Chapter 7
Noah
Nearly a week since the storm, and I’m on a beat-up boat with two locals, cutting through calm waters.
The Wrong file they provided never mentioned another daughter—Maeve. I only learned about her when I got here. And now she and Ezra have been missing, caught in the storm that supposedly flipped the boat and swept them away.
We scout the water with the engine droning, shouting names, eyes scanning for wreckage. They’re likely not in the water after so many days. If they survived. The storm was quick, not deadly, but the boat’s gone per the call Bea got.
My chest tightens like a vise on my lungs—Ezra could be dead, lost in the deep. And my last act was nearly kissing his fiancé. I pinch my nose, hating myself. As the blue of the sky and ocean blurs together, my hope fades with every passing hour.
We hit small, uninhabited islands—chickens, lizards, coconuts, but no people. Then, after many hours of search, on the next island, I spot a makeshift tent.
“There!” I yell in a cracking voice with the boat surging toward it.
Ezra. Alive. And beside him, a short woman with pink hair and tattered clothes that barely cover her. I leap onto the shore with boots sinking in wet sand, gripping Ezra in a rough hug with my hands shaking. He looks thinner than I remember, with the darkest tan I’ve ever seen on him.
“I thought you were dead, brother,” I mutter in a thick voice.
“Not so fast,” he replies hoarsely while smacking my back. His eyes dart to the woman who’s standing there, looking totally confused.
I turn to her with a forced smirk to keep distance. “And who are you, Friday?”
“I am Crusoe, he’s Friday,” she retorts in a sharp voice while gesturing at Ezra. I laugh, but Ezra’s face is blank with a locked jaw, like he’s trapped in his head. The woman’s body language screams familiarity while Ezra looks like he just ate a cactus.
“Nice to meet you, Crusoe. I’m Noah, his brother,” I say with arms crossed over my chest, sizing her up.
“I’m Maeve,” she says, smiling.
I suspected it when I saw her, she resembles Beatrice a little, but just a bit. It’s hard to tell with Maeve having a sunburn on her face and wild, pink hair crowning her head like a halo. But the more I look, the more I understand that Beatrice’s facial features are more refined. More captivating.
“Maeve? As in Maeve Wrong?” I echo in a low voice with eyes flicking to Ezra, looking for his reaction. Does he know who she is?
“Yes,” Maeve answers, squinting. “How do you know?”
“Let’s go,” Ezra cuts in sharply, heading toward the boat.
I turn to Maeve. “Milady, may I escort you to our transportation?” I usually skip pleasantries, but I can’t be mean to a woman who narrowly missed death. Especially when my brother is treating her like a pariah.
“She can walk by herself.” Comes Ezra’s gruff voice, making me pause for a moment. Something happened here on this island. Something that has been happening on the island where I just came from.
I pull off my shirt and offer it to her—she’s half naked and shivering from the wind. “Put it on. There’re two guys on the boat, and you probably will be more comfortable.”
She accepts with a smile and puts it on while Ezra starts drilling holes into her with his eyes. But not before I catch his death stare on myself.
On the boat, silence chokes us with the engine’s hum as a backdrop. It should have been a happy reunion of people who were not dead, but judging by the looming cloud over my brother’s head, neither of us are going to enjoy the ride.
Maeve stares at the sea with a pale face, her eyes darting from side to side like she’s trying to piece herself together. Ezra watches her with an intense, fractured gaze that would make anyone uncomfortable.
On land, the car ride turns even more uncomfortable because this is where shit hits the fan; Maeve finds out that Ezra is about to marry the wrong Wrong. Her sister.
And I find out that Ezra has clearly slept with Maeve. And that thought makes my stomach turn. The asshole cheated on Beatrice even before their wedding. I realize that it’s very hypocritical of me, considering my naughty thoughts about his fiancé.
And judging by how crushed Maeve looks, she doesn’t understand why my brother is suddenly treating her like she is contagious. I have a very good idea why though.
I feel awful on her behalf. I feel awful on Bea’s behalf. And I feel bad on my behalf because if I knew the motherfucker was cheating on Beatrice, I wouldn’t have been dying with guilt all this time.
Despite my feelings, I probably shouldn’t have been the one to tell Maeve the truth.
“Well,” I start to Ezra, “I was able to make them hold off on that meeting. We agreed it happens when we find you, so we can attend it.” To add insult to injury, I snap my fingers. “Oh, right. You can’t because you’ll be busy with your wedding and honeymoon.”
“Noah!” Ezra barks.
“What do you want from me, asshole?” I snap back.
The following attempts of my brother to butter Maeve up are pathetic and make me want to jump out of the car from secondhand embarrassment.
When she stops responding to him and shuts off completely, she asks to borrow some money from me, and I give her my credit card.
It doesn’t escape me the look of promised death that Ezra sends my way. Tough luck, Brother.
