Hard Dive (Paradise Lost Book 2)

by Megyn Ward

  I hug her, truly relieved. “That’s the best news, ever. Sorry I haven’t been home to get everything ready, but I did get our room cleaned.”

  I remember that evening, when my life seemed to be on track. When Zach rescued me from Jonas’s rejection and we made love in my bungalow. It’s dumpy and rundown, no ocean view or Cook and Ricky to serve, but it’s mine. No invasive cameras, no fortune to consider, no games.

  Diana holds me a second longer before she lets go. “Thank you for paying for the surgery. Blake told me what you did.”

  I wave it away. “You would do the same for me.”

  She laughs, but not with humor. “You bet your ass I’d have jumped at the chance to be on Liesa’s Life. Not only would I have made a shit-ton of money, but I’d go to all those parties and meet all those rich guys.”

  “Diana….”

  She shakes her head. “But I know better now. You’ve always had your head on straight about guys and what they want. So this thing is torture for you. I know that.”

  Torture, sure. Fucking in my room. Fucking in the shower. Zach’s arms around me. His kisses. I hated every minute of it. Had I known he was lying to me and it would end up this way, I would have done it anyway. I want Zach any way I can get him.

  Even now.

  So much for protecting my heart.

  What I want and what I should do are two different things. I need to stay as far away from Zach as possible because as much as my body wants him, sex alone will never be enough. It will eventually destroy me not to have all of him.

  I need to be more like Mom. She’d walked away and didn’t look back. Of course, her downfall had been Jonas, someone way easier to walk away from than Zach.

  I wish Diana had something to pack to distract us from this conversation. “I’m done with Liesa’s Life. They’re going to write me off the show. So we’re all good.”

  Blake appears in the doorway, a sheaf of papers in his hand. “You’re off the show?”

  The noise level from the other family ratchets up as a good-humored argument breaks out over who owns what dish.

  I try to act cheerful. “Apparently they’re changing directions and won’t need my storyline.”

  Blake gives me a thumbs up. “Congratulations. Getting away from that situation is the best thing that could happen for you.”

  “We could use the money, since we’re both out of The Green Frog for a while. But I’ll find something else soon.”

  Blake throws an arm around my shoulder and hugs me to his side in a brotherly way. “We don’t need the kind of shit that Jonas Knightly dishes out.”

  “Why are they getting rid of you?” Diana asks.

  My heart constricts and my throat closes up. All I can see is Liesa on her knee and their long and passionate kiss. I want to throw up but I grin. “Get this, Liesa asked Zach to marry her and the rest of the season is going to be a wedding extravaganza.”

  Diana looks shocked and she jerks her head toward Blake.

  He looks stricken and suddenly pale. His mouth stretches as if he riding a terrifying rollercoaster straight into the ground.

  “Blake?” I put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  He acts as though he hasn’t heard me.

  “Blake,” I say, louder this time.

  He blinks and looks down on me. “Huh? Oh. Ready to go?” He reaches for Diana.

  Diana’s gaze moves back and forth between Blake and me and she curls her lip in disdain. “Those fucking people.”

  “What people?” I ask.

  “Those rich bastards who think they can take our lives and twist them and crush our hearts as if we don’t matter. We’re just toys they play with and when they get tired, they throw us away.”

  I don’t want to believe Zach would do that to me. Or Liesa. She talked about our connection and, fuck me, I’d felt it, too. It feels like a rusty blade to my heart to think I don’t matter to them. But the truth is in front of my eyes. Like some goddamned Great Gatsby, Zach and Liesa used me to mess with each other.

  Diana isn’t done. “They made you fall in love. The two people I care most about. All three of us got hurt in their games.”

  All three? Blake? He clamps his jaw tight and anger lights his eyes.

  “You and Liesa?” I blurt out. “I thought you were friends.”

  “Friends is all I ever get.” He laughs and shakes his head. “Especially if Zach is involved.”

  “I didn’t know.” It’s all I can say, though it carries sympathy and regret in tone.

