Chapter 33
Isabella.
She was here?
But…how?
And why was she calling him babe?
Dan’s mouth stopped working as Isabella wrapped her arm around his waist.
“My flight took forever,” she gushed on. “I couldn’t wait to see you again!” She pulled him toward the bungalow.
He looked over his shoulder at Libby, about to call out to her, just as Isabella’s hands pressed on his face and turned it back.
“God, I’ve missed you, babe.”
Serita raised her eyebrows. She was still standing by the back door, watching everything.
“I’ve been desperate to be with you again,” Isabella went on. “Everyone’s going wild about our exciting news. They’re so happy we’re getting back together.”
A choking, scoffing sound came from Serita as she walked past toward Libby. Wanting to follow her, Dan turned his head again just as Isabella’s last words slammed into his brain.
We’re getting back together?
“What are you—” And that’s when he saw it. Fear and panic glazed Isabella’s eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Dan, please.” Her lips trembled as she tugged him inside. “I need your help. I had nowhere else to go.” She shut the door, drew the curtains, and burst into tears.
“Issy, what’s happened?”
“They hate me, Dan. It’s vile. They’re saying I should kill myself.”
“Who?”
She hiccuped through her tears. “Social media. They think I’m breaking up Xav’s marriage. They’re saying it’s all my fault. That I lured him into an affair, but he started it, and…and…”
“But you and Hunter love each other,” Dan said, “and how… How does anyone know?”
“I… I don’t know. We were so careful.”
“And what’s Hunter saying about all this?”
“H-he… He’s denying it.” Shoulders shaking, Issy wept into her hands. Dan hugged her until she was able to speak again. “He’s not divorcing Alicia. He’s not leaving her. He lied to me about that. He let me believe…”
She burst into tears again.
“Oh, Issy.”
“Paparazzi were gathering everywhere I went. At first, I thought it was because of the song, but they didn’t give a shit about that.
They just sneered at me about Xav. So I did what you did, Dan.
I ran away.” Shaking now, Isabella took gulps of air.
“I-I flew back to LA as expected, told my driver to head to the hotel without me, and then I waited in a toilet cubicle until I could get a flight to Sydney. I asked my friends Nadine and Ashley to post stuff hinting that I was missing you and that we…we…we’re hoping to get back together. ”
“Wha—”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.
I should’ve asked you first, but you never replied to my messages.
You never called me back.” She sat on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees, and despite the heat, she was shivering.
“Not that I blame you, Dan. I know you must hate me too, but I didn’t know who else to turn to.
Even my mother thinks I’m the one who fucked things up with Xav.
She said it was my fault he went back to his wife. ”
“Your mother is—” With gritted teeth, Dan swallowed back the words he’d been about to mutter.
They wouldn’t help now, and he had more important things to deal with.
“Libby and I have been at the beach all morning. We’ve not checked social media.
” He rubbed his forehead, hoping to god Libby hadn’t read anything online about his and Isabella’s fake reunion. “I have to speak to her.”
“I… I’ve looked Libby up,” Isabella was saying, her teeth chattering as she hugged herself. “I read some of her travel articles. Was that her behind you just now?”
“Yeah.”
“And her son?”
“Yes.” Dan studied her. A shipwreck victim dragged out of the waves, Isabella didn’t look well at all. “Put this over you.” He draped a sheet from the bed over her shoulders, never having seen her this distraught before.
She stared at the floor by her feet. “Xav threw me under the bus.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s what I deserve. I shouldn’t have slept with him. He’s married. Married men never leave their wives, do they?” She sucked in a shaky breath. “Apart from my dad. He was married and didn’t blink twice about leaving Mum and me. But that served me right, too, because I was such a brat. I—”
“You weren’t a brat,” Dan said sternly. “And Hunter is nothing like your dad.”
And this broken woman in front of him was nothing like the Isabella that Dan knew.
She was a gibbering, insecure, vulnerable wreck. If only Libby were here! She’d know exactly what to say and do. Was she still outside? He went to the door.
“No, don’t open it! I was followed here.”
Dan halted. “Is that why you were calling me babe? Because you think someone’s watching?”
“I’m sorry. I had to pretend I’d come to see my fiancé.”