Seeing Maeve’s crumpled figure makes my chest ache with sympathy. After what happened between her and my brother, now she has to face the two pieces of shits that are her parents.
When we park at the hotel, Maeve jumps out of the car. Right into the arms of her sister. Hot damn. Another shit show is about to follow.
They hug and mumble something to each other I can’t hear. When they pull away, I make an attempt to step toward them, but Bea shifts her attention to Ezra, and my breath hitches.
I want to—No, I must know what she thinks when she looks at him.
When Beatrice first lays eyes on Ezra, there’s no gasp, no tears, not even a glimmer of recognition.
She just does a slow, unimpressed scan, like she’s reading the nutritional label on a box of stale crackers.
Her gaze lands at his battered shoes, then scrolls up to his face, which is still set in that classic King scowl no shipwreck can erase.
Then she crosses her arms and says, “And you must be the groom.” Her voice is as flat as the hotel tiles.
The lobby’s gone dead silent—the concierge, the bellman, even some old couple by the reception desk, all holding their breath for the next blow.
Ezra’s smile—if one could call it that—flashes like a switchblade. “I see your father has made a decision without me,” he says in a clipped tone.
Bea’s nostrils flare. She’s a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them. “Would you be here if you didn’t agree with it?” She bites off the words, as if she’s been rehearsing them for weeks and yet they still taste rotten.
For a heartbeat, I think Ezra might actually answer, but he pulls the classic retreat—ignoring the person to show them how little they are worth. I’m usually fine with that. Usually.
“Maeve, you okay?” His voice turns gentle. Something my brother doesn’t do.
The air in the lobby drops ten degrees. Beatrice’s mouth snaps shut with a click, and those blue eyes of hers go murderously cold. She doesn’t just look at Ezra—she dissects him, then glues him back together with contempt just so she can murder him again.
Even Maeve feels it. She shrinks into my shirt with her arms wrapped around herself.
“I see,” Beatrice announces with a cold voice.
And that’s my cue. I step up, plant myself between Maeve and the rest of the drama, trying to play the gentleman. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you to your room. You need to catch your breath.” My voice comes out surprisingly soft, like I’m afraid a harsh word will cause her to shatter.
She gives me a grateful, hollow nod, and I herd her toward the bungalows while behind us Bea and Ezra start hurling accusations in low, hissed voices.
When we walk away from the lobby, I glance back and find Beatrice pointing her finger at Ezra’s outraged face. Good, serves him right.
When I’m done offering Maeve my wisdom and strong shoulder on the way to her room, I walk to my brother’s suite. I need to ask him the question that will change a lot of lives.
I’m bringing him up to speed on the Wrong family dynamics while I study his face for a readable reaction. He looks to be fine, way better than I expected him to be after a week of being on the missing persons list.
I came here to convince him to drop this archaic idea of marrying Beatrice to gain her father’s share of King Developers, but he’s dead set on it. He’s always seen the company as our legacy, and I’ve always seen it as our burden.
This company made our father hate our mother because her ideas were more interesting to our grandfather while he was still alive.
And when he died, our father tried everything possible to shut down every single project our grandfather had started to let Mom know her worth, which was nothing in Father’s eyes.
The same went for us, his kids. So yeah, I hate the company.
I can work anywhere else, but for Ezra, it has been his dream for as long as I can remember.
When our father retired per our grandfather’s will, before his time, he made sure to pass the voting power to the board instead of his sons.
And here we are, trying to get back the company which has been in our family for many generations just because our father is a waste of air.
I came here with hope and leave with nothing. He wants to go forward with the wedding, and I’ll have to see Beatrice Wrong at every family gathering, every corner I turn, every time I close my eyes.
After a few tries of convincing him, I throw a white flag. Beatrice Wrong is going to be my sister-in-law, and I’ll be fucked as soon as they sign the contract. Which is tomorrow, right before the wedding.
Well, the wedding didn’t go through. Or it did, but with the wrong sister.
Ezra ended up marrying Maeve, and I ended up taking the first full breath in since Beatrice Wrong nearly fell into my arms. Him marrying Maeve means I’m not lusting after his fiancé.
Those near-kisses with Bea—the balcony, the pool, the bar—no more guilt choking me.
For a moment, I want to go to her and ask her for a drink or a repeat of our balcony almost-kiss or stargazing or anything really. Now, we are both free, and maybe we can lean in to whatever we both were feeling.
But then I see her angry and hurt looking at Ezra. Truly hurt. And that makes me hurt. Does she have feelings for him? After she nearly kissed me on that balcony?
I can’t ask, and not knowing is driving me crazy, so I do all I can think of and I lash out at her. Every single chance I get. And she gives it back just as good.
By the end of the wedding, when Maeve is saved from the flames and ocean and Ezra is locked on his new wife, I seek Bea’s figure among the few people in the wedding.
But she is nowhere to be found.