Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE
I t was Wednesday night. I was on my second blind date of the week, and I was having a serious case of déjà vu.
The guy sitting across from me looked eerily familiar.
But the recognition seemed to be fairly one-sided because as I sat there, scrutinizing his short brown hair and hazelnut eyes, he simply stared back at me with nothing more than a polite smile.
Weird.
Maybe he just has one of those faces.
This had been a setup between coworkers, so when I’d said “blind,” I’d meant it. No dating app pics to go by. No profile to scrutinize. I usually despised this sort of thing, but after the streak of bad luck I’d had, I figured, how bad could it be?
I should have known not to throw that question out to the universe.
“Have you lived in Richmond long, Elena?” the mystery man asked.
“Since high school,” I answered, trying not to stare too overtly at him.
But seriously, was he famous? A local weatherman maybe?
When I’d first walked into the upscale restaurant, the recognition had been so strong that I thought maybe he was an old coworker or friend.
Come to find out he was actually my date.
Awkward.
Last month, I’d run into an old classmate in the grocery store. Strapped with a baby on her hip, that woman pulled me into a rib-splitting hug and talked my ear off for a solid fifteen minutes about how excited she was to finally reconnect after all these years.
I should have received an Oscar for my performance that day. I still had no idea what her name was.
But this? This was so much worse.
“Really?” he answered. “And you never thought about leaving? Spreading your wings?”
“I went to school in North Carolina. Undergrad and law school. I didn’t actually plan on coming back here, but when you get a good job offer…” I shrugged my shoulders, causing him to laugh.
A woman at the table next to us turned her head, checking him out.
I did the same, and I had to admit, with his sharp jaw and easy smile, he wasn’t hard on the eyes. Maybe I should just focus on that.
“That’s what brought me here, too,” he admitted. “Although I do enjoy living in the city.”
I nodded in agreement, although I couldn’t remember the last time I had done anything fun in the city that didn’t have to do with work or meeting underwhelming men on dates.
“So, what do you do, John?” I asked, quickly changing the subject as I leaned forward.
His gaze lingered on the subtle cleavage I had going on. I’d gone with a V-neck blouse, designer jeans, and heels. It was a solid first-date option, and it was clearly working for him.
“I’m a professor,” he answered, swishing his wine around in his glass.
My eyes tracked the movement as I listened to the deep cadence of his voice. The tone.
The déjà vu hit hard once more.
I’d heard him say that before.
“I teach art history downtown,” he went on.
It was like unraveling a word caught on the tip of my tongue. One minute, it was hidden behind a steel plate door, and the next?—
He’d been younger the last time we met, but then again, so had I.
My date to a friend’s wedding had bailed on me at the last second, so I ended up going solo. Seated next to me was John, the professor. He was a colleague of the groom and fairly new to the area. The city intimidated him, so I offered a few recommendations.
We talked and danced. He told me about his classes and his love of ancient art. I complained about my intense new job and how I never had time to do anything. I couldn’t even remember the last movie I had seen.
We had been drinking, and then he’d invited me over to his place…
I looked up at him. A comfortable smile spread across his face as he talked about the university and art department politics without a hint of recollection.
Oh my God. I’d slept with this guy.
I’d slept with him, and…
He doesn’t fucking remember?
I realized then that he’d stopped talking. Shit, had he said something?
“What?”
“I asked if you’d seen any good movies lately.”
My eyes flashed up to his. Was he serious?
But nope. There was nothing there.
“Um, no,” I managed to get out before my phone began to buzz in my purse.
About damn time.
“I’m sorry,” I explained, pulling out my phone. “I have to take this. It’s my best friend and?—”
He waved his palms, giving me a pass.
I quickly answered. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Elena!” Marin’s panicked voice replied. “I need help.”
My eyes widened as I looked up at my date.
Is everything okay? he mouthed, concern marring his handsome features.
Don’t be nice to me right now.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders in response to John’s question.
“Macon and I had a fight.” Her sobs were so loud that even John leaned back, trying to get away from the shrill sound coming from my speaker.
“Oh, Marin,” I answered, consoling her. I looked up, and our eyes met.
An understanding smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and he gave a curt nod. “Go,” he said softly.
“Are you sure?” I whispered.
“She obviously needs you. We can do this again,” he insisted.
No thanks.
I bit the corner of my lip, feeling the slightest bit of guilt. But I took him up on the offer and grabbed my purse.
