Anders
“Good morning,” I say, placing my fork next to my eggs. I’m half done with breakfast when Emily plops into the chair next to me.
“Good morning.” There’s a quick flash of her rosy pink cheeks before her hair covers her face—locking me out.
She intently studies the mounds of breakfast food down the center of the table with more focus than I’ve ever seen her have on food.
There’s a nugget of rage building deep within me.
If he touched her without her consent . .
. I don’t care who Thayer’s father is. I’ll kill him.
“Everything okay?” I’m focused on her. Watching every movement.
“Yes, everything is fine.” She laughs, but it doesn’t put me at ease. “Did you sleep well? At least this prison has good food, right?” she asks without turning toward me.
I’m resisting the powerful urge to pull back her curtain of strawberry blonde hair that’s keeping her profile from me.
“The food’s good. And I slept okay. How about you?
” I’m not interested in the food. I’m way more interested in what is making her act so odd.
This just sitting around has my leg bouncing.
I keep my gaze on her until she looks at me.
“Yes.” She tosses the napkin on her lap. “No, I didn’t. I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Good—the lying part, not the not sleeping well.” I lose the battle and pull her hair back, tucking it behind her ear.
“I made a pillow wall, and all night I kept waking up and rearranging it.”
“You rearranged it on my head once,” Thayer says, strolling into the dusky blue formal dining room. He snags a piece of bacon from the serving tray.
“Sorry. No, I’m not sorry. Next time I’ll make sure I put some pressure on it.” Emily laughs again.
“That would solve half of our problems,” I say, picking up my fork. I suddenly have some appetite back.
“As much as I hate my asshole father, you wouldn’t want to see what he would do to avenge my death.” Thayer takes a second piece of bacon.
I hold my fork in the air, half pointing at him in his charcoal gray suit. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. Don’t kill the man in his sleep, Emily. We need to be able to pin it on someone else.”
“That’s a plan.” She blows over the top of her coffee cup. “Thank you.” She lifts the cup to me. I made it for her a while back to let it cool off. It’s more milk and sugar than coffee.
“You’re welcome. I know you’re not a coffee person. They’re making you some iced tea for later.”
“Oh, thank God.” She puts the cup back on its saucer. “I need the caffeine after last night, but—” She wrinkles her nose at the cup.
Thayer clears his throat, cutting her off. “I’m going into London today. The rest of the staff will return tomorrow morning.” Thayer nods to Ryder on his way out the door, and Ryder takes the seat on the other side of Emily.
“Ah, the asshole is leaving for the day. What a shame,” Ryder says with a song in his voice. “The day really is looking up.” He wiggles his eyebrows at Emily and takes an apple from the fruit bowl.
“Where’s Oliver?” Emily cranes her neck around the room like the royal’s hiding under the table.
“I haven’t seen him this morning,” I answer her.
Like a summoned demon, Oliver saunters in. He’s wearing a bright blue suit with a red tie. His normally shaggy dark hair is slicked back in the way he has it when he’s out on his royal duties.
“You’re dressed up,” Emily says.
“I have a quick family event, but I’ll be back tomorrow night. Or the morning after at the latest.”
“Taking the family jet?” Ryder pours himself a cup of coffee.
“No need. High-speed rail takes only a little longer and doesn’t wreak havoc on the environment.” He presses a kiss to the top of Emily’s head. “I’ll bring you back a surprise.”
Emily smiles.
“You want him to bring you a present?” I’m a little shocked. Emily isn’t the sort of woman you can impress with gifts. She could buy anything she wanted, though she doesn’t normally like material things.
“He didn’t say present, he said surprise. And I was smiling more because he’s taking the train. I love trains.”
“Me too.” But I don’t love the way that Emily’s looking at Oliver.
I’m going to have to live with the regret of not acting on my feelings.
I didn’t tell her how I felt when we were in Miami.
I should have. Instead, I let my obligations to my family stand in the way.
And now here we are. Emily and a pack of guys.
“I’m off.” Oliver waves to Ryder and me before going, but he stops under the arched doorway and turns around. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m sorry I have to go.”
“It’s okay. Your family needs you. Family always comes first.” Emily waves.
Oliver’s brow furrows, but he gives her a quick nod before he leaves the room.
“So what should the three of us do today?” I ask.
“I have to tell the rest of my friends and family about the . . .”
“Wedding,” I provide for Emily. I hate the word too.
“Yes, the wedding.” Her lips strain into a thin line.
“Holloway,” Ryder yells and charges out of the room. He ducks his head back in for a moment. “Sorry, I’ve got an idea. Be right back.” He vanishes, but his voice booms down the hallway. “Holloway!”
“I guess he has an idea,” I say.
“Sounds like it.” She nibbles at her plate of fruit and eggs. “I told my friend, Lilith. She didn’t take it well.”
I shrug. “That sounds about right. If you’d told me, I would have thought you’d lost it.”
