee offered to pay Thomas, so he said he could come. I offered even more money if he wouldn’t take the scumbag, but then Lee said ‘It’s bro code. A deal’s a deal.’ I’m glad you dumped Thomas, and I can’t believe I was feeling sorry for him.”
“Why not just stay?” Monroe asked, but she wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation anymore. Everything seemed to be flying at her at once. Koenraad had ended things in no uncertain terms, and now she’d be forced to be on a boat with Thomas. And Lee. She’d always liked him, but he now topped the list of people she despised.
Tara was talking, but when Monroe saw Koenraad heading back toward his SUV, she threaded her way through the small crowd of luggage and people—half of whom were strangers—that had spilled out of the departed taxis.
She caught up to him as he opened the door, grabbing his arm. Despite everything that had happened between them, being so close to him set her entire body on fire, and she struggled to control her physical reaction.
“I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye,” he said. “I heard my phone ringing.”
“Right,” she said. “Good ears and all that.” At the moment, she could barely hear the phone at all, and it was just a few feet away from her, sitting in the cup holder.
He grabbed the phone, glanced at the screen. Monroe couldn’t be sure, but his face looked pale as he silenced the ringer.
It wasn’t her business, but she was about to ask him if everything was ok when he suddenly pulled her into a woodsy-scented hug. “Thank you for a fun few days,” he said. He squeezed her tighter. “I wish all the happiness in the world for you, Monroe. You deserve it.”
Then he let her go and jerked his head at the dock, where only Thomas was still standing, now watching them.
“You need to go,” he said. “I promise that the people who had you kidnapped won’t bother you again.”
“I’m not afraid—”
“Never said you were. That’s not the reason—”
“Got it,” she interrupted. “You have a good
life, too.” And then, because she was hurting and because she didn’t have time to think better of it, she flung one more sentence over her shoulder as she walked away. “Get a muzzle for that son of yours.”
The slam of his door and the screech of tires as he sped away told her that her words had found their mark.
And it didn’t make her feel the least bit better.
Thomas insisted on helping Monroe onto the boat. Too numb to think strategically, she let him.
“Your friend could have stuck around, showed me the finer points of this yacht,” he said.
Monroe turned to look at him. “Is that a problem? I’m sure he’ll come back.” Though she wasn’t sure at all.
“Nah. By the way, I have to ask… is that him? The guy?”
Monroe hesitated. Just because she’d been dumped and was single again didn’t mean she was available for Thomas.
“You don’t have to say it. I can tell. I mean, the guy was so anxious to get you to safety that he gave care of his boat to a stranger,” he said.
“He’d met Tara,” Monroe pointed out. “You weren’t a stranger, really.”
“He doesn’t know about us.”
She shrugged and went below deck to find a tasteless chair to sit on. Thomas had inadvertently made an excellent point. Koenraad had been so anxious to get rid of her—not get her to safety—that he’d practically given away a yacht. It also happened to be one he didn’t like.
She could look for the compliment in that all she wanted, but she’d never find it.
Friends and strangers alike had spread out on the chairs in the main room, so she headed down the hallway, toward the bathroom. At the last moment, she veered through the door to her left and found herself in a bedroom straight out of a sixties sexploitation film.
But the room was empty, and that made it perfect. All she wanted was to be alone. Once she’d pulled herself together, she’d find Tara and be a good friend.
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