Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
EVIE
M y hands tremble. Cal’s are tight around my wrists. His blue eyes pin me to the spot like a butterfly on a square of cork. Unlike the very alive yellow insect in my palms, flapping its vibrant presence all over my fingers. Yellow dust brushes over my skin, sticking.
I breathe through the panic burning up my chest.
It’s just a bug.
It’s just a flappy, sweet, tiny bug . . .
Tell that to my insides. My thundering heart.
“He won’t hurt you, baby girl. I promise.”
For a moment, I believe him. That this time, with Cal, T won’t stand a chance.
The bug flaps about, teetering on the edge of my pointer finger, and Cal guides it back to the center.
Apparently my obvious objection to butterflies has been noticed. Since we spend hours tending the greenhouse plants each day, me flinching every time one passes is getting old. Callum doesn’t know the significance of the butterfly for me.
I’ve had over six years to attach this negative association of mine to the tiny insect.
As a girl growing up, I loved butterflies. I’m sure I did.
Now, they are a constant living reminder of the choices I made, the situations I could never control, and the lurking threat that no doubt will rear its ugly head the instant I’m back in the city.
Callum closes around me, enveloping me as another butterfly lands on my palm. The tiny dot of nectar he planted there to reel them in works. As bile rises in my throat, I wish it didn’t.
“I can’t.” My hands tremble as the second set of minuscule feet touch down, barely detectable against the lifeline of my palm.
“You already are,” Cal whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.
My eyes shutter closed, and the tiny feet on my palm are forgotten. Was that his plan, seduce my fear away? Replace the terror the winged miracles bring with something better? Him, around me.
A wing flutters against my ring finger and I jerk, eyes snapping open.
Teeth bite down on my neck, gently. My body automatically surrenders to his. My fear melting back into submission.
“Cal . . .”
I rest my head back on his shoulder, and he grazes my neck with lips and teeth. “I could fucking eat you, Evie.”
“I would let you,” I breathe.
Hell, I’m a gooey puddle of slick need and fire right now.
My hand finds his hair as I reach back, the butterflies long forgotten.
I spin in his hold, and he grabs me, tugging my body to his.
In the warm greenhouse, we are already sweating.
The humidity of the enclosed space makes everything bound faster than it should.
“Maybe I should start growing my own food.” Emmett chuckles through the garden.
We startle, jerking apart, sending gravel scattering from our feet.
Shit.
My cheeks heat. I worry my lip through my teeth, hand covering my mouth. Callum throws his friend a dirty look before dotting a kiss to my forehead and stalking from the greenhouse.
Oh my god.
Since when was Emmett coming out today? He was just here yesterday. I fix my still-orderly clothes and clear my throat before heading back into the house.
Writing. I should be writing.
I glance toward the dock and see the men wandering toward Firefly, Emmett pointing at something as Cal tilts his head, rubbing his jaw. Okay...
I all but run up the center spiral stairs and flop into the desk chair like I’m about to miss a deadline. Laughable, since that’s the reason I ended up here.
It’s not like Emmett to turn up unannounced. The mind boggles with that one. I guess Cal will tell me if it’s important.
Opening the laptop, I click on the manuscript. I’m at the eighty percent mark, just about to let the heroine take the fall before she ultimately saves herself in the final hour. Because of course she does. Hero who?
It wouldn’t be a great romantasy without a heroine with an arc that could be seen from space. From zero to hero. In her case, from zeroine to heroine.
God, that’s corny. I snort a laugh, but it fades.
Without her arc continuing, there is no more series.
A quandary for sure.
I push out of the chair and pace the room. I’m on book two of this six-book series. But...
Something feels right about the change of plot. The authentic and organic way it unravels to come to a close at the end of this novel.
Four books short of what I was supposed to write.
My contract is for this book only, though. Does that mean they will only consider the next four if this one does well? How long am I going to be locked into writing something my heart just isn’t in? Not one hundred percent, anyway.
“Okay, I’m the author. It’s your story, Eve. What do you really want to do? What plot fits Syra the best?”
I half expect Cal to swing around the doorjamb and call me out for talking to myself. I wish he would. Then I could put off deciding on my fate. Or Syra’s.
Moving to the window, I lean against the wall. The waves roll in, fading into the sandy beach like it’s their final destination. So sure. Not a doubt. No hesitation, they simply keep rolling in. What would it be like to have that amount of certainty in life?
Maybe the waves simply decided one day and held to it?
Maybe.
I slide back to the seat. Opening the notes application, I tap out the ending in bullet points, making sure to give Syra her well-deserved finale.
Her fears replaced by her actions, her kingdom saved and rebuilt, her hero by her side because she wants him there and not because she needs him there.
The crown is hers. The ending she deserves, after thousands of words of trial and torment.
Scanning the notes, I add small details in parentheses as I go. Fleshing it out best I can in the spur of the moment. Something hangs back in my mind. Another story I want to tell. One that has my whole heart.
One I can’t ignore any longer.
“Evie?” Callum calls from downstairs. I save my notes and shut the laptop.
“Coming!” I jog down the stairs to find Cal and Emmett in the kitchen. The embarrassment from earlier edges its way back in. I try to push it back down as I breathe, “Hi, Emmett.”
“Hey, Miss Evie.” His smile is genuine, but it slips a little as I reach the counter and lean on it, my eyes meeting Cal’s.
“Em is out doing an inspection. Some boats in the marina were tampered with. One went missing, and they found it floundering ten miles north.”
“Oh? What did you find?” I turn to Emmett.
“Nothing concrete. But I wanted to come out here, make sure you guys are okay.”
“Thanks, we’re okay,” I reply.
Emmett’s grin eats his face. “I can see that.”
I sink my gaze to the floor.
Something thuds.
“Ow! What the hell, McCreary?”
I look up to find Emmett rubbing his shoulder, and Cal’s darkened eyes holding him where he stands.
“Watch out, Evie, this one’s vicious.” Emmett points to Callum, who hasn’t shifted an inch.
“He takes a while to warm up. You should know that, Em,” I say way too fast and decide now is as good a time as any to scurry back up the stairs and hide out until the burning embarrassment I’m trying so hard to flatten fades.
“Em. I like it. See, she likes me, Cal.”
The groan that follows is nothing short of hilarious. Those two are adorable. Cal in his overbearing, protective, grumbly way. And Emmett, the sweet, funny one. How Iris hasn’t caught on to that, I’ll never know. Maybe she has? Maybe her brother is the only thing stopping her...
I make it to the desk chair before the smile on my face blooms. Head shoved into my hands, I stifle a happy squeal, kicking my feet. Happiness rolls through me, and I lift my head, leaning back to peer at the ceiling above me. A new type of butterfly takes flight, low in my belly.
The kind that has a more concrete meaning than those small yellow flutterbys from the greenhouse.
Flutterbys. Maybe new branding will bring a new association with them.
Can’t hurt to try, right?
With that thought, I open a fresh document and tap out a daydream. A story that has my heart exploding, sends fire through my veins, and makes emotion swell in my throat.
The romance I have wanted to tell since the day I first let my waking dreams hit the page.
With the meet-cute jotted down, I find my fingers sail over the keys, my new heroine’s life blooming across the screen like the flutterbys, a rebranded type of romance.
My kind of romance.
Cal is writing in his journal when I pull the towel from my head and wrap it around my body. He hasn’t written anything since before I arrived, going by the entries I saw before I threw it at his feet. Freshly showered and bare-chested, he sits in bed penning down the page.
Running a hand through his damp hair, he pauses. When he starts writing again, I lean on the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes homed in on him, intrigued.
“What’ya writing?” I ask softly.
He glances up from the page. “A few things Em told me today. Thought they’re noteworthy.”
“Sure. You think it’s odd someone tampered with the boats then left one floating in the middle of the ocean? I mean, does that sort of thing happen often?”
What I really mean is... Could it be connected to me?
Is it a warning?
Surely, the letter at the café was a stretch. Maybe T thought in a small town where everyone knows everyone, the letter would find me eventually. Could he know the connection Iris has to Cal, and Cal to me?
That thought burns.
Iris in danger because of me?—
Cal in danger because of me.
Fuck.
The air in my lungs burns out. Heat prickles up my spine, setting my eyes on fire with unshed tears.
Rolling off the doorframe, I pad back into the bathroom.
I close the door behind me before leaning on the vanity.
The towel slips, hitting the floor as I turn the cold tap on and splash my overheating face with the cool water.
Pressing a hand into my chest above my heart, I will my choppy breaths to slow. To not burn so badly.
A soft knock rattles the door. “You okay?”
No .
“Yes, be out soon.” The words are too wobbly. Hardly believable.
I splash my face one more time and turn off the faucet.
Swiping the towel from the floor, I dry my face and neck.
Now, I lean on the vanity, catching my reflection.
I search my face for signs of the lie, only now noting the sun-kissed blush my cheeks have, my slightly darker skin from the hours outside.
In the garden. The beach. The forest. With Cal.
“Nighean bheag.”
Something thuds against the door.
I imagine his forehead hitting the wood.
The knob turns, and I suck in a breath, schooling my face to neutrality. As the door opens, I drop the towel at the last second. I can’t tell him. I can’t let him become a part of this nightmare. So I go with distraction.
Blue eyes darken and meet mine, and I know my decoy worked.
His heart is safe for now.
My own will weather the storm, like it’s done for the last six years.
I will leave this man safe on his island, taking my problems far away from his peaceful existence.
“How many days have we spent together, Evie?”
His question catches me off guard.
“I—” I huff a breath as I brush my hand over his jaw. “Not nearly enough.”
“They will have to be enough when your book’s done. You keep that promise, you hear?”
I can’t respond. The air filling my lungs barely a second ago is nowhere to be found.
Rough hands find my hips, sliding beneath me. My skin hits cool porcelain next as he deposits me on the vanity. I draw him in, thighs parting wide, and I pull his mouth to mine.
Mine .
For now.
And I am going to take a lifetime’s worth in whatever time I have left, since this is all we get.