Chapter 23
When Fletcher stirred awake, she’d been trapped.
Waylon’s sleep-heavy arm slung around her waist. The tree house mattress molded around them, as if they were one entity, and she allowed herself the small pleasure of nuzzling in tighter.
She could’ve stayed in this dreamy microcosm for the rest of eternity—just them, the melting shadows and honeyed daybreak, the feel of his bare skin against hers.
Wanted to. But she knew that she couldn’t.
Jackie was their biggest remaining threat.
Waylon would never forgive her if he found out she’d lied to him to take advantage of his Lydell knowledge.
And, sure, this fit firmly in the desperate times, desperate measures category, but that wasn’t how the heart kept score.
She’d used him. Pressed the same purpled bruise left by everyone else who treated Waylon like a chessboard pawn.
But if Fletcher went back on her word to Jackie, it wouldn’t just be the Cartwright Media gig she’d lose.
Revenge was a seven-letter word Jackie knew well, and as one of the industry’s most well-respected editors, one email to anyone in her contact list would blacklist Fletcher from every major publication. That was, if she didn’t kill her first.
“Waylon?” Fletcher whispered.
He groaned. His mouth brushed against her neck with some unintelligible assortment of consonants and vowels.
“We need to get to the marina.”
Waylon shushed her with his lips against her shoulder, and it worked, because every argument on Fletcher’s tongue dissolved like spun sugar. “Too early,” he muttered, groggy and slow. “Five more minutes.”
“You know we should—”
Wriggling around to face him, Fletcher knew her mistake immediately. One look at the relaxed planes of his face, and her treasonous heart squeezed with a twinge of emotion she couldn’t name or didn’t want to.
Half-lidded eyes batted, embers still burning from the fire they’d stoked the night before. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and peeled his mouth into a grin. Peaceful, unbothered, satisfied.
“What’s the rush? I love seeing you undone.” Waylon pulled Fletcher flush with his chest, pinning her so there was nowhere to run. “Why don’t we just stay? The rescue crew is coming. And if I’m lucky, so are you.”
This side of him, unreserved and flirty, made lying to him so much worse.
Fletcher buried her face against his skin, never so grateful he couldn’t see the expression she made.
She swallowed evenly. Breathed evenly. But her heart stirred around her chest, nervous and off-kilter.
He must have felt it. He could probably read her heart’s rhythm like Morse code, decrypt her secrets like they were plain text.
The second they left this treetop perch and their feet hit solid ground, everything would change. The bubble would pop.
Maybe it didn’t have to.
Waylon’s reluctance to reach the marina was hard to argue with, especially wrapped in his cedar-and-amber scent, blissfully exhausted.
No one would find them here. Even if they did, with neither of them vying for the company, no one should feel threatened by their presence once the rescue crew arrived.
Besides, once Jackie got the island out of her system, she’d come to her senses. Return to the polished, pristine woman Fletcher knew in New York. And, if Fletcher got really lucky, keep her word about offering Fletcher a position on the Jet-Setter staff.
Waylon would never have to know she’d gone behind his back.
When she didn’t immediately answer, his fingers trailed against the delicate skin behind her knee, scuttled toward her thigh. A touch so faint she thought at first she’d imagined it. The higher it inched, the more obvious it became. Playing dirty.
“Okay, okay. We can stay here while we wait for the rescue crew.” She squirmed in his grip, biting down a laugh. “That tickles.”
“What does?”
“Your hand on my leg.”
Except both of Waylon’s hands curled around her shoulders. So unless he’d grown a third arm in the last thirty seconds…
Fletcher flung the blankets off in one big ripple, and then her heart stopped beating entirely. A spider the size of a silver platter crawled up her thigh.
“Oh my god!” she yelled, at the same time that Waylon shouted, “Don’t scream!”
Easy for him to say. He didn’t have Shelob scuttling up his bare leg. Her arms flailed, one of her hands hitting the spider’s meaty legs, and it lost its grip. Its giant, fuzzy grip.
The spider plummeted to the floor and righted itself, rearing back for another deadly attack.
“It’s just Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Waylon said, way calmer than any single naked person should sound in the presence of a creature that unholy.
Fletcher swore Arnold shot her a judgy look. Her chest heaved. “What do you mean just Arnold Schwarzenegger? You named the tarantula?”
