8
The sun is bright like the flash of a polaroid, startling me out of sleep.
I moan and bury my head under my pillow, not ready to face the world. It feels as if I just closed my eyes. In one blink I was drifting off to the sound of rain, and the next the sun is flashing insistently over my eyelids.
I suppose one mystery is solved. I didn’t dream. Not at all.
The time between falling asleep and waking up was a millisecond.
I’m sure Mila will run in soon, jump on my bed, beg for waffles and chocolate sauce and a trip to the beach with her uncle. It’s a Saturday after all.
Outside the querulous call of a gull cuts through the morning quiet.
If Mila hears that we’ll definitely be headed to the beach.
I frown into my pillow. Usually, the thick stone walls of the chateau dampen any birdcall. Even more, there’s the sound of waves, crashing, rolling. A muffled roar that recedes with a foamy hiss.
That’s not the sound of Geneva’s placid lake.
That’s the sound of an ocean rushing and receding.
My skin prickles, goose bumps rising.
I drag in a breath. The scent of lavender is missing, replaced by a salty, damp-air smell, mixed with . . . man?
Definitely man.
My bed always smells like clean laundered sheets, crisp fresh air and lavender. This pillow? This bed? It smells like hot nights, sweat, and naked, salty skin.
My bed is soft, deeply cushioned, with a feather mattress topper. This bed is firm, with worn sheets that feel like an old T-shirt washed too many times.
Outside the gull calls again, joined by the shrill whistling sounds of birds flying over.
And that’s when the hair on the back of my neck rises, my heart kicks around my chest, and I decide I’m not in my bed.
And I’m not in Geneva.
Slowly, I open my eyes and lift the pillow.
Sunlight floods over me, partially blinding me with its brightness. I’ve not seen sun this bright since I was sailing the Greek isles with my dad years ago. It’s the sort of bright, direct light that’s only found reflecting off jewellike seas and white sand beaches.
Sunspots dance in my vision and then clear away, unveiling a bedroom I’ve never seen.
It’s tiny. Barely large enough to fit the bed. There’s perhaps a half-meter of space between the wall and the bed, and I’m fairly certain the door hits the mattress when opened.
The walls are white and scuffed. They reflect the bright light from the room’s window—a three-foot-wide, single-paned window lined by unfinished wood. Its view is a bright cerulean blue sky, no clouds, no trees, nothing to tell me where I am.
There’s a plastic clothesline hanging from the wall at the foot of the bed. Dresses, T-shirts, shorts. It’s loaded with women’s clothing that’s worn and faded. The dresses are beachy, flowy, and remind me of something my mum might wear if she were staying at a beach commune.
On the other half of the plastic clotheslines, there are men’s clothes. Light colored T-shirts, jeans, cargo shorts, a few wrinkled button-down shirts worn at the seams, a pair of khakis.
There isn’t much else in the bedroom. A single bulb with a pull chain hanging from the ceiling. A box fan in the window, spinning slowly, emitting a low hum. A driftwood-framed wedding photograph hanging on the far wall.
It’s of a woman in a mermaid-style wedding dress, short, strawberry-blonde hair, pale skin, pale blue eyes. She grins triumphantly at the camera—a bride at the pinnacle of happiness. She’s standing next to a young man. He’s in a gray suit, tall and solid, with the type of muscled build that would lead people to assume he’s a star footballer. He’s black-haired, brown-eyed, bronze-skinned, square-jawed, and classically handsome in a carefree “I’ll be your summer fling and you’ll never forget me” sort of way.
They’re standing on a long stretch of beach, the white sand glistening, the surf running over the train of the woman’s wedding dress. I’d be surprised if either of them was older than twenty.
The wedding . . . it must have taken place at least a decade ago.
Because the man?
That wide-shouldered, square-jawed, dark brown-eyed man?
He’s in bed next to me.
Except he’s not twenty, he’s my age. Early thirties. His face has squared off even more. His jaw is hard, dark morning stubble lining his sun-weathered face. His messy hair dips over his forehead and he regards me with a sleepy smile.
The sun glides over his skin, carving lines across the hard plane of his shoulders and down his chest. There’s a dusting of hair. Tattoos covering his biceps and pectoral muscles, wrapping around his abdomen. What are they of? I don’t know. I don’t look.
Because he’s naked.
As naked as the day he was born, and he’s smiling at me.
I drop into that smile. I tumble headfirst into it. My stomach drops as if I’m falling and then lifts as if I’ve caught an updraft and I’m soaring free.
He’s smiling at me like he knows me. Like we’ve spent thousands of nights together and he wants to spend a thousand more with me. He’s smiling at me like he knows me inside and out—that I love coffee before breakfast, that beautifully painted enamel on a watch dial can make me cry, that I love roasted chestnuts at Christmas and giving gifts more than receiving them. Like he knows I’m scared of being left behind and I’m terrified of giving my heart away again—he knows all this and he loves me for all of it.
That smile tells me that if I fall into his open arms he’ll hold me, and I’ll be safe with him.
My breath is short, my lungs tight. The gulls screech outside and the hum of the fan moans over the sound of crashing waves.
I struggle to draw in the humid, salt-tinted air.
“Who . . .? What . . .?
He leans forward. The mattress tilts, rolling me closer to him. He brushes his fingers over my cheek, his touch whisper-soft.
“Morning,” he says.
His voice is rich, mellow, sleep-filled. It rolls over me like a wave licking over bare skin. There’s the hint of a musical, rolling accent, subtle and warm.
He smiles. “You must’ve been worn out from last night. I was wondering when you’d wake up.”