  Diana’s lips tremble as if she might cry. “I’m so sorry. I wrecked everything and now I don’t know how we’re going to make it.”

  “Hey, now,” Blake sounds like a reassuring father. “I was thinking, maybe our run on the island might have come to an end. Why don’t we all go stateside? We can get a cheap apartment close to campus. I’ve saved up enough to get us going and we’ll figure it out from there.”

  I try to be enthusiastic. “Diana and I have talked about going to school. Let’s all go, leave this stupid island and all the bad memories behind.”

  Diana looks from one of us to the other as if checking our resolve. She seems to grit her teeth in an effort to not let us down. “I’m in.”

  Blake steps closer and helps ease Diana off the bed.

  Leaving the island, like Mom had twenty-three years ago, was the right thing to do. Why does it feel so wrong?

  Forty-Two

  Zach

  The week whizzes by and yet, every moment feels like a trudge to the guillotine. We film day and night, from cake tasting to venue shopping. I was spared the wedding dress saga and the heartfelt advice from Simone to Liesa.

  For her part, Liesa acts every bit the nervous and excited bride. She fluctuates from elated and giddy, to hysterical and bitchy. Her mood swings seem over the top even for Liesa’s Life, but it makes good TV.

  I tried to forget Kylie and make the best of things with Liesa. Kylie will be so much better off without me and this dysfunctional parade. With her contract fulfilled, she’s free to restart her life. I hope she leaves the island, goes to grad school, gets her CPA certificate and takes off. But I can’t picture her in business suits, trapped inside a high rise, brokering deals, and taking after her father. She belongs in the open, on the beach and under the waves. Diving suits her and I can’t think of her anywhere else.

  I stare at myself in my bedroom mirror and try on a smile. Liesa might be a professional bitch, but she’s a girl playing a part. Everyone in her life has used her and she’s probably had very few real relationships. She knows Jonas hired me to be her boyfriend, but she’s started trusting me and now I’m afraid she loves me.

  All week Liesa and Simone fight, both in front of the camera and in private. Simone finally gives up and acquiesces to a wedding on the beach at sunset. With only a week to plan, the expense of getting another venue, which would inevitably amount to paying off some other wedding party who has been planning their event for over a year, had been crazy and Jonas had weighed in on Liesa’s side.

  Kylie is the only girl I want, the one person I feel myself with. If only Kylie was walking up the aisle toward me, I’d be the happiest guy on the planet. I start imagining her in a flowing white dress, soft veil draped over her blonde hair and the view skips. She still walks down the aisle, a radiant smile lighting her face and her blue eyes sparkling with love for me, but she wears a short sundress and her hair bounces in that cute ponytail. That’s my Kylie, full of energy and life and ready for the next dive.

  A single rap on the door and it opens. My heart leaps with the ridiculous hope it’s Kylie. Alicia bursts in and shuts the door behind her.

  She stands with her arms akimbo, assessing me in my crisp white shirt, cummerbund, and tuxedo trousers, the bow tie hanging loose around my neck. “You clean up nice, bro. But this is fucked and you know it.”

  Yeah. I do know it. “Liesa may be a lot of things, but she knows fashion. That dress looks gr
eat on you. Thanks for being my best man.”

  She taps her foot. “It’s the last thing I want to do. You don’t belong with Liesa. You belong with Kylie.”

  That catches me off-guard. I didn’t know it was obvious to anyone else. It takes me a moment to recover. “Liesa and I deserve each other. Kylie is better off without me.”

  “You’re such an idiot. Liesa and Blake should be together. At least until the baby is born.”

  Baby? What? “Did you say…?”

  She gives me an of course kind of look, deepening her dimples. “Baby? Yeah.”

  I stare at her, trying to process this. It makes sense. Liesa’s weird moods. Their underwater summit meeting. Blake being at her house the night of Diana’s attack. “How do you know this stuff?”

  Her dimples deepen further. “It’s my special power.”

  “Does Blake know?”

  She considers that. “I don’t think so.”