“Technically, I think he’s a huntsman spider.” Waylon flipped a wicker basket over and contained the spider. Barely. The basket shuffled toward Fletcher with a vendetta. This was a million times worse than the bush baby. This spider ate bush babies for breakfast.
She hopped on the bed, though it hardly seemed safe now, and shook out one of the blankets before swaddling herself in it, just to be sure Arnold didn’t bring any body-building friends. “I’m sorry. Just so I’m clear. When did you and Mr. Schwarzenegger become so well acquainted?”
“Twelve hours ago, give or take. We made introductions while you were in the shower.” Made introductions. Like they met for coffee to discuss next quarter’s stretch goals. “I trapped him under the basket last night, but I guess he got out.”
“You guess?”
The basket lurched on cue. Fletcher inched back toward the headboard, determined to put as much distance as possible between her and Arnold, in case he decided to reprise his role as the Terminator.
“I am not nearly clothed enough for this,” she said before unceremoniously yanking the heap of khaki off the floor and marching downstairs, wearing the blanket like a royal cape. Waylon’s amused laugh followed after her.
Fletcher took advantage of hot running water with another shower. She dressed quickly, back in Waylon’s shirt and a clean pair of too-loose trousers but this time with a typical number of undergarments, much to Waylon’s dismay.
She hadn’t meant to wander into Tiffany’s office, but curiosity got the best of her. Curiosity, and a leather case on the painted desk in a familiar shape. Fletcher couldn’t help the way her breath lodged at the back of her throat, hope sprouting between her ribs.
With careful fingers, she unlatched the buckle and opened the lid, revealing the sleek black-and-silver body of a Leica camera. In one of the pockets there was a roll of film Fletcher uncapped and slotted in with shaking fingers. (This camera was easily worth two months of rent.)
She clipped a leather strap to the camera and hung it around her neck, feeling like gravity had returned for the first time since she left New York.
Peeling the viewfinder up to her eye, Fletcher saw the studio in a new light. The way the sun rays filtered through the arched window, how the jungle tapped against the pane, asking to be let in. For a moment, everything else disappeared.
This. This was why she wanted to be a photographer.
As the lens came into focus, so did Fletcher’s resolve. Her future as a photographer couldn’t be collateral damage from this hellish company retreat. One way or another, she’d find her footing in the industry.
When a blanched Waylon halted in the doorway, dressed in a fresh T-shirt and black pants, Fletcher clutched the camera to her chest, caught. A reticent pink seeped into her cheeks. “I should have asked. Do you mind…?”
But Waylon didn’t answer. He’d gone totally catatonic. The envelope from Dyer dripped from his fingertips, plucked from where they’d forgotten it on the counter last night.
“Waylon?” Her mouth gave his name too many syllables. Dragged out the Way, drifted off with the lon. “What is it?”
“There is no rescue crew.”
“What?”
Once more: “There is no rescue crew.”
Fletcher’s heart got the memo, pulse skipping and blood pressure rising, but her brain couldn’t catch up. “What do you mean?”
“There is no rescue crew, Fletcher.”
She stepped closer. “What’d the letter say?”
He shifted his weight onto the doorframe. Defeat dragged down his shoulders, his spine. Limply, he raised the envelope to her.
Waylon hadn’t opened it neatly. Toothy paper snags rimmed the seam, and Fletcher unfolded the single piece of paper that had been tucked inside. There was nothing personal about it. Typed on company letterhead and signed with crisp blue ink, the way all Dyer Cartwright correspondences were.
Waylon,
By now I’m gone, and Cartwright Media’s fate rests in your hands as we always knew it would someday. I apologize that someday came sooner than either of us hoped.
On the flash drive, you’ll find my last will and testament along with a video I’ve recorded for everyone.
Everything I say is true, unless you count lying by omission as a falsehood.
The whole truth is this: I’ve made more mistakes than I can count.
My trusted confidants proved untrustworthy.
I was made to believe you were unsuitable to lead and told that the company would fail if I let you inherit it.
I never quite liked being told what to do. We have that in common.
This trip is a necessary loophole. A way to reinstate your legitimacy as my heir without stirring suspicion before it’s too late.
Unfortunately, there’s a traitor among you, a bad seed poisoning the crop.
I could not allow them to fall into power.
There is no rescue crew coming. While the others argue among themselves, leave.
Find Tiffany and call for everyone else’s rescue once you’ve finished the paperwork. My legacy has always belonged to you.
Sincerely,
Dyer Cartwright