Chapter 8
Karina didn’t join them at breakfast the next morning.
By the time Steven stepped into the dining room, two plates balanced in his hands and his face already wore the look of a man who’d lost the morning before it began.
He set one plate in front of the empty chair beside him, then paused, as if seeing the seat for the first time.
Steam rose from the eggs. A rumpled serviette lay nearby.
“She’s at the marina, checking the excursion manifests,” he said before a question formed. He shrugged one shoulder, as if deciding whether to add more. “Or arranging the overthrow of a small government. She was vague.”
Adam glanced at Lucy, his dark eyes asking whether she’d spill the story of Karina’s tears on the pool deck.
She stabbed at her French toast, determined not to let Karina’s hurt become the day’s entertainment—or evidence for anyone’s side.
Her fork paused halfway to her mouth as she swallowed a thread of resentment.
Adam set down his cup. “Is she all right?”
Steven poured coffee. “She’s embarrassed. She feels like she did something wrong. Being publicly dismissed as your imaginary wife in front of two hundred colleagues isn’t exactly a career highlight.”
Adam’s lips tightened. “I didn’t dismiss her.
I said she was my assistant, which is what she is.
” He leaned back, a small rustle among napkins and cutlery.
Lucy recognized the impatience in the shift of his shoulders.
“People treated Lucy like some random tourist who wandered onto the ship and refused to leave.”
Silence settled. Lucy felt her pulse in her throat.
Steven tore open a sugar packet, spilling fine white crystals into his mug. He shook the empty paper in a slow frown. “I know why you said it. But it’s one thing for you to clarify; it’s another for Karina to stand there while everyone second-guessed her for years of work on your behalf.”
Lucy’s heart stuttered at the reminder. She swallowed and lifted her eyes, uncertain what she hoped to see. Karina had devoted years to making Adam look good.
The café door opened. Karina stepped in, wearing navy shorts and a crisp white Northstar polo.
A canvas tote slung over one shoulder, a clipboard tucked beneath her arm.
She kept her eyes behind dark sunglasses, but Lucy spotted the tension in her jaw.
Karina paused near the table, taking in every expression as though reading them for tomorrow’s meeting.
“Both passenger launches leave in twenty minutes,” she said, voice cool. “There’s also a service boat at three, for guides and equipment. If weather turns early, everything goes on the passenger launches—so no one wanders off without telling a guide.”
Her stare flicked over Steven. He nudged the plate she’d been expected to eat from but remained untouched. “Eat,” he said, pushing it closer. Karina took one triangle of toast. Lucy caught a flash of gratitude in her eyes—she was hungry but hardly in the mood.
Karina leaned forward. “What did I miss?”
Steven told her. “Adam wanted to know why you were crying.”
Lucy braced for Karina to shrink away, to dodge the question. Instead, Karina lifted her sunglasses, blinked, and looked Adam squarely in the eye. Her skin beneath her lashes was touched with concealer, but there were no real tears left to hide.
“I was humiliated,” she said. Her voice wavered for a moment, then steadied.
“You were right to correct people about Lucy, but I didn’t enjoy being corrected along with them.
” She chewed the toast deliberately, then continued.
“I’ve never called myself your work wife, and I didn’t ask anyone else to do it. ”
Adam’s frustration sounded drained of its edge. “I know.”
“Do you?” Karina asked, turning toward Lucy before Adam could answer. “Because it sounded like you thought I’d spent the last three years encouraging the joke. I wasn’t crying because I want to marry Adam. I was crying because you made me seem pathetic.”
Lucy cleared her throat. “I didn’t think you were crying over Adam.”
The words felt flimsy, but Karina only pressed her lips together and slipped her sunglasses back on. She checked her watch, tucked the clipboard under her arm, and rose. “If you want to help,” she said to Steven, “I’d appreciate it if you’d carry the first-aid backpack.”
Steven draped it over one shoulder. Lucy’s eyes flickered between them. The tension between Adam and Karina hovered like an unsettled current—unspoken, but strong enough to tug at everyone present.
