Arrabella
She tried calling Patrick earlier to say she’d arrived in Fira and would rejoin the cruise by tender first thing in the morning—weather permitting, of course. The hotel concierge warned that with winds like this, tenders might be canceled. Her frustration doubles.
When she looked out the window moments ago, she could see the lights of the great ship out in the caldera. So close, yet impossibly far.
She calls Patrick’s phone. Again.
It goes to voicemail. Yet again.
A spark of worry ignites again in her chest. She closes her eyes, reliving the moment she came back from death, saved by the skill and sheer will of a Danish EMT who happened to be dining in the taverna above the tiny cove where she’d taken her gyro.
Arrabella had ordered it from the same taverna.
She’d told the staff about her shellfish allergy, but they either pretended to understand or failed to completely grasp the danger.
Some part of her gyro must have come into contact with shellfish in the kitchen.
Arrabella had gone into anaphylactic shock while eating it on the beach and watching the sun set.
She’d been brooding over her horrible fight with Patrick and the bombshell he’d dropped on her about not being Angus’s biological son.
She’d woken in a Crete hospital.
The Danish couple came to visit, and the man explained how he realized she might be in anaphylactic shock.
He told the Greek EMTs as they arrived, and they administered epinephrine instantly.
It saved her life. She’d been transported to the hospital, where she was given antihistamines, corticosteroids, oxygen, and IV fluids, and she was kept under observation.
In that hospital bed, shaky and sore, and emotionally drained on every level, having been given a second chance at life, Arrabella experienced a come-to-God kind of moment.
She realized that maybe it doesn’t matter if Patrick gets nothing of the Angus empire. He’s still a very wealthy man in his own right, with status, and power. The magazine division is essentially his.
She vowed to let her ex go, finally. Fully. Wholly.
She can do this.
Patrick has been good to her. She can be good for him. She can still become the powerful driving force behind him. Together, they can still go places. Big, glittering, wonderful places.
The world still sees him as a McGregor son. Doors will open.
And Poppy—Poppy is still dangerous to Lillith. Arrabella is certain of it.
If she removes Poppy from the equation, she can reclaim her job, ghostwrite Lillith’s memoir, and work her way back into the woman’s orbit. Who knows what might still grow from there?
Patrick’s words replay through her mind:
Prove it, Arra—prove you’re not after the legacy. Stay with me despite knowing you’ll get none of it, not one penny from the Angus McGregor empire. Because I am not a McGregor. Lillith owes me nothing.
He’d left the door open. It’s up to her now.
Rejoining the cruise in Turkey had presented visa complications. So she’d booked a flight to Santorini instead.
She calls Patrick one more time.
It kicks to voicemail. Again.
Irritated, she walks to the window overlooking the moonlit caldera. Phone in hand, she watches the ship—its myriad lights dancing as it rises and falls with the waves, buffeted by the wind.
Arrabella worries Patrick is purposefully ignoring her calls. He might not be receptive to her arrival.
As she stares at the Black Orchid out on the caldera, all her lights suddenly go out.
She blinks. Shock floods through her. It’s as though the ship has vanished. Her brain searches for an explanation. Something passed in front of it? A cloud, maybe?
But there isn’t a cloud in the sky. The heavens are clear, scattered with a Milky Way of stars.
A noise breaks the stillness in the hallway outside her room door. Footsteps—many of them—moving fast. Voices rise, urgent, animated. A door slams in the wind. A woman calls out.
And then she hears the thudding sound of a chopper.