by Jamie Pope
“So now what? How long is this supposed to go on?”
“Not forever. I promise. Until then, just try to enjoy yourself.”
* * *
He told her to try to enjoy herself when she was there. And she could enjoy herself. There were parts of her day when she was perfectly happy, when she was with King or Jack or Darby. When she was cooking or swimming or just chatting. She loved the beauty of her surroundings and if it weren’t for the uncertainty hanging over her head, this would be the best time of her life.
Cullen had tried to help.
You owe her a conversation.
But her father wouldn’t give her that. It was the only thing he had ever denied her, except the truth.
Wynter refused to take his refusal. She refused to wait for him to explain. She snuck away the next morning, making the long walk into town. There was a little coffee shop she had seen when she had gone grocery shopping with Cullen. One that had Wi-Fi. She had taken her iPad with her, the one she brought along with her when she foolishly thought she was going to be able to catch up on reading. But her mind couldn’t concentrate on fictional words. She craved fact.
The coffee shop was quiet, sleepy in a way that the one she frequented in D.C. could never be. No one was impatiently waiting for their order. There were no flustered baristas trying to get through a huge line of caffeine-deprived customers. She ordered a large cup of coffee and a guava turnover. She had planned to get right to work, but she didn’t turn on her iPad at first. She sat there and sipped her strong, piping-hot coffee as she stared out the window at the ocean in the distance. There was a breeze blowing, causing the palm trees to sway gently. Everything was so calm. So blue and green and vividly gorgeous. Her hometown wasn’t like this, but she wondered if there was beauty there that she was missing, which she had taken for granted because her head was so focused on work. There was nothing else to distract her. No family or love or even close friends. Just work.
A sadness swept through her. That wasn’t much of a life at all.
When she left here that would need to change. There was fun to be had. Joy to be experienced. How had she forgotten that?
She had only been on the island for six days, but she had already learned that one thing about herself. She was preventing herself from living a fuller life.
She turned on her iPad and connected to the internet. She didn’t have to perform a search for her father’s name. His picture was splashed on her homepage.
THE MISTRESS AND THE FUTURE MR. PRESIDENT
Wynter’s eyes poured over the article. Another letter had been released. There was a photograph of it. Big, loopy feminine writing on folded notebook paper. It wasn’t on scented stationery. It wasn’t sealed with a kiss. It somehow made it more real for Wynter.
The contents of the letter were below the picture, but Wynter couldn’t bring herself to look at it yet. Her eyes kept going back to the picture of her father. Her entire life, she had been told he was an important man. He looked important in his designer suit. He looked powerful.
She had believed in his politics. In taking care of veterans, in fighting corruption, in educating the people on their rights. But what if it all was a sham?
She forced herself to read the letter. It was the second one released, but it was written before the other one, the more explosive one.
W,
I still remember the first time I saw you. You were in your office. Your shirtsleeves rolled up. Your tie was off. Your shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. I had never seen a man so beautiful. I was supposed to vacuum your floor, but I was terrified to interrupt you. I knew you were working on something that would change the world. And now I’m working on something that will change the world. You helped create her, of course, but I’m growing her and I can tell she’s going to be healthy and strong and brilliant just like her father. I’m trying to stay happy, but it’s hard for me here. I can only go outside for an hour a day and you know how jumpy I get, how I can’t stay still. How I vibrate with energy and sometimes just want to run and run until I feel free, but I can’t do that here. Everyone keeps telling me that I have to be careful for my baby, so they watch me all the time. I would never hurt her. You know that, don’t you? I’m going to try harder this time. And I know it will be okay, because I have you in my corner this time. I don’t have to be alone.
I’m sorry for what happened. I know you say you’re not upset with me, but sometimes I think you are. Sometimes, I think you won’t ever be able to forgive me. You don’t look at me the same way. I think out of everything that happened that kills me the most. I love you. I love you more than any man I have ever known and I want to be with you, in whatever way we can. Will you come see me soon? My belly grows every day. I need you to see it. To rub it. To hug me and tell me everything is going to be okay. Promise me you will.
All my love,
G
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
Wynter looked up to see a young woman in an apron beside her. It was then she realized she had tears running down her cheeks. “Yes. Excuse me. I’m fine. I was just reading something incredibly sad.”
She had gone back to the compound after that and laid low for the rest of the day. All the other members of the community had been preoccupied with their own things. Jack went to work. Cullen was helping Darby and King fix something that had gone wrong in one of the currently unoccupied cottages.
Jazz was the only one around when she walked up to the community house later that afternoon. She was rummaging around in the refrigerator, looking for something.
“Damn it,” she cursed. “Sometimes I can’t stand living with all men.”
“Really?” Wynter asked, causing Jazz to stiffen. “I’m starting to think it is better to live with all men than all women.”
“Sometimes I think it might be better if I lived completely alone.”