Outside, the ship’s marina glistened under the rising sun.
Two white launches bobbed against the dock.
A smaller service boat waited under a peeling blue canopy, already loaded with coolers, umbrellas, and crates of snorkeling gear.
Its captain, Marcel, an older man with graying hair and a steady gaze, sipped his coffee as though unbothered by timetables.
Karina stood at the boarding gate, cross-checking names. Local guides handed out canvas dry bags for phones and wallets—though a few Northstar employees regarded the pouches as if forced surrender violated some basic human right. Lucy shuffled her phone forward.
“Don’t lose it,” she joked. “My whole life is in there.”
“Haven’t lost a phone yet,” Karina smiled back, sliding the phone into a zippered plastic pouch.
She tucked the pouch into her tote with the other devices. “The service boat leaves here at eleven, back by three after picking up guides. If you somehow miss both passenger launches, Marcel will get you home—if he’s in a good mood.”
Marcel raised his cup. “Three-fifteen, if the sea’s kind.”
“Three,” Karina corrected, marking Lucy’s name on the manifest. She looked up at Steven, who lingered over his phone.
Karina held out her hand. He passed the phone reluctantly, and she dropped it beside the rest. She handed him the red first-aid pack with a brief nod. “Now you can be useful.”
Adam negotiated with the guides and ended up keeping his phone in a waterproof pouch. Karina decided seating: Adam and Lucy on the first launch, Steven with Martin in the second.
Forty minutes later, they coasted along St. Lucia’s western shore.
High green mountains plunged to the sea, dotted with sleepy fishing villages and narrow beaches.
The Pitons rose in the distance, twin cones soft with haze, so perfect they looked staged for postcards.
Lucy watched frothy waves breakup against black volcanic rocks, salt drying on her lips whenever spray crossed the bow.
Karina sat up front, next to the captain’s wheel.
When she scanned the horizon toward the south, she looked worried.
A thick bank of clouds hovered beyond the distant coastline.
Lucy wondered if Karina was concerned about weather or something else—her gaze lingered on Adam for a heartbeat, eyes unreadable,.
“There may be rain after two,” Karina called over the engine hum. “Passenger launches may head back early, but Marcel’s service boat won’t leave until the gear’s stowed.”
When they pulled into the cove, it felt like discovering a secret Eden.
White sand curved between jagged black rocks, framing water so clear the reef looked painted on.
A narrow trail climbed through palms toward a lookout.
An old wooden shelter—roof half gone—stood by the treeline.
One guide explained it once housed rangers during turtle-nesting season, until last year’s hurricane tore it apart.
Northstar staff scrambled off the launch, spilling across the beach like startled birds. Some hunted shade under lean palm fronds. Others slipped into the shallows with snorkels. Marcel and another guide unloaded the coolers beneath a faded umbrella, talking fast in French Creole.
Adam was drawn into a low, intense conversation with Daniel and the local excursion operator, their heads bent over a sketch of visitor numbers traced in the wet sand.
Lucy stood nearby for a moment, the polite smile on her face tightening as she recognized the rhythm of a pitch—the same cadence Adam used during late-night strategy calls.
She’d worn her new swimsuit under her clothes for this.
She watched his finger circle a number, saw the operator’s eyes light up with interest, and felt something hot and sharp twist behind her ribs. Someone pressed a snorkel into her hand; she let it hang at her side like dead weight.
She moved to Adam’s side and touched his elbow. He turned with a distracted frown, his body still angled toward the operator. “What is it?” he asked, his voice low but edged. “Can it wait?”
Lucy’s own smile felt thin and transparent. “You said we’d hike to the lookout.”
“I know what I said.” He kept his voice down, but the impatience vibrated through his arm. “This is important. Give me ten minutes.”
“You said that an hour ago when we boarded.”
He shot her a look that was both apology and dismissal, already turning back to the men. “Lucy, not here.”