At least Isabella’s behavior outside made sense now, but then the blood drained from Dan’s body. If Serita had seen Isabella’s fake excitement, Libby must’ve too.
“I have to call Libby.” He stood, patted his pocket for his phone, and then realized it was still in Libby’s bag. Shit. “Can I borrow your phone? I need to get a message to Libby.”
“Mine died somewhere over Australia. I… I didn’t bring anything to charge it with. I wasn’t thinking straight when I packed.”
Dan scrubbed his face.
Surely Libby would know all the marriage stuff was fake, wouldn’t she? Then again, was that why she and Karim hadn’t come inside? Libby was always so inquisitive. She never shied away from meeting people.
Had they gone back to the hut?
Then Isabella’s other words about being followed slowly seeped in. The last thing any of them needed right now was paparazzi hanging around the island.
“Who do you think followed you?” he asked.
Behind every long lens, there was always a familiar, sneering face.
“No one I recognized. But there was this one guy at Heathrow and again in LA.” She wiped her wet cheeks with the sheet Dan had put around her shoulders. “Xav always said that he’d protect me, so at first, I thought this guy was someone he’d sent to help. You know, like a CPO.”
Close Protection Officer.
Dan choked in disbelief. Needing a bodyguard? Hunter lived in a different world! Had Isabella really thought she’d be happy in it too? “So, this guy at Heathrow wasn’t a loving gift from Hunter, then?”
Wincing, Isabella shook her head. “He was just some loser. I made out that I was someone else—I mean, god, I bloody looked it!—but then there he was, sitting next to me in the bar, saying he could help me but that I needed to lay off the booze. Like, who the actual hell was he? So I… I told him to fuck off.”
“Oh, no.” Dan pinched his nose. “No, Issy. You didn’t.”
“It served him right.” But Isabella’s wince deepened as she tugged at her hair. “He’s probably bashing me on social media too now, isn’t he?”
“Well…”
“Oh, god.” More tears, more sobs. Isabella hugged herself tighter.
“Come on, Issy… If he was just some loser, forget about him. Take a breath.” Dan kneeled beside her. How could he calm her down? “You want to try some meditation? Listen to music?” Although he had nothing to play it on. “How about singing a song? That always makes you happy.”
“No.” Swiping at more tears, she dragged in another shaky breath. “I don’t think I’ll ever sing again.”
“After my accident, I didn’t think I’d be doing a lot of things, but you know, shit happens. We’ve just got to shift our perception and deal with things the best we can.”
Isabella blinked her matted eyelashes at him like he’d sprouted two heads.
Dan smiled at her. A living sample of someone who’d come out the other end. “See?”
“I could tell you were a lot happier when I saw your videos,” she said.
“I’ve still got stuff to process, but yeah, I’ve had a lot of help from Libby.”
Isabella wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “She did a great job with your socials. That was all her idea, then? I know you hate doing stuff like that.”
Mascara smeared across her cheeks and under her bloodshot eyes. When he’d last seen her—the day she’d broken off their engagement—she’d been so in love, so excited, and so convinced that her new life with Hunter would be worth other people’s pain.
“You hate me still, don’t you?” she said quietly.
Her words made him blink. He hadn’t meant to stare at her like that. “No, I don’t hate you.”
“Thank you.” Her lips wobbled again as she gulped in more air.
“It’s too bad everyone else does.” She hiccuped, and Dan braced for another flood.
“My record company is meeting after New Year’s to discuss dropping me.
When I called my PR team, they said they were closed for the holidays and couldn’t help—they’re never bloody closed.
” Isabella shivered again. “My…my friends. My family. They all said congratulations on Christmas Day when I made it to the top of the charts, but none of them had invited me to spend Christmas with them. I spent it alone. Everyone thought I had plans, but no one bothered to check. Not even my…my…my mum.”
She burst into tears again.
“Oh, Issy…” Dan hugged her, remembering that on Christmas Day, when she’d messaged him, she’d asked if they could talk. And he hadn’t replied. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Dan. You were the only person who had a reason not to speak to me. I should’ve told you months before I met Hunter that I wasn’t in love with you.
I shouldn’t have pretended everything was fine.
But honestly, I thought things would get better.
And then you nearly got killed, and…and…
” She sobbed harder. Like everyone else who’d seen him under that horse, she’d thought he was dead.
