Chapter 3
AVAH
Jeremy’s villa makes my overwater bungalow look like the clearance rack at an outlet store.
We’ve left the main resort behind entirely.
No more ambient music or laughter drifting across the water.
His place sits at the far edge of the property, tucked behind a wall of dense tropical landscaping with subtle lights glowing from fixtures hidden among the greenery, casting shadows that make the whole approach feel secret and separate.
It’s like he’s carrying me into some Heathcliff-coded hideaway, all broody isolation and Gothic romance. The weirdest part is, I don’t mind. Maybe it’s the head injury talking, but being invisible to the rest of the world for a few hours sounds like exactly what I need.
A man in a crisp white uniform stands at attention outside the door, and I realize with another layer of disbelief that this place comes with a private butler. Of course it does. The dude probably irons Jeremy’s Speedo.
“Damon, get the resort doctor.” Jeremy’s tone is clipped. “Now.”
“I don’t need a doctor.” The words come out garbled because my face is pressed against Jeremy’s broad shoulder, but I’m pretty sure I make myself clear. I glance up to make sure.
He ignores me completely.
Damon—a man in his mid-sixties whose unflappable expression suggests he’s seen stranger scenes than this and finds the whole thing rather pedestrian—nods once and disappears around the corner.
“Seriously.” I try to wriggle out of Jeremy’s arms as he carries me through a doorway that opens into a space worthy of the island issue of Architectural Digest. “It’s just a cut.”
“You were unconscious.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
“On a beach lounger, covered in blood.”
“Head wounds bleed more.”
“I’m not going to ask how you know that.”
He deposits me on the sofa like I’m made of blown glass.
The cream-colored cushions give me concerns about whether the blood is dry at this point, but I sink into them like I’m being swallowed by a very expensive cloud.
For a moment, I just lie here, taking in the soaring wood-paneled ceilings and the understated furnishings and art that likely cost more than my annual salary.
It’s an IYKYK kind of deal at these places.
“What’s the square footage of this shack?” Apparently, my coping mechanism for abject humiliation is snarky verbal diarrhea.
Jeremy pauses on his way to the bar area. “I don’t know. It has two bedrooms and a pool.”
Right. I already noticed the private infinity pool glowing turquoise through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Only two? How very un-billionaire of you. I thought you people got off on numbers.”
“You people.” He sounds oddly amused as he pulls ice from a freezer hidden behind a wide teak panel. “I’ll add that to the list of things you think you know about me.”
I slowly push myself up to sitting. My head feels like I downed six margaritas. Scanning the space, I gesture vaguely at the obscene luxury of it all. “Why are you here by yourself?”
“Can’t a man want a vacation?”
“You’re not a man. You’re a robot.” The words are out before I can stop them. “At least according to your sister,” I quickly amend.
Something flickers across his face, but it’s gone too fast to read. “Sloane also thinks she knows a lot about me.”
“I’ve seen the spreadsheets you send, managing every detail of her treatment. One even rated the takeout restaurants around the Vanderbilt Hospital.” I wrinkle my nose. “That feels a little extra.”
He shrugs. “She was in that hospital for nearly two months after the stem cell transplant. Nutrition mattered.”
I open my mouth to give him a spicy comeback but…damn…that’s actually really sweet.
He returns to the couch with the ice and a damp cloth, and I finally get a good look at him without the haze of injured mortification clouding my gaze.
His dark hair is slightly tousled and longer than I remember, like some high-priced stylist convinced him that a rugby-boy mini-mullet would soften his vibe. Spoiler alert: it does.
His bone structure is annoyingly symmetrical, the kind of face that probably makes him the cool guy in the tech nerd circles I assume he runs in. And don’t get me started on his lashes. They could make a Maybelline model weep with envy.
I’d always thought his eyes were brown, but now I see they’re hazel with flecks of gold. I imagine the color changes depending on the light, and in the warm glow of the villa’s soothing interior, they look almost amber.
“Thanks.” I reach for the ice. “I’ve got it from here. Don’t you have more important things to do?”
Instead of handing it over, he sits down next to me. Close enough that his knee brushes mine as he lifts the cool cloth to my temple with a gentleness that makes my breath catch.
Those amber eyes roll toward the ceiling. “Do you always ask so many questions?”
Only when trying to fill the silence so I don’t have to think about the fact that my entire life is in shambles and I’m sitting in a grumpy billionaire’s villa while he dabs blood off my face like I’m a stray cat he found in the dumpster.
“Do you always rescue damsels in distress?” I counter.
“You’re the first.”
“Lucky me.”
His hand stills and, for a moment, we just look at each other. The only sound is the thrum of my own pulse in my ears.
“They can’t know,” I blurt. “Sloane and the book club. Nobody can know about this.”
“About Jon?”
“About any of it.” I hate how desperate I sound. “I mean it, Jeremy. Snitches wind up in ditches.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Are you threatening me with an idiom?”
“It’s a lifestyle philosophy.”
Now he does smile, and it transforms his face in a way I’m not prepared for, softening it into something more approachable. I notice the fullness of his lower lip, the small scar near his hairline that I’ve never been close enough to see before.
“The only person who’s going to end up in a ditch,” he says, “is your fiancé.”
“Ex.” The word comes out automatically. I cover my left hand with my right, hiding the ring that suddenly feels like a brand. “Ex-fiancé. As of about an hour ago.”
An emotion I can’t read flares in his eyes before he tamps it down. “You made the right choice.”
