by Ruby Vincent
“Nathan, stop!” Delilah shot in my path. “Belle needs help. Get her to a hospital. I’ll make sure Mrs. Desai deals with him.”
My heart was so loud in my ears, most of what she said didn’t get through. Except for one.
Belle needs help.
“Call an ambulance,” Kelli ordered. She bent over Belle, preforming chest compressions. “Get Mr. Hendrix or Mrs. Desai. Someone call her—”
Belle jerked. Pool water came spewing on my shoe.
I knelt as her crossed eyes fluttered. Gently, I cupped the back of her head, chest tightening at the weeping wound on her forehead.
“Belle?” I brushed the wet strands from her face, and lingered on her cheek. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
“Na... than?”
She spoke so softly that thinking she said my name might have been wishful thinking.
Her head lolled, and for a second, our gaze connected. I could’ve sworn before her eyes shut and she went limp—
That she smiled.
MR. HENDRIX AND I SAT in the waiting room, drinking water out of paper cups. The frigid air conditioner sank a permanent chill in my bones, standing my hair on end, and sticking my drying clothes uncomfortably to my back.
“Yes, Mrs. Lewis-Adler. I absolutely agree. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Believe me, we’re just as upset as you are— No, no, of course we don’t feel as you. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”
Hendrix had been on the phone with Belle’s mom trying to placate her for the last forty-five minutes.
Belle taught me the rules of the dame. Never raise your voice. Never swear. Never resort to common insults when proper education affords you a wider vocabulary.
I was pretty certain she broke all three rules five minutes after Hendrix called her with the news.
I felt bad for the guy. What happened wasn’t his fault. But then again, I didn’t know a mother who’d be calm and heed her manners after finding out some idiot cracked her daughter’s skull open and she almost drowned.
“He is gone,” Hendrix repeated. “Mr. Finnegan and Mr. Gunnar are packing their bags as we speak. They’ll be off the island by morning. What would you like to do? We have spare rooms now if you’d like to come and be with Belle. Yes,” he said. “I will. Thank you.”
Hendrix slumped at the end of the call. Sinking in the seat like a puppet with cut strings.
“This a first for you?” I asked. “Gropers and head injuries.”
He shot me a wan smile. “This is my third year helping Mrs. Desai run the event. The first year a couple drove a golf cart drunk through town and crashed into a fruit stand. The second year, the guests decided the parties we hold regularly weren’t enough, threw one in their room, and managed to break a hundred-year-old vase and set fire to the rug. But this... no, I wasn’t prepared for this.” The smile dimmed. “We take our job to look after you thirty-six very seriously. I can’t face calling her mother back if something is really wrong.”
My throat closed. “Nothing is wrong,” I rasped. “Head wounds bleed a lot. Making it look worse than it is. They’re back there, slapping a Band-Aid on and laughing about making us sweat.”
Hendrix shook his head.
“Seriously, Belle will be fine,” I said. “Don’t blame yourself. We’re all adults and it’s not on you if we don’t act like it. Finnegan, Gunnar, and their crew were a bunch of moronic piss-stains at school too. Once they snuck into the laundry and tossed purple dye in the washing machine. The kids on scholarship were out over three hundred bucks having to buy new uniforms and they laughed in the faces of whoever told them to pay for replacements.
“Guys like that cause trouble because they are bored. They would’ve gotten themselves kicked off this island eventually.” I dropped my head. “I just wish Belle wasn’t the reason.”
Hendrix changed seats and grasped my shoulder. It was just us in the waiting room.
Citrine Grove Hospital was a small facility for a small island. What they lacked in noise, crowds, and people rushing about, they made up for in comfortable chairs, a nurse who took the time to learn our names, and quiet while I told myself over and over again that Belle would be all right.
“You all are still young,” Hendrix said. “We’ve tried not to hover and micromanage you because it doesn’t make sense to treat you like children when you’re here to make a very adult decision. It’s not easy. Any of this. But you didn’t let Miss Adler down today, and I hope you know that.”
“Mr. Hendrix? Mr. Prince?”
Shooting out of the seat, I crossed to the nurse in five strides. “Belle. Is she okay?”
She put up a staying hand. “She’s fine. She has a mild concussion, but we’ve given her an MRI and nothing looks amiss. As for the cut on her head, it’ll heal nicely,” she said. “Miss Belle has been given strict instructions to rest for a few days. She said she’d jump on any excuse to get out of being paraded around like prime mating stock.”
I snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like our Belle. She’s going to be fine.”
“She is.” The nurse waved me on. “You go on and see her. It’s room 405.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I took off through the double doors in search of her room. I found it at the end of the hall, next to an open door. A passing glance caught a glimpse of a bare backside peeking through the hospital gown on the way to the bathroom.
I stepped inside and her small, pale, bandaged head turned to face me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I replied.
I stood there. Neither of us speaking.
Belle was first to give in. “What happened?”
“You hit your head on the side of the pool and nearly drowned. The bastard who did it is on his way out.”
“Good.” Belle pointed at the chair beside her. “Where were you while I was drowning?”
