Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
TRISTAN
Igo back through Dad’s email, reading the one line I didn’t share with Lexi again and again:
You’ve always cared about Alexandra O’Reilly, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up.
That he’s bothered to email me about this case is weirdly gratifying. He trusts me. But… You’ve always cared about Alexandra O’Reilly.
How does he know? And what the actual fuck am I doing here, reading emails from Dad?
Lexi needs me right now. She’s so good at pasting a smile on her face and being professional, and the only thing that ever gives her away is that blush she just can’t help.
When she walked out ten minutes ago, she was emotionally shattered. Yet she was still going to do her job.
I close my laptop and unplug it as lightning brightens the office for a split second. The ensuing thunder rolls in two seconds later. Shit. Not good. It’s too close. Lexi isn’t going to like that at all.
I lock up everything and speed toward the guest area as fat drops of rain kamikaze from the heavy clouds.
When I get to the bar and dining area, the place is quiet.
A few guests are sitting around having drinks, and waiters are going about their job as if a storm is par for the course.
But the dining room is all set with the roll-down shutters, which I notice for the first time, and hundreds of candles flickering. Jeez, so romantic. And extra as always.
“Have you seen Lexi?” I ask the bartender when I don’t spot her.
“She was here a couple minutes ago, jumping at the weather. Maybe in the office?”
“Nope. I just came from there. Maybe she went to grab dinner.” I go to the staff mess, but there’s no Lexi there either. Jem and Mike are eating with several others, and I avoid eye contact with them, not wanting to get into a long conversation right now.
I’m halfway out of the canteen when I hear Jem’s voice, coming loud and clear over a lull in conversation. “Those two are only trouble,” she declares. “And that in our spot of paradise.”
What the actual…? Not that I have time to dissect her comment now.
All I can think of is Lexi and how she looked earlier—and that was before this weather came crashing down.
I rush along the decked pathway, unable to dodge the rain despite the thick tree canopy overhead.
A full-on deluge is pouring from the sky and to protect my laptop, I push it underneath my T-shirt.
By the time I get home, I’m soaked, and a chill spreads over my back with the wind that whips through the vegetation.
The shutters are down, and dim light comes through their fine slats.
I kick off my flip flops, heading to the closed door.
Another crackle of lightning flashes, and thunder sounds seconds later.
At least they have lightning rods everywhere on the island to protect their rather rustic wood-and-palm-leaf structures.
“Lexi?” I walk inside and spot her curled up on the bed. “Are you okay?”
A pained grunt is all I hear over the rain that pelts the roof.
I drop my laptop to the sofa, shake my wet hair, strip off my soaked clothes, and find my way through the mosquito net. I clamber up on the bed and pull her into my arms. “It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.” She pushes into my chest, and I fold her tense frame against me as she quivers.
“I didn’t think about this when I signed up for this gig.”
We didn’t think about a lot of things, babes… I press a kiss to her hair. “It’s not a hurricane. They would have told us, if it were. It will be over soon.”
She sobs.
Oof. I didn’t realize she was crying.
“I’ve been better about this, honestly—” she starts, her voice breaking. “It’s so long ago now.”
“I know.” But when you have too much on your plate, even the fears you’ve overcome bubble up out of nowhere.
Lexi is strong. She did, after all, spend a night on a random rooftop when that hurricane drowned her childhood home and swept her family’s life away with it.
“I’m glad I’m not out on a boat right now. ”
She sniffs and looks at me. “What happened last year?”
I tense at the memory of it. I haven’t really spoken about this to anyone.
Even the other crew who were with me on the boat have been side-stepping me as I’ve been side-stepping them.
We filed the reports and other necessary paperwork and scattered.
It’s still too recent and raw. “We capsized in a storm. In the moment, all you can think of is surviving… It’s afterwards that the fear comes.
We were lucky. Got a mayday out and a bigger vessel came just in time to pick us up. ”
“God…and you still go out to sea?”
“I’ll never stop.”
She brushes at the wet strands of hair that cling to my forehead. “Why do you love the sea so much? For a New York kid, it’s kind of weird.”
Talking takes her attention off the storm, and although Lexi knows a lot, she doesn’t know everything. “It’s quiet down there.”
“Quiet?” she asks, seeming to relax under my slow strokes down her side and over her hip.
