4. Caroline #2
The footsteps move closer. I hold my breath, pressing myself against the wall behind a stack of towels, making myself as small as possible.
Then another voice. Amelia’s, hissing and urgent.
“Just let her calm down. You know how she gets when she’s upset. Tomorrow she’ll be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” Graham’s laugh is ugly, nothing like the charming sound I fell in love with. “She pushed me into a pool in front of half the resort. There’s already video online. My mother is losing her mind. Do you know how this looks?”
“So we do damage control. We tell everyone I was confused, that I misread the situation-”
“That won’t work. You told them you’re pregnant, Amelia. You told them it’s mine. How exactly do we walk that back?”
“I don’t know, okay? I panicked.” Amelia’s voice rises with frustration. “I thought if I forced the issue you’d finally choose me, but this isn’t - this isn’t how it was supposed to go. You were supposed to comfort me. You were supposed to tell her you want to be with me. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was trying to manage the situation! Because you weren’t supposed to be here at all! I told you to wait-”
“You’ve been telling me to wait for months! I’m tired of waiting, Graham. I’m tired of being your secret. I’m carrying your child and I deserve better than being hidden away while you play house with my sister.”
The footsteps pause right outside my door. I watch the shadow of feet in the crack of light at the bottom, two pairs standing so close they’re almost touching.
“Try the spa,” Graham says finally. “She likes those treatment rooms.”
My heart stops.
The handle rattles. Once, twice. I press my hand over my mouth to muffle my breathing, certain they can hear my heart pounding through the door.
“Locked.” Amelia’s voice sounds relieved. “She’s probably not here.”
“Or she’s hiding. Caroline? If you’re in there, we need to talk. This isn’t productive. Whatever you think you heard-”
I don’t make a sound. I don’t move. I barely breathe.
“Caroline, please.” Graham’s voice takes on that patient, condescending tone I know so well. “You’re overreacting. If you just let me explain-”
Still nothing. I will myself to be invisible, to be silent, to be a shadow they can’t find.
After an eternity, the shadows shift. The footsteps retreat.
“Fine,” Graham says, his voice fading down the corridor. “We’ll try again in the morning. She can’t avoid me forever.”
I wait until I can’t hear them anymore. And then I wait another hour just to be safe.
My phone buzzes. A text from Sean.
Three hours out. Slip B-7. Stay hidden.
I type back with trembling fingers: They’re looking for me. Graham and Amelia together. They came to the spa.
His response is immediate: Together?
Yes. Planning damage control. Trying to figure out how to spin this.
A pause. Then: Of course they are. They deserve each other. Don’t let them find you. I’m coming.
***
At dawn, I slip out through service corridors and make my way to the marina.
The resort is quiet at this hour, the wealthy guests still sleeping off their champagne from the night before.
I move like a ghost through the parts of the property that tourists aren’t supposed to see - the laundry rooms and storage areas and staff passages that keep paradise running behind the scenes.
The marina is almost deserted. Just a few early-morning fishermen and a cleaning crew preparing the day boats. Slip B-7 is at the far end of the dock, and I can see a sleek white yacht approaching from the north, its running lights still blinking against the pale sky.
Almost there.
I’m twenty feet from the dock when a figure steps out from behind a maintenance shed, blocking my path.
Graham.
He looks terrible - unshaven, wild-eyed, still wearing the same clothes from yesterday with dried pool water stains on the collar. His hair is sticking up in a dozen different directions, and there are dark circles under his eyes that suggest he didn’t sleep any more than I did.
“Caroline.” His voice is raw, desperate. “Thank God. I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“Move.”
He keeps talking. He always keeps talking, excuses and explanations and that wounded, reasonable voice he uses when he wants me to be the unreasonable one, and I let none of it touch me.
I keep my eyes on the water and my feet moving toward the dock, one step back for every step he takes forward, until the only thing I’m sure of is that I am not going to stand here and let him narrate his way out of this.
“There’s nothing you can say,” I tell him. “You knew she was coming. You sat by that pool with me all morning and you knew.”
He has no answer for that. For once in his life, Graham Hawke has nothing.
The sound of an engine cuts through his desperate monologue.
I turn to see Sean’s yacht swinging around the end of the pier, moving too fast for harbor rules, Sean himself visible at the helm. Even from this distance, I can see the tension in his shoulders, the hard set of his jaw, the determination in every line of his body.
“Caroline.” Graham grabs my arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Who is that? Did you call someone?”
I wrench my arm free.
“You told her where to find us,” I say. “On our honeymoon. After you’d just stood at an altar and promised to love me for the rest of your life.”
“That’s not what-”
“Don’t contact me again.”
I run.
Graham lunges after me, his fingers grazing my shoulder, but I’m faster than he expects and the dock is slippery with morning dew. Behind me, I hear him curse and stumble.
The yacht pulls alongside the pier, Sean already reaching for me with one hand while the other holds the wheel. His eyes are hollow with exhaustion - he sailed through the night to reach me, didn’t sleep, didn’t stop - but his grip is sure and strong when I grab his hand.
“Jump,” he says.
I jump.
My feet hit the deck and I stumble, but Sean’s arm is there to catch me, to steady me, to keep me upright as he guns the engine and the yacht surges forward.
Behind us, Graham stands on the dock getting smaller and smaller, his mouth moving in words I can no longer hear.
Amelia appears beside him, her hand on her belly, her expression a mixture of frustration and something that might be satisfaction - her plan worked, in a way.
She exposed the truth. She got what she wanted, even if the aftermath isn’t going exactly the way she imagined.
They stand together, united, watching me escape.
Good. They deserve each other.
I turn away and face the open water, and I let myself breathe for the first time in eighteen hours.
“You okay?” Sean’s voice is rough with exhaustion, but his hand is steady on the wheel.
“No,” I say honestly. “But I will be.”