I drew the chair closer and sat. “Jumping in to save you, of course.”
Pale and sporting a giant bandage covering half her forehead, didn’t make her less of a golden-haired sea goddess. Especially when she smiled at me like that.
“Of course.”
“I should’ve made him put you down,” I said. “I should have—”
“Don’t do that,” she whispered. “Find ways to make yourself feel worse when I’m going to be fine. I’ll take it easy for a few days. Be waited on hand and foot. There could have been a worse ending to this story.”
Nodding, I dropped my forehead on the mattress. My tension leaked out as Belle stroked my hair.
“You’re still a jackass though.”
I chuckled. I knew this was coming. “Saving your life makes me a jackass?”
“Saving my life proves you’re determined to keep flipping from sweet, caring human being to Sir Jackass of the Thumpington Jackasses.”
I burst out laughing. “Your insults are as creative as your threats.”
“You knew I was trying to help you, Nathan.” Her voice was soft. “I didn’t deserve a sleepless night crying for offering to give you what you wanted.”
I winced. Hearing she cried was a straight shot through my chest.
Didn’t you want her to cry? a harsh voice asked. You wanted her to hurt as much as her suggestion ripped you apart.
“But I also didn’t... not... deserve it,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of you and what it’d feel like to have your ex propose a loveless, business-arrangement marriage. If it’s anything like your former best friend wanting to use you for a bigger inheritance, it’s gotta suck toilet seats.”
“Dirty, gas station men’s room toilet seats,” I clarified.
“I am sorry, Nathan.”
I raised my head, knocking her hand down to my face where it stayed. Belle traced the lines over my brow one by one.
“In the waiting room,” I began, “I told Hendrix about Finn and his friends dyeing the uniforms purple and the scholarship kids having to pay money they didn’t have to get new ones. I was one of them. One of
the kids who needed new uniforms, but in my case, the colonel refused to pay. Spending my allowance would’ve wiped me out for food for an entire month. I had to choose between pushing the dress code to expulsion or not eating.”
“What did you do?” Belle moved her exploration to my eyes, closing them as she skated on my lids.
“Nothing. Woke up the next day and found a stack of new uniforms outside my room. Preston bought and paid for them without asking.” I released a breath. “And that’s why I got mad at you.”
“Because Preston bought your uniform?”
“Because Preston covers me whenever I’m short. Carter lets me crash in his pool house when the colonel changes the locks. Mrs. Desai has the cook make an extra plate at dinner. My driver has to give over his phone so I can talk to my mother.” I closed over her hand, holding it under my chin as I said what I needed to say. “Everyone in my life has to take care of me. All that stuff I shouted about puppies in puddles and pathetic little orphans was projecting. It’s already what I am.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true,” I said. “But it wasn’t true to you. You didn’t see me as that guy during those summers in Bracknell. I wasn’t someone to be pitied. When you asked me to marry you, weird as it is to say, that’s when I knew we were really over.”
“Are we?” she whispered.
Stiffening, I sat up straighter. “Aren’t we?”
She turned her head, looking away from me. “You’re not like before, Nathan. You talk to me now. Tell me what you’re feeling. What’s going on in that head of yours. Seventeen-year-old Nathan couldn’t tell me the truth of his family and all he’d been through. It seems wrong that now that you can be the boyfriend I need, we can’t be together.”
“I—” My head spun. Boyfriend? Was this for real or was the concussion talking?
“So, if we’re really going to do this now,” she continued, “and you’re willing to be honest. Tell me what happened that last summer, Nathan. Why did you hook up with that girl?”
“It’s simple, Belle. I hooked up with that girl because you hooked up with that guy.”
“Ugh,” she cried, tightening on my hand. “What guy? There was no guy.”
“Malcolm.”
Belle stilled. Drawn, tired eyes widened, lighting at the name. “Wh— What did you say?”
“Malcolm,” I repeated. “I kept everything from that time. When I got too far gone reading our old texts, I had the ones from him to remind me why it ended. I’d show them to you but I threw my phone in the sea.”
She didn’t react to that. Her skin was taking on a sickly, sallow pallor. My anger washed under concern.
“Belle? Are you all right?” I made to stand. “I’ll get the nurse—”
Belle clamped down on me. “How do you know that name?”
“You didn’t think I’d find out about him, did you? Well, he found me.”
“What does that mean?”
I frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Nathan.” She sat up, snagged my collar, and tugged me into bed with her. “This is really important. Tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”
Relive every excruciating detail of our breakup? No, thanks.
But the look on her face.
I didn’t understand why she needed this, but she did.
“About halfway through summer, I started getting texts from an unknown number. Stuff like ‘who is this?’ ‘How do you know Belle?’ ‘Why does your number keep coming up on her phone?’ I finally answered that we were together and the reply was ‘that’s impossible because I’m her boyfriend.’
“I didn’t believe it at first.” The story burned coming out. “I didn’t want to believe it. But he told me things about you, Belle. Personal things that you’d only tell someone you were close to. I was still telling him to fuck off at that point, but then he sent me the pictures.”
“Pictures?” she croaked.