“I would hope so. We were dating, but we weren’t dating. I’d be upset if you told me you were getting married a week after we . . .”
Now I’m the one smiling at the memory of our time together in her house. “I’m not saying I’m still not upset, but to me, your safety will always come first.”
She nods. “I still wouldn’t like it even though we never defined anything.”
“Me too.” I take her hand and hold it on my lap.
“I still don’t know why.”
I nod. “It’s complicated.” I don’t want to have this conversation now.
“You said that before.”
“I did. I’m not sure I ever want to be in a relationship where the other person has to depend on me.”
Emily pulls her head back, recoiling like a dog about to attack. “What?”
“I don’t think it would be wise.”
“Anders? Are you serious?”
Now I’m the one shrinking back. “Yes.”
“You are one of the most dependable people I’ve ever met.
You carry the responsibility of others on your shoulders all the time.
Without you, the raft would have been chaos.
The fishing trawler would never have spotted us without everything you did.
And after we got back . . . I would have completely lost it while we were trying to find Easton and the others.
I . . . you . . . You think you’re not dependable? ”
“No, not now. But maybe in the future.”
“In the future? Your whole personality is going to slip through your fingers, and you’re going to become what? A reckless, narcissistic asshole? I don’t want to see you change.”
“No . . . maybe. It’s just best that someone’s whole life isn’t built around mine. That I’m not the only person anyone depends on.”
Her nose wrinkles. “But you want to be captain of a ship. Or rather, you are a captain of a fishing ship. I’m so confused.”
“I’m good now.”
“Okay. But not later?” Emily cocks her head to the side. Her phone dings in her pocket, but she ignores it.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
“Aren’t you going to answer my question?”
Her blue eyes hold mine, and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to not tell her how I feel for much longer. Is it fair? No, but she doesn’t need my emotions dumped on her. Not now.
Her phone dings again, and she pulls it out. “Not answering it, just silencing it.” She turns it face down on the table. It vibrates. “Sorry.”
When it vibrates again, she puts her hand on it. I rest my hand on top of hers but lift it off when she gives me a look that reminds me of the look my sister April would give me to get me to knock off whatever nonsense I was up to as a kid.
“Excuse me.” My hand is warm from touching her skin; even the bare brush sends pulses of heat through my body. I’m hopeless. I can’t leave her here with them. Or more so, Thayer. The thought of her sleeping next to him? It makes me furious.
As a teenager, I couldn’t hold in my emotions.
I put my fist through a wall more than once.
That’s a long time ago. I’m a man now. I don’t solve things with my fists.
I was twenty when Angie looked across the Thanksgiving table at me and asked me if I’d taken up meditation.
Something snapped inside me when our mother died.
My anger left me when she left the planet.
It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with her.
Her dying made me a man. And I didn’t want to be the kind of man I saw Dad dragging into the drunk tank or locking up for bar fights.
“It’s fine.” Emily turns her phone over and puts it down on the table. “Read away. I don’t have any secrets.” She laughs. “Well, at least not from you.”
There’s a long line of text from her friend Lilith.
More than once, I came out of the shower late at night, getting ready to head home, and Emily was laughing at a message from Lilith.
From the texts Emily has shared with me, Lilith’s the kind of woman who takes what she wants and doesn’t think about anyone but herself.
The polar opposite of Emily. Maybe that’s why they’re such great friends.
Lil
I’ve written the scripts for you. Nothing earth shattering. Don’t go all nutty and tell them the truth.
When is the baby due?
Maybe you don’t have to drop all the shoes at the same time?
No, go with the scripts. Rip that damn Band-Aid off, girl.
And when he hurts you—he as in THAYER—I will hunt him down and kill his scary ass.
I’m starting to like Lilith more and more.
“Scripts?” I ask.
“She’s a good storyteller . . . AKA liar. Me, not so much. She’s helped me out more than a few times. Here, read with me.” She opens the linked document from the text message.
I loop my arm over the back of her chair, and she snuggles into me, her shoulder resting on my chest. It’s something I’ll have to be careful with tomorrow when the rest of the staff is back in place, but I’m going to take all the touches I can get for now.
The scripts are labeled and slightly different.
There’s one for her dad, her brother, her father’s assistant, Maya in Miami, and Whitney, the bride from the wedding I didn’t go to.
They’re variations of the same thing but worded differently.
The scripts are good, and there’s a small tick in me that wonders if Lilith might suspect more.
“No way she knows the truth?” I tighten my gut because I hate asking.
“No, of course not.” Emily pauses from reading the script document and twists in her chair. Her lips are inches away from mine.
“These are good. Anyone who is willing to do that for you is someone I can get behind.”
Emily’s eyes widen.
“Not in a sexual way.”
“Good. Because I’m not good at sharing.”
I didn’t think I was either. I lean in and give her a kiss that I hope gives her some of the truths I haven’t told her yet.