Thank you , I mouthed, bolting before he could get another word in.
Marin was going on about Macon’s pigheadedness as I stepped onto the street and took a left toward my car.
“Okay, I’m out.”
“Oh, thank God. I was running out of things to say.” She laughed, all traces of sadness gone from her voice.
“You really should have pursued acting,” I told her. “That was your best performance yet.”
“My fiancé agrees. Although his pride is a little wounded at the moment.”
“You called me an insensitive bully who wouldn’t know a peony from a primrose,” Macon hollered in the background. “Like you fucking know!”
“Wow, cutting below the belt with the wedding flower insults. Harsh.”
She laughed. “He’s not wrong about that. I have no clue.”
“That’s because you’re an easy bride,” I told her.
The weather was humid and hot. Summer had officially hit Virginia, which meant I was instantly sweating.
How long until fall?
“Tell that to your dates. They all think I’m bridezilla.”
This wasn’t the first date she’d SOS’d me out of this week. I hated being one of those women who needed a friend to bail her out of a date, but it was a jungle out there, and a girl could only take so much.
“Yeah, well, they were all douchebags. Like, I’m truly convinced you snagged up the last good man on earth, Marin. They’re all gone. Every single one.”
“That bad, huh?” she asked as I walked up to my BMW parked along the curb.
“You know when you go on a blind date, and you realize the guy sitting across from you has actually been inside you?”
“No…” she said, drawing out the word in complete horror as I hopped into my car and started the engine.
“Yep,” I answered. “I have fucked my way through the entire city. It’s official.” Her laughter filled the small space as I pulled away from the curb. “This isn’t funny, Marin. This is tragic. And to make matters worse, he didn’t even fucking remember me! I am a forgettable lay.”
How had my life become this tragic?
“Maybe he has a bad memory?” Marin offered as I drove down Main Street and made my way home. “Maybe he’s the one who’s actually fucked his way through the whole city, and he’s such a player that he can’t remember all of them.”
“Gross,” I answered, suddenly grateful for my dry spell. And my clean bill of health. “That doesn’t make me feel any better. Now, I just want a shower.”
“Take a bath,” she suggested. “Go home and sit in that ridiculously large bathtub of yours and try and relax.”
Relax. Right…how did that go again?
“And seriously, let this go. It’s his loss. I mean, was he even good?”
I tried to think back. There was champagne, and did he have a cat? “I’m not even sure I remember, to be honest.”
More silence filled the air.
“I rest my case.”
I threw my keys on the table the second the front door shut behind me. Wine was calling my name, and I didn’t want to waste another second thinking about my shit date and his shit memory.
I’d bought this apartment a few years ago after my first big bonus. It was an old warehouse-style building with high ceilings and brick walls. Buying it had made me feel like a grown-ass woman, but now, walking around the cavernous space, I just felt…
Empty.
I could never fault Marin for finding happiness in North Carolina, but she’d been my person.
My best friend, my sister-in-law, and my grieving partner.
When my brother had died in a ferry accident six years ago, we’d clung to one another. She’d lost a spouse, I’d lost a sibling, and we’d leaned on each other in a major way.
And now, she was gone, too.
Not gone , I tried to remind myself.
Marin was getting married, and tomorrow, I would be traveling to the small island she and her fiancé called home and be by her side through all of it.
Every single minute.
All three weeks of them.
Jesus.
This Friday was Macon and Marin’s engagement party, and the wedding would follow three weeks after. Why so close together?
Why the hell not?
They’d originally planned on a fall wedding with the engagement party a couple of months earlier in the summer. But when the two crazy lovebirds couldn’t wait any longer, they just decided to move everything up and have it all together.
Personally, I think the whole thing was arranged just to force me to take a vacation, especially when the bride so expertly guilt-tripped me into it.
“I took a vacation last…” I tried to remember. Shit, when was the last one? “I’m planning one, I swear. I’m going to go to Paris.”
I could practically hear the eye roll.
“You’ve been saying that forever.”
“I’m trying to learn French. It takes time,” I argued.
She let out a sigh. “Like. the whole language? For a vacation?”
“No, just for fun,” I told her. “It’s a hobby.”
“All right, then enlighten me. Say something right now. In French.”
I let out an aggravated groan, and she laughed, knowing she’d caught me. I was pretty sure that the language app on my phone had uninstalled itself from lack of use.
“Years, Elena. It’s been years since you took a proper vacation. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
Not since Daniel…
“I’ve been busy,” I deflected.