“Of you with some slick, baby-faced, piece-of-shit. His arm around you. The two of you cheesing. Him kissing your cheek. And... pics of you naked.”
Belle clapped her hand over her mouth. She looked like she’d be sick. I had the same reaction.
“Malcolm said you’d been hiding your relationship because he’s older than you. He asked me if I ever wondered why we weren’t putting labels on it? Or thought about why we rarely went anywhere other than my bedroom and the patch of pebbles and sand in front of my beach house?
“He said you were using me,” I rasped. “All I had to do was say your name and watch you spout denials while your eyes gave you away. Then I would know it was true. But after all that, I didn’t have to. Your phone went off while you were in the shower and I recognized the number immediately. Malcolm told you he loved you and would see you soon. That night I got drunk and you walked in on me with Sara.”
Belle gaped at me—stricken with horror.
“There it is.” I sank onto the pillow. “You cheated and I responded with the same. It’s now that we’re talking about this that I see you were right. Seventeen-year-old Nathan did keep too much to himself. I should’ve told you I knew about you and Malcolm—”
“There is no me and Malcolm!”
The scream blew me back, nearly toppling me off the bed. “Belle?”
“Oh my god,” she cried. “Oh my god, oh my god. He knew! H-he knew I was in Bracknell all this time. He knew about you.”
Color and emotion were returning to her, but the deep, red flush and filling eyes weren’t what I wanted either.
“Whoa, baby.” I brushed the wetness from her cheeks. “Don’t cry. It’s all in the past now. If you’re ready to move on, so am I.”
“Oh, Nathan.” Her tears flowed hot and fast. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
“He took you from me.” Belle buried her face in my chest, sobbing. “I should have known he wouldn’t let me have you,” I made out.
I couldn’t have been more confused if she kissed me, slapped me, and called me Lord Thumpington Jackass again.
“Belle, who is Malcolm?”
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t do this now. I have to speak to my mom. Get me a phone, please, Nathan. It’s important.”
“Sure. Of course.”
I climbed off the bed to track down Hendrix. I glanced at Belle as the door swung shut, a nasty feeling surged in my gut that the person responsible for our horrible breakup and my last two years of misery... was me.
Chapter Ten
Belle
“He’s known for at least two years that I’ve been in Bracknell, Mom. Close enough to follow me and find out I was with Nathan.”
“Two years.” She sounded as sick as I felt. “What does this mean? What has he been doing all this time?”
“He didn’t want us to know he found me. If we did, we’d pack up and move again.” The truth settled over me like a lead blanket. “He was biding his time so when he finally revealed himself, I couldn’t get away.”
“Belle, don’t say such horrible things.”
“What if he’s here, M-Mom?” My voice cracked on a sob. “What if he’s on the island, watching and waiting again? I told you. Mal would make sure the fourth time was the last time.”
“There will not be a fourth time. That man has ruled your life with fear for far too long. I will not let him have such control that even when you’re safe, you’re jumping at shadows and looking over your shoulder.
“You’re hurt and you’re in pain,” she said in a softer tone. “That brute of a boy put you in the hospital and then you discovered Malcolm’s manipulations lost you a love. That is quite a lot for one day, my darling. Do not now rob yourself of a peaceful sleep.”
I wiped my face with my palm. “I can’t pretend this isn’t happening.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend. Your vigilance is your protection, but paranoia is your defeat. That man doesn’t want you to be h
appy for a second that you’re out of his presence. Do not give him what he wants.”
I nodded along without noticing at first that I was doing so. “What do I do?”
“You’ll go back to the villa and rest as the doctor commands. Your father and I will coordinate with Mrs. Desai about today’s incident, increasing security, and steps to take moving forward. She’s giving us personal recommendation for guards on her staff.”
“Giving them to you?” I tried to sit up and my aching body protested. “Preston was supposed to give me the number.”
“He asked her to do so, but she decided to speak to us directly. I suspect the detailed, full account we demanded of the island’s security gave her an inkling something wasn’t right. She asked us if the friend in fear of her life was you.”
I was quiet for a long time.
Rosalie Desai was no dummy. I could see how she’d make that natural conclusion.
“What did you tell her?” I finally asked.
“Very little,” Mom replied. “Your father and I have made enemies over the years and they’ve tried more than once to exact revenge through you. That’s all we needed to say.”
“What happens now, Mom? We’ve tried guards before. Milton handed me over to him. Everyone has a price. Mal always finds it.”
“You let us worry about that,” she said firmly. “Know one thing above all. We won’t allow anyone near you unless we trust them implicitly.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Now tell me what you need. Would you like us to come to the island? We can be there in a few hours.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re right that he wants to ruin every single day of our lives that I’m free of him. Dropping everything at the sound of his name lets him win,” I replied. “The doctor says I’ll be fine and now Rosalie knows something is up. It’ll be safe if I stick close to the villa.”
Mom and I talked for a little longer. A knock sounded on the door after we hung up.
Nathan stuck his head in the room. “Hey. Hendrix is wrapping it up out here. The doc says we can take you back when you’re ready.”
“Ready.”