  Maybe that’s why Liesa suddenly seems so impatient to marry me. Blake should know about a baby. But I’ll have to sort that out later. Right now, a guillotine waits for me on a sunset beach.

  Alicia steps close and starts to manipulate my tie. “I assume you’re protecting Kylie somehow. I wish you’d tell me the details. Maybe I can help.”

  She doesn’t know about the shower scene. I let her work on the tie. “You can’t help. I’m going to marry Liesa and we’ll both be fine. Kylie will live a great life without cameras intruding.”

  Alicia steps back and studies me. “Well, marriage isn’t forever, otherwise I’d be the first one to speak now and not forever hold my peace.”

  Marriage should be forever.

  Kylie, what have I done?

  Maybe I can divorce Liesa in a year or two. But between then and now, I have to be her husband. Sleep in the same bed, share our lives, maybe be a father to Blake’s baby. I might not know a lot about life, but I know there’s no good divorce. Even if it’s not a real marriage, it will be worse than breaking up with a girlfriend. However it works out, Liesa will be hurt and I still lose Kylie.

  Alicia grabs my jacket from the bed. “Beach wedding should mean barefoot and shorts. What’s with the monkey suit?”

  It feels like a straightjacket when I put it on. “Simone won.”

  Alicia opens the door for me and slaps me on the back. “Cheer up. There’s going to be a lot of champagne.”

  Forty-Three

  Kylie

  Diana, Blake, and I walk through the empty bungalow one last time. We donated our kitchenware and all the furniture to the same secondhand store where we bought it only a year ago. Despite the cramped space, it seems our footsteps echo off the empty rooms.

  It’s been a week since I stood in the back of Liesa’s great room and my world collapsed around me. A busy week, but one I walked through on autopilot. We contacted the landlord and ended our lease of the bungalow. I helped Blake sell his car and we took care of payments and packing, arranging flights, and doing everything necessary to cancel our lives in Cayman and pick them up in New York.

  “We had some good times here, huh?” Blake sounds as sad as I’d ever heard him.

  “You make the best garlic shrimp I’ve ever eaten,” Diana says, sounding as low.

  I clap my hands. “Okay, enough of this gloomy crap. We had a run of it. Some good, and it turned to shit. Time to move on to better things.” I’d give almost anything to collect our dowdy furniture and cracked dishes and return to the way it was before Zach blustered into our lives, before Liesa broke Blake’s heart, and before Diana had been attacked, back when we had high hopes and long days of sunshine.

  I try again to hit a high note. “We’ve got plans. Blake is going to be a successful lawyer, and Diana and I are going to conquer the world of finance.”

  Blake joins me in forced levity. “Nothing can stop us.”

  Diana looks worried. It might take her a while to embrace a challenge. For now, she needs time to heal.

  We file out, lock the front door, and stand on the cement slab. Our bags sit outside on the scruffy yard. Blake and I both have our large dive bags filled with gear. But we only have one bag each of the rest of our belongings.

  Blake finally says, “One thing about us, we travel light.”

  A black Lincoln pulls up in front of the house. I look at Blake. “I thought you called a taxi.”

  He frowns at the car. “I did. Maybe they were all busy and the company sent this?”

  The driver’s door opens and Mac pops out. “Good afternoon, Ms. Kylie. I’m here to collect you.”

  Diana stares at Blake and me gives me a questioning look. I jump off the porch. “Mac! I’m glad to see you again before I leave the island.”

  He flashes me a toothy grin. “It’s always a pleasure. You have not made it to my aunt’s fish house for conch fritters?”

  An unexpected pang of regret hits me. So many things I’ll miss about the island. “I’m sorry I never did.”

  He lets it roll off. “No problem. You will get ‘dere soon.”

  I pick up my dive bag to haul it to the trunk. “Sorry to say I won’t make it. We’re flying out today and I doubt I’ll be back.”

  Mac looks startled and he seems to take in the bags and Blake and Diana for the first time. “Oh?”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here? The taxi sent you to take us to the airport?”