She stepped away, the snorkel dangling from her fist. Steven was leaning against a weathered rock, the first-aid pack making a red slash against his shoulder. His eyes tracked her retreat.
“You can’t stop him,” he said quietly. “Work’s like a noble gas—it fills every space.”
Lucy looked down at the snorkel in her hand, then let it drop onto the sand between them. “I’m considering a controlled explosion.”
Steven’s mouth curved without humor. “Karina’s been considering one for years.”
They set off toward the trail. Lucy looked back at Adam. He caught her eye and held up one finger—she recognized the sign as ‘just sixty seconds more, please.’ She lifted five fingers in reply and pointed toward the forest. Beyond the reef she saw more clouds gathering.
Karina hovered by the launch with the manifests. Lucy caught her watch-check. “You have an hour, maybe an hour and a half,” Karina called. “If the passenger boats leave early, stay with Marcel. The service boat won’t go until everything’s loaded.”
“An hour,” Marcel added, tightening a cooler latch.
Karina shot him a look. “Less if Steven complains the entire way.” The corner of Karina’s mouth quirked—sharp, private.
“Well, let’s head up then. If we wait for Adam to be done with his conversation, we won’t have a chance to see the island from the top.
” Lucy turned and led Steven into the shade of the canopy.
The path climbed almost immediately, steep and littered with leaves.
For the first five minutes Steven fussed about bugs, the incline, the humidity.
Then he fell silent, breathing in time with Lucy’s strides.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy in shifting squares.
Lizards darted across leaf litter. Far below, the sea beat against stone in a slow, hollow rhythm.
Lucy’s legs burned pleasantly; in her mind she replayed Karina’s quiet humiliation that morning.
She wondered how long Karina had held her feelings inside before letting them go last night.
At the top of the incline, the cove sprawled beneath them like a jewel.
The white launches bobbed near shore; the service boat rested on the sand beside the loaded gear.
The employees, now tiny colored dots beneath umbrellas, seemed forgotten by time.
Lucy perched on a sun-warmed rock. Sweat cooled at her hairline.
Steven, breathing a little harder than before, knelt to snap photos with his waterproof camera. “Never mind your phone,” he said. “This thing survives waves, falls, and bad decisions.”
They stayed longer than planned. Steven spotted another viewpoint farther down the ridge, and they followed until the forest peeled away to open ocean. Salt haze danced in the breeze. Lucy closed her eyes, lifted her face to the wind, tasted freedom.
When they turned back, afternoon clouds had thickened. The trail looked darker under gray skies. Rain fell first as soft drops, then heavier, warm and sudden, hammering leaves overhead.
They broke into fast walk, then a run, slipping around roots and mossy stones. Lucy’s laughter tangled with Steven’s as he skidded and caught himself by an oak trunk.
She burst onto the beach—then froze.
Empty.
Sand was smoothed as if no one had stepped here in days. The towel stakes and umbrellas were gone. Cooler crates vanished. The service boat, with its blue canopy, had slipped into the sea without a trace. Even the equipment lay missing. Gray water lapped at the shore under flat skies.
Both passenger launches were gone.
Lucy’s heart thundered. She stared at the horizon. Two solitary wakes faded in the distance where the launches had pulled away. Lucy’s legs trembled. She’d heard Karina’s warning: boats left early in storms. But they hadn’t had a watch.
“Steven,” she called, voice tight. She sank to her knees, touching cool wet sand. Fear rolled up her spine. Her phone—sealed in Karina’s tote—would have been useless here anyway. No signal. No help.
Steven jogged to her side, eyes wide. He set the camera strap around his neck. “They left,” he said, shoulders slumping. “All of them.”
Lucy swallowed. The rain slackened into a steady drizzle. A wave broke at her feet, pulling in seaweed thin as hair. She closed her eyes and listened: only wind, water, and the memory of engines fading beyond the curve of rocks.
Across the sand, a single set of footprints led to the water’s edge. She stood, brushing wet hair from her face.
Lucy inhaled. Stranded here, she felt how small they were against the vast sea and the darkening clouds above.