“Yeah.” I don’t let people in like this, but Lexi is different.
She’s always been different. “Being on top of the water is somehow riskier. Being under the sea is a safe zone for me.” I hesitate for a split second, but then, this is Lexi.
“Before my parents’ divorce, we had one last vacation together as a family in the Cayman Islands.
It was tense, as my parents were constantly at each other’s throats…
I thought they were going to kill each other. ”
Her eyes go wide as she reaches up to caress my cheek. “Oh my God, really? That bad?”
“I was right in the middle of it. Even out on a catamaran for a snorkeling excursion, they didn’t stop.
It was hell, and…so awkward. The skipper, the stewards, jeez, my parents went at it as if they didn’t exist. Only once we were in the water they were forced to shut up.
That moment made quite an impression on me—the sudden stillness with the surprise of the world down there. ”
“I can imagine.”
For a moment we’re quiet, and a low rumble of thunder sounds. It’s farther away now.
“How old were you?” Lexi asks.
“Nine.” I shudder. “After the snorkeling, I got my dad to sign me up for every other water activity that week so I could stay out of their hair. My parents didn’t care.
They were glad to be rid of me. I think the resort staff took pity on me, a single kid in the middle of all that—so much so that I had my first scuba dive with one of the dive masters.
It was only two meters down, but I was hooked on a world without humans, and I’ve never looked back. ”
“A world without humans?” Lexi brushes a finger along my jaw. “My world is all about humans.”
“It is.” I hug her closer. “Where I go, you can feel part of the world even though you’re an outsider.”
She dips her head under my chin again, and her soft breath soothes over my chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Our house was filled with so much love, until my dad panicked and messed it all up.”
I lost everything on that boat, and workwise it set me back months, but the whole ordeal crushed my morale more than anything else. “Losing everything in the hurricane must have been hard for him. He was unable to care for his family as he wanted to—”
“It made him desperate.” Lexi swallows hard. “What he went through was so much worse than this, but I think I finally understand his side of the story.”
Desperate. Here we are, hacking out our own path in desperation. Ever since I saw Lexi’s video with Mia Reed, it’s been eating at me. Yes, it’s funny, but there’s more to her dread of having it out in the world than just being an innocent bystander in a sex tape going viral. “Babes…” I start.
“Hmm?”
“What’s really happening in that video? Why did you walk in on Mia Reed?
” She looks like she’s just at work, but I know Lexi.
Ever since that first morning at Evan’s house, she’s been in my space, and we’ve gotten so close and intimate with each other, I know there’s more to this video than what everybody’s picked up on.
The sob that tears through her rips through me, straight to my heart.
“Oof, babes,” I whisper as I perch onto an elbow, hugging her close, letting her hide her face in my armpit. “Lexi.” I try to soothe her with slow circles over her back, but she seems to curl into herself, pressing as close to me as she can as she cries.
I let her, giving her space to let go of all these bottled-up emotions.
“I was such an idiot, Tris. I thought I needed to go up there…to keep his interest. I went up there with the intention of doing something that I knew was wrong,” she whispers eventually.
“I thought he cared for me, that I meant something to him, because we’d been seeing each other on the sly for months—” she gulps in a breath between two sobs “—and then he asked me to meet him in that banquet room, only for me to—to—” Her body trembles as she weeps, and her pain vibrates into my own. “I never felt so cheap in my life.”
I drop back on my shoulder, rage battling on her behalf. The last time I saw her crying like this was when I walked out that night five years ago. Fuck. Of all the hurt I caused that night, did I make her feel cheap too?
I’m a total dick to wrench this out of her. But what a fucking wanker. My fists clench where I pause for a moment from rubbing her back, wanting to beat the asshole up. Wanting to beat myself up.
Lexi, so loving, always gives someone her all, only to be used by men.
I might have drawn the line, but I used to be no better in my day-to-day dealings with the women I used to have on quick dial.
And then I had the audacity to tell her that she wasn’t ready five years ago where it was really me.
These lies we tell ourselves because we’re not ready to face our true selves in the mirror…
At the time I hadn’t been ready for this woman and everything she gives when loving a person.
Nobody is worthy of her. Least of all me.
“It’s okay, babes. Nobody would guess that from watching the video,” I whisper my weak platitudes because I can’t offer her anything more. “Is this why you got restructured?”
“No. Maybe? