Chapter Nine
Diana
I wake with a start as the engine cuts off.
I blink, staring out over the snowy landscape as my mind catches up.
Embarrassment creeps up my neck as I slowly raise my head and glance over at Ari.
He’s staring out his window, his face angled just enough for me to see the cut of his jaw, the slash of cheekbone visible beneath strands of ice-blond hair.
Regal. Commanding. Yet when he spoke of protecting his employees, of loyalty and commitment, I heard something else beneath the cool voice. Something fierce and primal that had made my skin grow hot and my heart drum a slow, steady beat against my ribs.
I start to speak. To tell him thank you for confiding in me.
And then I glimpse what Ari’s staring at. My mouth drops open.
“Wow.”
Black sand glimmers under the pale light of the setting sun.
It stretches west for what seems like endless miles.
The beach is narrow at high tide, a thin strip of midnight standing between the crashing waves of the Atlantic and the dramatic basalt columns creating random steps up the soaring hillside.
Pillars of dark stone jut out of the dark blue to the east, large stepping stones for some mythical Nordic creature, or a perch for a siren.
This is the kind of place where magic exists.
“Ari,” I breathe, “is this Black Sand Beach?”
He turns, but I continue to stare past him. Try to soak up everything: the distant hum of the waves crashing onto the shore, the wind whistling outside, the glittering water.
“Reynisfjara.”
His voice shivers through me, leaving my throat dry and my tongue tied up in knots as I look at him. His eyes are fixed on me, the same dark blue as the ocean behind him.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is.” He glances back at the beach. “My mother and I would spend hours driving the Ring Road on weekends my father was home. We always stopped here and walked along the beach.”
Another layer I didn’t expect in Ari Valdasson.
The love he has for his mom and her memory draw me in.
I can’t stop my admiration for a man who respected his mother, who not only listened but took her lessons on being a good leader and turned himself into who he is today.
Took charge when his father failed and led his company back from the brink.
I encouraged him to share. I just hadn’t anticipated how much his answers would make me like him. Make me want to know more.
He gets out and circles around to open my door for me. One brow arches up at my flats.
“Will those be okay for walking on the beach?”
“Better than heels.” I step out, pulling my coat tighter around me as an icy, biting wind whips through the nearly empty parking lot. “And if you think I’m missing out on walking the beach just because of my shoes, you’re wrong.”
One corner of his full lips quirks up before he looks away.
We walk past a dark, low-lying building with huge windows overlooking the beach.
A few people sit at booths inside, hands wrapped around mugs as they watch the crashing waves.
Tall, steeply sloped hills rise behind, shearing off at the tops into dramatic cliffs draped in snow.
“What’s it like in the spring?”
“Green.”
One word, yet I can picture it from the depth of emotion in his voice. Vibrant green, a lush carpet of it that follows those steep hills up to the craggy tops.
Two signs stand guard by the entrance to the beach, the left one topped with red, yellow, and green lights. The red light is flashing.
Ari points to the other sign with a map outlining the beach. “We won’t go far.”
I glance at several people walking close to the water’s edge. “Aren’t they—”
“Yes.” His answer is grim, abrupt. More like the Ari I’ve been around the last few days.
“Iceland is beautiful. But many don’t respect that beauty.
They take it for granted. Reynisfjara is renowned for its volcanic sand and basalt columns.
But it’s also known for sneaker waves.” He gestures to the water, the swirling waves just offshore.
Frowns at a man tugging a woman toward the water’s edge.
“Even on a calm day, the waves come out of nowhere and race up the beach.”
I grasp the lapels of my coat at my neck as another shiver traces down my spine. Ari’s eyes narrow.
“Does that change your perception?”
“No.” I look around, soak in the scent of the sea sharpened by the cold, the towering cliffs, the shimmering shore.
“Nature has always been a refuge for me. Iceland…” I glance farther down the shore to where the land rises toward the sky before turning into a plateau.
Part of the rise stabs out into the sea, a natural arch in the rock giving me a glimpse of the water beyond.
“It’s raw. Untamed. But it’s still…soothing. Peaceful.”
I probably sound crazy. But it’s true. Iceland speaks to both the wounded girl I once was and a streak of wildness that’s been pulsing inside me for months. The same wildness that drove me to go for a stroll with a random stranger in a museum and follow him to his bed.
With a soft sigh, I turn back to Ari. My breath freezes in my chest as he stares at me, his gaze intense yet surprisingly warm. Appreciative.
“ótaminn.” His slight smile sends my pulse skyrocketing. “I’m glad you can appreciate its wildness. Shall we?”
I shove my hands into the pockets of my coat as Ari and I walk onto the beach.
The sand gives gently beneath our feet. When I woke up this morning, I never in a thousand years would have imagined the day going like this.
My professional side is smarting, irritated that I couldn’t keep Ari and Xenakis on track.
They’re both so entrenched in their dislike of each other they can’t see anything else.
If, I think with a frustrated glance at Ari besides me, they would just talk, they would see how much their goals and interests align.
But, I also reluctantly admit, if Xenakis had talked to me the way he had talked to Ari this morning, I would have been displeased, at the very least.
“What are you thinking?”
His voice is low, curious.
“That I wish I could have kept things on track this morning.” I blow out a frustrated breath. “But I’ve made it through worse.”
I can feel Ari’s eyes on me as we walk along the upper part of the beach. He’s given me so much today. Far more than I expected. And it suddenly feels grossly unfair.
“My mother forfeited her parental rights when I was five.”
He doesn’t say anything. Simply listens as I allow myself to slip back into the past. To the spring day when I thought my mother was coming over to take me to my first dance lesson, only to overhear her tell my foster mother she was done. She didn’t want to be a mom. She didn’t want me.
To this day, I regret running after her. Crying out for my mom, begging for her to come back as she got in a car and drove away without a backward glance.
The last time I ever asked someone to stay.
“I bounced around a few foster homes. Some were okay. Some weren’t.”
He tenses beside me but stays silent. He’s thinking of my scars. When he doesn’t say anything, I let out a soft sigh of relief. I’m not ready to talk about them. Not yet, possibly not ever. Just these few words are hard enough.
But I owe him. Not because he expects me to share, but because he gave me those pieces of himself with no expectations. For a man like Ari, that means something.
It shouldn’t, I remind myself. But it does.
“No matter what, though,” I say, trying to inject some levity into my voice, “I could always go outside. Read. Walk. Dream.”
I walk a few steps before I realize Ari is no longer at my side.
I stop and turn. My breath catches in my chest. He’s standing with his feet planted in the sand, as though he rose from the ground itself.
The wind tears at his hair, draws strands across his sculpted face.
He stands firm, hands tucked in the pockets of his charcoal-gray coat, eyes pinned on me.
“What did you dream about, Diana?”
My throat tightens. In that moment, I can’t remember my childhood dreams. I can’t remember anything except what I dreamed about the last three months.
Him.
My tongue darts out, slides along my lower lip. His gaze fixes on my mouth, his eyes turning to fire.
And then his head whips to the side. The moment breaks as foreboding whispers across my neck a second before I follow his gaze and see it. A wave racing up the beach like a speeding train.
Straight toward the couple with their backs to the sea.
Ari
Fjandinn. Fokk.
The curses run through my head as the wave knocks the tourists off their feet. The man’s shouts and the woman’s terrified screams rise above the roar of the sea. White froth churns up the beach, swallowing them in a torrent of frigid water.
I sprint across the black sand, my feet sinking into the wet. The icy water sends a shock through my system as I dash in. The wave starts to recede, sucking them back toward the sea. I reach the man first, brace myself against the pull of the wave as I grab on to his arm and yank him to his feet.
“Where’s Kacey?” he gasps as he clings to my arm. “Where’s my wife? Kacey!”
I shove him toward the shore and turn. My heart catapults into my throat as my mind registers the flashes of white and green just feet away from me.
“Diana!”
She has a hand wrapped around Kacey’s, is struggling to stay upright and pull the panicking woman to her feet as the water angrily pulls at her legs.
I’m at her side in a few strides, reach down and grab Kacey’s other arm.
Kacey’s saturated clothes and shock have turned her into lead weight as she alternates between heaving sobs and shrieks.
Diana and I pull, stumbling backward until the wave finally lets go. The man is waiting for us, repeating Kacey’s name over and over as he rushes forward and starts to gather her in his arms. I step between them.
“Hey, get out—”
I plant my hands on his chest and shove. He stumbles back.
“You almost got both of you killed.”
The man starts to shake, his teeth chattering. “I didn’t think—”
“Obviously,” I snarl. “None of you do. You just ignore the warnings and then act as if you have no idea why it happened.” I point toward Kacey. “I saw her. She didn’t want to go that far. You were pulling her toward the water.”
“I just wanted a picture, I thought she was being—”
“The next time she tells you something, you better fucking listen. You don’t deserve to be her husband.”
The man’s mouth is open, eyes wide as he stares at me. I jerk my head in Kacey’s direction.
“Go.”
He stumbles around me. I turn just as Diana steps back and the man pulls Kacey into his arms. Kacey clings to him, sobbing as he tells her over and over how sorry he is. I stare at them, slowly regain control of myself.
Until I turn to Diana. She’s shivering, arms wrapped around her waist in her now drenched white coat. Her hair hangs in wet strands about her face. I glance down, grit my teeth when I realize she’s barefoot.
I stalk forward.
“You.”
She frowns. “What?”
I’m furious. Livid. Fool. Fífl. The anger is easier to latch on to. Better than the fear throbbing in my throat.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Her mouth drops open. “Me?”
“You could have been killed!”
“So could you!” she retorts.
Her shivering intensifies. I close the distance between us, wrap my arms around her waist, and haul her over my shoulder.
“Ari!” She wriggles against me. “Put me down!”
“You lost your shoes,” I snap back.
“I can still walk!”
“No.”
“I’m not a sack of potatoes—”
I shift her suddenly so she doesn’t have time to fight me. One quick shrug and she slides into my arms, one wrapped under legs and the other around the curve of her back. Her arms fly around my neck, her icy palms pressing against my skin.
“Ari…”
Her voice trails off as I look down. Our mouths are a breath apart. Adrenaline pumps through me, hot and fierce.
“Better?”
She presses her lips together and falls silent. The wind pierces my coat, tiny little knives slicing through the wool straight to my skin. Diana weathers it all with a stoic strength I can’t help but admire. But her shivering intensifies as I move quickly up the path to the parking lot.
I tighten my grip when we reach the car and she tries to slip out of my grasp.
“Open the door.”
She rolls her eyes as she does so. I set her in the seat and close the door, barely resisting the urge to slam it shut.
My gaze cuts to Kacey and her idiot husband as they walk across the parking lot.
Kacey is shivering, her eyes trained on the ground.
Her husband shoots me a furtive glance before quickening his pace.
“You staying close?”
He looks back over his shoulder. “Yeah, in Vík—”
“Get out of those wet clothes as quickly as you can.” I open my door. “And stay off the damn beach.”
I climb in, turn the car on, and blast the heat as I crank the seat warmers up as high as they’ll go. I grab my phone and type in a quick search.
“Excellent.”
“What?”
“There’s a hotel nearby.”
Diana’s shivering has already intensified. It doesn’t stop her from shooting me a look bordering on horrified. If the situation weren’t so dire, I would smile.
“Hotel?”
“We have to get out of these wet clothes.”
“But—”
I reach over and flip down the visor. “Look at yourself, Diana.” Slowly, she raises her eyes to the mirror. My own fear ratchets up a notch as I note the pallor of her skin, the faintest tinge of blue on her lips. “We have to get warm.”
“The restaurant—”
“Doesn’t have a shower and most likely wouldn’t have anything to change into. A hotel will at least have a blanket to wrap up in, if not a bathrobe, and it’s closer than Vík.”
I can see the moment she accepts our fate. She nods as she settles into the embrace of the seat, trying and failing to keep her teeth from chattering.
I slam my foot down on the gas and drive.