“I wish I could sound as calm as you about it.”
“Would you prefer I wasn’t calm?”
I try to imagine Jeremy Winslow losing his composure. It doesn’t compute for a man who probably schedules his emotions in fifteen-minute increments.
“I just mean—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“I don’t know your ex-fiancé personally. But I know his type.” He returns to cleaning the cut on my temple, his touch so light I barely feel it. “I also know you didn’t fall because you’re clumsy.”
“I can handle my own business.”
“I’m sure you can.” He brushes a strand of hair away from my face, his fingers skimming the shell of my ear.
The touch is brief, but my skin tingles where he made contact.
I remind myself that I’m emotionally compromised and possibly concussed and definitely not in a position to notice anything about Jeremy Winslow’s fingers, or the rest of him.
“Okay,” he says, sitting back. “The bleeding’s stopped.”
Before I can respond, there’s a knock at the door. Jeremy rises to answer it, and a moment later, a woman in medical scrubs enters, carrying a bag that looks reassuringly official.
“She fell,” Jeremy says before the doctor can ask any questions.
“I wasn’t here when I fell,” I clarify as if Jeremy needs me to protect him from a potential rumor mill. Like he can’t take care of himself. And me, apparently.
He gives me a blistering look. “No woman would fall with me.”
His voice is low, almost a growl, and the proprietary note to it makes my stomach do a complicated little flip. Fall for you, the part of my brain with no self-preservation instinct whispers. I shove the thought down hard.
The doctor cleans the wound, applies liquid stitches that sting like a bitch, and walks me through every concussion protocol known to modern medicine.
Follow my finger. What day is it? The month?
I answer everything correctly, which feels like a small victory given that the rest of my life is a pile of smoldering ash on the ground.
“I don’t think you have a concussion,” she says finally, handing me two white tablets and a glass of water. “But Mr. Winslow should check on you every few hours tonight, just to be safe.”
“Oh, I’m not staying—”
“I’ll keep an eye on her.” Jeremy’s voice cuts through my protest.
“I’m certain you will,” the doctor answers without hesitation.
I want to argue that I don’t need him keeping an eye on me like I’m a toddler who might touch a hot stove.
But she’s already packing her bag, Damon has reappeared at the doorway with his unflappable butler vibe, and I realize I’m too tired to fight about sleeping arrangements.
Or anything right now. Besides, I have nowhere else to go.
“Thank you,” I manage, and the doctor gives me a kind smile. I bet I’m not the first woman to have trouble in paradise, and wonder how she’s so certain Jeremy will take care of me. Or why I’m so sure I agree with her.
He walks them both to the door, then turns back toward me, holding what looks like a set of ink-black pajamas.
“Damon thought you might want something to sleep in.” He sets them on the arm of the sofa. “Given the state of your dress.”
Right. Because I look like an extra from a horror movie, if the horror movie had a really good costume budget.
“I don’t have to stay here,” I say, but the words come out wobbly.
“You’re not going back to him.”
“One thing we agree on.” I force some steel into my voice.
“You can figure out your next move in the morning,” he says simply, like it’s not a big deal. Like this might not be his first damsel-rescuing rodeo.
I want to refuse, to march out of this villa and find my own way. Show him I don’t need anyone, especially not some overbearing billionaire who no doubt thinks I’m pathetic.
But I’m tired. My head hurts. And tomorrow I’ll have to face Jon to get my passport, phone, and whatever dignity I have left and find a way to pick up the thread of my life.
Right now, I want to close my eyes somewhere safe.
I might hate that Jeremy Winslow is that safe place, but I won’t deny it. At least to myself.
“Fine,” I say. “But I meant it when I said I don’t want anyone to know. You have to promise not to tell Sloane.”
Our gazes meet and hold. In the warm light of the villa, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hair still mussed, he looks less like a robot and more like someone who might understand what this means to me.
“I promise,” he says.
“How do I know you’ll keep it?”
“Because I will.”
I wait for more, but he just continues to study me across the room. Okay then. A man of few words, but they feel more honest than anything Jon said in two years.
I nod, not trusting my voice. A ripple of awareness passes between us. It’s not attraction exactly, more an unexpected recognition. He sees me, I realize. Not the mask I wear with everyone else. Just...me. It’s terrifying and comforting at the same time.
Jeremy points toward one of the bedroom doors. “There are toiletries in the bathroom. Help yourself to whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate, but they’re all I have. “For everything.”
He nods, back to business. “I’ll see you in the morning, Avah.”
It’s the first time he’s said my name tonight, and those two syllables skate across my skin like a caress.
I gather the pajamas and make my way to the bedroom on unsteady legs.
This room is also nicer than my bungalow, because of course it is.
Crisp white linens and another view of that mesmerizing turquoise pool.
I should shower, wash the blood out of my hair and the mascara off my face. Try to salvage a bit of pride.
Instead, I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at my hand.
The engagement ring winks up at me in the lamplight.
Two carats, princess cut, a ring that was supposed to represent the future I convinced myself I wanted.
Jon picked it out without bothering to ask my style preference.
At the time, I told myself that was romantic.
Now I see it for what it was: another choice he made for me, another way of hoarding the power in our relationship.
I tug it off my finger and set it on the nightstand. After changing into the silk pajamas, I slide under the cool sheets and lie back against the pillow. Tomorrow, I’ll figure out what to do with the ring and everything else. Tonight, I just need to breathe.