  He hesitates one second, then spins around to hurry to the back of the car and open the trunk. “Yes. Of course. Dat is it.” He reaches for my bag. “Let me take dat.”

  I heft it up. “Got it. Can you help my friend with her bag?”

  Blake already has his dive bag slung over a shoulder and his duffle in his grip. It takes only a couple of minutes to get everything in the trunk and Diana and Blake settle in back. I sit up front with Mac, same as last time. It’s become natural for me to ride on the left side while the driver sits on the right. When we get back to the states it’ll take an adjustment to drive on the right again.

  “Are you still working for JK Investments?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the overwhelming sadness at leaving our home.

  “Oh yes. It is mostly good. I like driving Mrs. Knightly. ”

  I watch out the window, trying to memorize the deep green of the mango trees, the flashing brilliance of the hibiscus, and the flaming bougainvillea. The dripping pods of the tropical vines. I’ll miss Cayman, the laughing local people, the steel drum bands, the conch fritters and fresh fish. How will I live without the ocean? How will I survive without Zach?

  I rejoin our conversation. It sounds as if Mac had cut off his thought. “You like working for Mrs. Knightly, but not Jonas Knightly?”

  Mac gives me an amused side-eye. “I did not say dat, Ms. Kylie.”

  We hit a line of slow-moving cars backed up as far as we can see. Blake leans forward. “Do you know of any way around this? We don’t have a lot of time to spare for our flight.”

  Mac rolls down his window and sticks his head out. “I guess it’s something happening on Frank Sound, maybe a sunset t’ing. There is only one way to the airport, sir. I’m sorry.”

  My stomach starts that churn. No telling how long we’ll have to stay on the island if we miss our flight. It might be another week before we can book another one. We make slow progress.

  Blake drums his fingers on the back of the seat. Diana stares at the ocean, an unreadable expression on her face. I wish I could keep her here to grow strong on the beach. She isn’t ready to tackle so much change. But I can’t stay and she can’t make it alone.

  The sedan in front of us pulls to the side of the road and stops. Ahead of us, others in the line do the same. People—white, touristy-types—exit their cars and walk along the roadside. They’re dressed in island finery, which means clean shorts and sundresses, sandals instead of flip-flops.

  Blake frowns. “Must be some kind of event, I guess. This is as close as they can park.”

  Diana folds her arms. “Rich people
. They want to have a party and they don’t care who they inconvenience.”

  With cars pulling off, we make better progress, though it still might not get us to the airport in time.

  I try to keep my focus toward the sea and the sun on its way to the horizon. But my gaze keeps creeping to the people walking at a good clip along the road. I recognize a few of them from Liesa’s Life and the awful engagement party.

  Mac inches us closer to a pull-out on the beach side of the road. This is one of the nicest beaches on the island and usually not packed, since tourists tend to hang out on Seven Mile Beach. The small parking lot is full and a valet in white shirt and slacks stands in the entrance, directing drivers to park along the road. When he sees Mac, he grins and waves him in. Mac sticks his head out and the two exchange rapid Jamaican patios and laugh.

  This isn’t right. Why would we pull off the road? My stomach does a loop and drops to my feet.

  “Hey,” Blake perches on the edge of the backseat and leans close to Mac. “We need to get to the airport.”

  Mac eases the black boat of a car into the one remaining empty spot, as if it was saved for us.

  I spin to Mac. “You aren’t working for the taxi company, are you?”

  Mac pretends not to hear either of us as he parks and shuts the engine off. He pulls the keys out and starts to open his door.

  The well-dressed people stream through the lot on their way to the beach. Some of them pause to remove their sandals. Beyond the line of people, a tail of white satin brushes the blue sky. This is getting worse by the second. “Mac, what’s going on?”

  He pulls himself out of the car and shuts the door, hurrying to my side of the car.

  Blake’s hand clenches on the back of the car seat. He keeps his eyes on the swatch of white ribbon flapping in the breeze. “I don’t think we want to be here.”

  Diana is studying the scene and she gasps at the same time Mac sweeps my door open. “It’s their fucking wedding.”