“I lived completely alone. You can’t blame anyone for eating the last of the ice cream, but there’s no one there to fill up the quiet times. No one to have dinner with. No one to talk to or laugh with.”
“Aren’t you a goddamn ray of sunshine today?”
Wynter shook her head. “Sorry. I just meant that what you have here is nice.”
Jazz looked at her suspiciously. “What’s your plan? How long are you going to be here?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe another week or so.”
“And after that? What is your plan for Cullen?”
Wynter knew that Jazz could sniff out a lie a mile away, so she chose her words very carefully. “I think you should be asking him what his plan is for me.”
“You don’t know?”
“He’s hard to read and he’s not one to talk about his feelings. You know that.”
Jazz nodded. “None of us are. Except for King.” She frowned. “Someone who used to beat the shit out of people for a living shouldn’t be so damn sensitive.”
“I think he would be a good father. I could just picture him with a houseful of kids. They would never go for one second thinking they were unloved.”
“You’re romanticizing it. No one is a perfect parent.”
“Of course not, but I think King would be a great one.”
“What about Cullen? Do you think he would be a good father?”
“Yes,” she answered carefully. “I’m not sure he wants children, though.”
Jazz raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You’ve never had that conversation?”
“No. When Cullen and I met, I don’t think he ever intended for us to be a couple, much less a serious couple. There’s a lot of conversations we haven’t had. There are some we might never have, but I promised myself that I was no longer going to live in the past or the future. I can only live for now.”
“You sound like a self-help book.”
“Maybe.” She smiled at Jazz. “I haven’t lived an eighth of the life you have. I promised myself that I would never be like my father, but I’m more like him than I want to be.
All I’ve done is work. I don’t want to look back twenty years from now and see that all I have to show for it is nothing.”
“Is that why Cullen brought you here? To give you an experience you’ve never had?”
“I don’t know. I think he probably felt sorry for me. Things have been rough at home.”
“What happened?”
“Ah.” Wynter shook her head. “I will only tell you about my dark and twisty secrets if you tell me about yours.”
Jazz’s lips curled into a slight smile and Wynter was struck by how gorgeous she was. Cullen wouldn’t be with her because King loved her. She wondered where the pair would be if a nearly twenty-year friendship didn’t stand in the way. “Touché. Keep your secrets, girl. Lord knows we’ve all got them here.”
* * *
Cullen had barely seen Wyn that day. He had been working on one of the empty houses. A storm had done some damage to the roof during hurricane season and now they were finally getting around to fixing it. It was one of the cottages they rented out. It was on the far side of their property, with its own entrance from the road. Well away from their crew’s homes.
It was how they brought in income during the tourist season. They each had their own jobs. Jack recruited and transported guests. Darby maintained the grounds. King did most of the upkeep on the cottages and Jazz took care of the marketing, website, and books. Cullen just helped out wherever he was needed, whenever he could. He worked most of his time off-island, while the others stayed on nearly the entire year, taking small jobs here and there whenever the offer was juicy enough. His friends were experts in acquiring information. Normally, he would turn to them if he needed help, but this time he couldn’t. He would have to let go of his own secrets in order to do that. Protecting Wyn’s privacy was his number-one priority.
He needed to find out who her mother was. Bates needed to be the one to tell her and Cullen was still holding out hope he would, but in the meantime, he was gathering all the information he could. It would be his present to Wyn before he left her. He had made up his mind. As soon as he returned to D.C., he was going to resign. The lines were already blurring between them. He was feeling things for her he shouldn’t feel. He thought the island and this charade they were playing was to blame, and maybe if they returned to D.C. and back to their normal roles, whatever was between them would fade away. But if he was being honest with himself, he would admit that maybe these feelings weren’t new. Maybe he had felt them for her long before he had ever felt her body pressed against his. And that was no good. Even if he still worked for her when they left here, he wouldn’t be able to forget how her mouth tasted, or how her hands felt when she brushed them over his scars. He would want more of her. More than he deserved.
Wynter was on the other side of the dinner table from him, sitting in between Darby and Jack. She was listening to Darby tell a story about growing up in the desert in Australia, with a aboriginal mother.
“She’s sad today,” he heard Jazz say from beside him.
“What?” He turned to her, surprised by her observation.
“Your girlfriend is sad. You should probably find out what’s wrong with her.”
“I agree with Jazz on this one,” King said. “If someone with no feelings can tell, then it’s incredibly obvious.”
“I have feelings,” Jazz shot back.
King’s expression hardened and he shook his head. “Yes, you feel things. Annoyance, anger, disgust.”
“I want you to stop being mad at me,” she said seriously. “I don’t like it.”
“Now we both have things we don’t like.”
“King . . .” For a moment Cullen saw something that looked very much like vulnerability cross Jazz’s face. She kissed King’s shoulder. “I hate it.”
He shook his head again and turned back to Cullen. “Make sure your woman is happy, okay? I’m going to bed early.” He got up from the table and walked away.
