Chapter Fifteen
Scott
The terrace smells like jasmine and citronella, and someone else’s idea of romance.
String lights loop overhead, warm and deliberate.
Two chairs are pulled close together at a small table.
Close enough that knees would touch if one of us lean in.
A bottle of wine already open, already breathing.
Candles in glass votives, flames barely moving in the still evening air.
A producer walked me through it forty minutes ago with the enthusiasm of someone staging a listing.
The crew will be just off camera. Try to enjoy yourselves. This is your moment.
My moment…right. Like I wanted this moment with someone that wasn’t with Lyla to begin with.
I sit, taking in the view. The ocean slowly going dark as the last of the sun dissolves and disappears into the horizon.
A reminder to myself that I only have five days left.
Five days left until real life comes knocking.
A life where none of this exists and the only thing that matters is whether Lyla will let me in.
And once money isn’t hanging over her head anymore, she’ll no doubt try to get as far away from me as possible.
Right now, this date isn’t helping.
Valerie arrives moments later. She’s made an effort.
Her hair is down, resting on exposed shoulders as she wears a yellow dress that catches the light when she moves.
She smiles when she sees me, and it’s a real smile—wide, a little nervous, the kind of smile that says this moment means something to her.
That’s the part that makes this harder. She isn’t performing.
“You clean up well,” she says, settling into the chair across from me.
“You, too.”
She laughs, reaching for the wine and pouring us both a glass without asking. I register it the way I register everything—noted, filed, and nothing of consequence.
Somewhere behind her head, a camera shifts.
Valerie seems like a sweet girl, easy to talk to. She’s funny when she’s not trying to be, quick with an opinion, doesn’t fill silence with noise just to fill it. The right guy would be lucky to be sitting where I am. That’s just not me.
My heart belongs to Lyla, and that’s not going to change.
She asks about my work. Security, I tell her.
Private sector now, Marines before that.
I leave out my complicated past. She then asks what made me leave the Corps, and I give her the honest version but keep it short and sweet.
Her questions then become mundane like what I do on days off. I choose a simple response.
“Fishing,” I say. “If I can get to Grapevine Lake.”
“I didn’t picture you as patient enough for fishing.”
“Most people don’t.” I turn my glass once. “It’s not about the fish.”
She leans in slightly, elbows on the table and her head resting on her hands. “What’s it about then?”
“Quiet.”
Before she can respond, the food comes. Grilled fish, rice, and sliced mango—someone put actual thought into it.
We eat. She talks about her family, her two younger brothers out in Phoenix, and her mother who calls her every Sunday. She says it like it’s a complaint, but the warmth underneath it is obvious.
Somewhere in the middle of her speaking, I zone out thinking about Lyla. About the space between us since coming back to the villa. About how I’d rather fill that space right now than be here.
Valerie is kind, but she’s barking up the wrong tree.
I pick up my glass.
“Can I ask you something?” Valerie says.
“Sure.”
“Why are you here?” She says it without accusation, genuine curiosity rather than prying. “Everyone around here has a different idea, and I’d rather ask the source. You don’t come off as the typical TV personality.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
She sobers. “You’re here for Lyla, aren’t you?”
I nod.
She tilts her head, processing—fitting it into whatever version of me she’s been constructing.
“Do you think she wants you back?”
The candle between us shivers once.
“The question isn’t does she. It’s whether she will take me back.”
“That’s confident,” she observes. “What makes you think that?”
“Let’s just say Lyla and I go way back.”
She scoffs. “You and everyone else here.”
Her smile falters, softening into something more polite. I can see her rearranging something internally. She reaches for the wine bottle and tops off my glass, then hers, without saying anything else.
By the time the plates are cleared, the sky is fully dark. Stars come through, close and heavy, the way they only get out here, away from everything. Valerie turns her face up to look at them.
“This part I’ll miss,” she speaks softly. “The sky.”
“Yeah.”
She looks back down. Looks at me. There’s a shift in her expression, as though she’s decided something.
She then stands and leans across the corner of the table. I recognize what she’s trying to do.
I’m quick to pull back, one hand gentle at her shoulder.
My lips land at her cheekbone—brief, unambiguous. A press. Nothing more. The kind of kiss you give a sibling, not a potential significant other.
Her eyes open. She’s perfectly still for a moment, as if processing the message I’m giving her.
Then she blinks and settles back into her chair. A soft exhale through her nose.
“Oh,” she says, heat crawling up her face. “You weren’t kidding about Lyla.”
“Valerie.”
“No, it’s—” She shakes her head, a small rueful curve at the corner of her mouth. Not angry. Just recalibrating. “I read that wrong.”
“You’re—” I want to be honest, because she deserves that much.
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, and there’s a quiet laugh underneath it, as though she’s laughing to herself. “Please don’t finish that sentence. I already feel embarrassed enough.”
I close my mouth.
She looks out at the water for a moment. The embarrassment settles and what’s left underneath is two people without pretense between them for the first time all evening.
But what if I could use this time with Valerie to my advantage?
What if I gave her an opportunity where we both could possibly get what we want?
What if I got her to choose Damon in the coupling ceremony?
She’s beholden to no other guy here, and there’s zero chance her ex will have the balls to even reconcile with her.
I lean forward. “Can I ask you something?”
She glances back. “After all that, I might as well be an open book.”
“Tomorrow. Your first pick.” I hold her gaze. “What do you think of Damon?”
She stares at me for a long moment. “I haven’t given him much thought. Why?”
“I just think you two would have more in common.” I don’t know that for sure. It’s a hunch, but one I’m willing to work to my advantage.
Then she laughs. Not harshly, but with the full weight of disbelief behind it. “You’re asking me to hand my advantage to someone else?”
She caught on quick.
“I’m asking you to consider it.”
She hesitates. “For Lyla.”
“For you, too,” I say. “Damon seems like a good guy. He might surprise you. Just sleep on it.”
She leans back in her chair, arms crossing loosely, thinking. Her eyes move to the candle between us.
“You know,” she says slowly, “most men would’ve just let me pick them and figured they’d sort the rest out later, once I became another notch on their bedpost.”
“You deserve better. And I’m not most men.”
“No.” She exhales. “You really aren’t.”
Silence falls between us. The ocean fills the silence, low and constant beyond the terrace railing.
“I’ll think about it,” she says finally.
She’s not saying yes. But her response isn’t a no either, and I know better than to push further. I nod once and let it sit.
She closes her eyes for a moment, taking in deep breaths as if composing herself with a dignity I respect. Then she meets my eyes across the candles.
“She’s lucky,” she says.
I think back to Lyla on that helicopter. Shoulder to shoulder. Eyes forward.
“I know. She just doesn’t know that yet,” I say.
Valerie holds my gaze for a long moment.
“She should.”
After dinner is over, we walk back to the others, side by side, without saying much else. Side by side. Cameras track us the whole way.
Inside, the common area is loud with conversation and music.
Valerie’s words echo in my mind. I’ll think about it.
They’re not enough to count on, especially when Valerie owes me nothing. I sealed that fact the moment I rejected her kiss. Whatever she decides tomorrow, she’ll decide it for herself, and she’d be right to. I just hope she takes me into account, not just Damon.
Somewhere in this villa, Lyla is thinking about me, about us. I know it the same way I’ve always known things about her. It’s not logical, just a gut feeling. I’d be an idiot not to think she’s turning over what we talked about. That she’s building her walls back up brick by careful brick.
And if that’s true, and she ends up choosing Damon despite my efforts, I don’t know what I’ll do.