“Even your accident was my fault,” she added.
“I shouldn’t have put you in that position. ”
“It was no one’s fault, Isabella.”
She sucked in a shaky breath. “I was going to wait to tell you until you were better,” she continued.
“Then I met Xav…and he…he…” she hiccupped and sobbed.
“He was nice to me. He told me he wasn’t in love with Alicia either.
That they had an agreement to stay friends for the sake of their kids and their work, but he was lonely, like I was, and then things just happened.
But it was all a lie,” she sobbed again.
“I hurt you for a lie. I’m so sorry. You should hate me. ”
“No.” Dan put his arm around her again. “I don’t hate you.” But how many more times did he have to say it for her to believe it? She’d been tricked, scammed, and then discarded. He felt sorry for her, but his pity wouldn’t make her feel any better.
“I know I don’t deserve anything from you, Dan, but will you help me, please?” She pulled herself away from him and raised her wet eyes to his, her nose bright red, her bottom lip trembling. “Will you marry me?”
It was late afternoon. From the hut’s doorway, Libby looked across the backyard as Karim played at her feet.
Isabella was getting married.
That was the buzz on social media right now, fired up by Nadine Charming and Ashley Brooks, some reality TV stars in the UK that Isabella hung out with.
No explicit details had been given. The groom hadn’t been officially named yet, but there’d been enough clues planted, and seeing as Isabella was now in the Cook Islands, there were no prizes for guessing who the lucky guy was.
And there hadn’t been any word from that lucky guy either.
He could’ve at least messaged to explain what was going on. Instead, nothing. Was he so smitten by his ex’s return that he’d forgotten all about her and Karim already?
Common sense told Libby no, but her emotions sang a different song.
She should call him, or at least send him a message to ask what was going on, but why should she?
All her life, Libby had been hunting out the truth.
Was it so wrong to want the facts to come to her this time?
Wasn’t it right that he make the call first?
It would mean more to her if he did. To hear from him, out of his own mouth, about what he’d been doing for the past two hours in a honeymoon bungalow with his ex-fiancée.
So far, the only information Libby had about Britain’s Favorite Couple reuniting was what she’d managed to stomach from the internet—which mostly consisted of hints and hearsay from “trusted sources.”
There wasn’t even anything about Isabella having flown to Rarotonga, although it was only a matter of time before people figured that out.
The comments about her on the Hunters’ social media were gross, though.
While both Xavier’s and Alicia’s posts were full of cutesy family photos—as if their PR team had worked overtime to counter-fuel the gossip of any affair—the anti-Isabella remarks were becoming increasingly disgusting.
Libby had stopped scrolling when toxic Alicia Hunter fans were issuing death threats on Isabella.
This was exactly why Libby had wanted to warn her and why Dan had.
Stories like these always brought out the vermin from beneath the dark, damp rocks.
No wonder Rick had said Isabella was a mess. Was that why she’d come out here? To seek refuge from Dan, a man she knew would always love her?
Libby turned away from the yard and checked the time on her phone.
Nearly five p.m.
Rick’s flight would be landing soon, and it would take at least an hour for him to clear customs and collect his bag.
She checked the time again. A bus was scheduled to pass by shortly.
What if she and Karim met him at the airport, rather than waiting here, stewing over all the things that Dan and Isabella were doing?
Karim would love the bus ride too, and once they’d met up with Rick, they could head out to dinner somewhere nice that would cheer her up.
“Let’s go, honey.” Libby grabbed her bag, coaxed Karim out of the door with the promise of seeing Uncle Rick, then headed down to the bus stop.
“Kia Orana!” Tia Rosa called out from the front of her house. “Where are you two going in such a hurry?”
“To the airport!” Libby called back, jogging away with Karim in her arms, scared that they’d miss the bus.
As it was, they only had to wait a few seconds before they saw it coming toward them.
“Phew!” She let out a breath as they stepped on and bought a ticket.
“We’re having an adventure today, aren’t we, baby?
” Her emotions might be all over the place right now, but she could still make things fun for Karim.
She sat him on her lap, next to the window, and they waved to Tia Rosa as they drove by, with Libby hoping she hadn’t offended the older woman by running past her like that in her rush to catch the bus.