Jazz stared after him and it made Cullen wonder what the hell had happened between his friends. He had always known that King had loved Jazz, but the last time he was there he had suspected that something had been going on between them. Now he was certain. But they were adults and their relationship was something they were going to have to figure out.
He had his own issues.
He turned his attention back to Wynter. He knew she had been upset, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He had placed a few calls today, but her father had covered his tracks extremely well. There was a reason he wanted to keep Wynter’s birth mother a secret and it wasn’t just because she was the product of an affair. It had to go much deeper.
In order to pull his attention away from Wynter, Cullen got up from the table and started clearing plates. He cleaned the kitchen. Night had already fallen on the island. They would have to return to their cottage soon. It was the hardest time of the day for him. He lay alone in his room, knowing that she was just a few feet away, in her bed, barely dressed. He couldn’t distract himself with other things. He couldn’t escape her.
“Let me help you.”
She came up beside him, drying the dishes, her arm brushing his as he they worked. They didn’t say a word to each other, but his friends were right. He could feel her sadness today. It was heavier than before and as soon as they were done in the kitchen, he took her hand and led her back to their cottage.
“It’s our turn to cook tomorrow,” she said. “What do you want me to make?”
“Stop thinking about tomorrow and what I want. Just relax.”
“Sorry. I can’t seem to. You know how much I’m used to working.”
“I do. Why don’t you go take a bath in my room? Actually, I’m not giving you an option. I’ll run it for you.” He brought her into his bedroom.
“You don’t have to do that. I can run my own bathwater.”
“I know, but why should you have to when I’m willing to do it?”
“Don’t be so nice to me. I’m not sure I can take it today.”
He looked down at her. Her sadness was so deep. It looked as if tears were going to form in her eyes at any second. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. He knew he shouldn’t have done it, but he couldn’t help it. “What’s the matter, pretty lass?”
“Nothing.” She rested her face against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m just tired.”
She was lying to him, but he didn’t push. He knew what it was like not to want to have someone invade his private thoughts. “Let me run you a bath.”
“Mmm,” she moaned. “Can we just stay like this a little while longer?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to let her go. He knew he should, but he didn’t want to. He wasn’t just giving her the comfort she needed, he was getting something in return.
He rubbed his hands down her back and shut his eyes. When was the last time he held somebody like this? When was the last time he felt this kind of warmth?
He had fallen in love, or what he thought was love, with a girl right before he went into the military. Her name was Lola, but he was never really sure if that was her actual name or one she had invented to escape the life she was handed. She was a street kid like he had been, born and dragged up in East London. Her family was shit, just like his was, her mother kicking her out every time she had a new boyfriend. She was a thief, mostly stealing food, but she could lift a wallet in less than ten seconds.
She would disappear for days and when she would return, she would be bruised and damaged and he would hold her. Not quite like this, but he would cradle her, comfort her, wanting to save her from all her troubles when he could barely keep himself afloat.
He was feeling that now. The need to save Wyn, but she didn’t need saving.
He felt her soft, warm hands slip up the back of his shirt, her fingers tracing his scars. There wasn’t another time he could recall allowing this to happen, letting someone touch his scars like this. He used to try to hide them, embarrassed by them, but it had become
too much of a chore, yet still he never talked about them. He never allowed a lover to caress him there, but that was because he had never let another woman touch him like this. There had been sex before, but no intimacy. But this was intimate. The fact that her warm lips were pressed against his neck was intimate.
“You’re kissing me.”
“I am,” she said, briefly lifting her lips from his neck.
“You shouldn’t be.”
“I know.” She kissed his chin and up his jawline. These were no longer sweet kisses; they had turned arousing. She was trying to seduce him. He grasped her shoulders and set her away from him. He couldn’t think with her body pressed against his.
“What are you trying to do to me?” he asked her seriously. He had never felt this way with anyone else.
“I’m not trying to do anything,” she whispered. “Whenever I’m close to you . . .” She trailed off.
“What? Say it.”
“I want to touch you. And I want you to touch me.”
“Why?” He didn’t understand her. Why was this attraction was so strong now?
“Because you turn me on in a way that no one has and even hours after I touch you, I still feel you. I still think about you. I will go to bed thinking about you and will run my hands all over my body, wishing they were yours.”
He felt a sharp spike of anger—not at her, but at himself, because he was about to do something stupid, something he couldn’t take back.
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close to him. “No sex.” He unzipped her little floral printed dress. Her back was the opposite of his: smooth, not marred by grotesque scars.
“Why can’t we have sex?” she asked as he kissed her shoulder.
“You know why.” He peeled her dress down, revealing her body to him. She wasn’t as outrageously curvy as Jazz, but he found her so incredibly sexy. Even the way she held her head as she looked at him. She held herself with grace all the time.
“I don’t.”
“I work for you.”