“Take the time,” she pressed. “You deserve it, and I want you here. You can stay in one of Macon’s rentals.”
Macon Green was Marin’s fiancé—better known as Sheriff Green if you were in Hyde County, North Carolina. He’d won the position in a special election after the previous sheriff was sent to prison for a whole bunch of illegal shit.
He also happened to be married to Macon’s ex-wife.
Scandalous, right?
And people say nothing ever happened in a small town.
After dropping my purse on the counter, I quickly kicked off my heels and headed to the fridge. Opening the door, I grabbed the half bottle of pinot grigio and poured myself a healthy glass before heading to my office.
Sliding into my ridiculously expensive leather chair, I opened my laptop and pulled up my email. I had about a dozen or so new messages and answered the slew of questions that had come in since I’d left the office. It wasn’t lost on me that I was replying to email after I already set up my out of office reply for vacation.
I took a sip of my wine and continued, working through a few more things as the wineglass emptied and the hour slipped by. Eventually, I looked up at the clock and closed my laptop, knowing I was putting off the inevitable.
I needed to pack.
I also needed to make a call.
Okay, I didn’t need to make the call. But I should.
She might care to know where I was going to be for the next three weeks.
Who am I kidding?
Letting out a sigh, I pulled out my phone and stared at it for far too long. “Just do it,” I told myself.
I tried to remember how long it’d been since I’d talked to her. Six weeks? Seven? Longer? I’d made the suggestion to come visit over Easter, but she’d said there was no need and to just save the money.
As if I was pinching pennies in my luxury condo and Louboutins…
I swallowed the lump in my throat, looking over at the small picture frame that sat at the corner of my desk. My heart ached as I looked at his lazy smile as he hung his arm around my shoulders, messing with the tassel of my graduation cap.
I’d always wanted to be just like him.
He was effortlessly good at everything. He had the sort of charm that couldn’t be faked. You couldn’t help but be a little blinded by his presence. In a house that always felt cold, he was still the favorite.
I’d never understood why.
Until he’d died.
I gathered up the courage and dialed the number. It rang and rang. I let out a heavy sigh, feeling defeated until, finally, I heard a hesitant voice on the other end.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mother,” I answered. The title felt all wrong, but what else was I supposed to call her after all these years?
A pregnant pause filled the silence. “Elena, how are you?”
So formal. So polite.
“I’m well,” I replied, looking up at the ceiling as I sat and leaned back in the chair. I pulled my legs to my chest and turned my body away from the picture of Daniel. “I am actually leaving for Ocracoke tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“Marin is getting married?—”
“I know,” she cut me off. “We were invited.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The tone of her voice told me everything. They were not coming. It didn’t surprise me. She’d used her grief as a weapon against Marin for years, just like she’d used me against my father.
“How is my father?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“He is well,” she simply said. Nothing more.
This was how it always went when we spoke. Since Daniel had died, she dropped any pretenses that she loved me, and both of them had moved back to Texas. She’d lost her only child.
I was just the unpleasant reminder of my father’s sin against their marriage.
“Okay, well, I just wanted you to know where I’d be for the next three weeks. You know, in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Nothing. Just never mind,” I said, realizing this was a waste of time. “I guess I’ll talk?—”
“Three weeks?” She seemed appalled by the idea of it. “Are you sure that’s wise to take that much time off?”
Those were the most words I’d heard her utter in months. And of course, it’d be over concern for my job.
It was the only time she ever showed interest in my life—when it affected hers.
She might hate me, but to the outside world, I was still her daughter, and I would not sully the family name.
“I have over three months of vacation saved up,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Okay, well, it just sounds sort of frivolous to me.”
My eyes rolled. Frivolous. That was what she’d said about dance lessons and football games. Senior prom. Fucking frivolous.
“Tell Dad hi for me,” I said, just to piss her off.
“Good-bye, Elena.”
The line went silent, and I was left alone once more, curled into my office chair, wondering why I even bothered—with any of it.
The phone calls, the visits, the constant worry over what she thought of me.
I knew I was never going to be good enough.
So, why the fuck did I try?
I’d worked my ass off for years. I’d fallen asleep at my desk more nights than I could count, seen the inside of a courtroom more than my own bedroom, and yet I was frivolous.
Well, fuck that.
It was time to go have some fun with my best friend.
No shitty dates, no parents, and absolutely no drama.
Paradise, here I come.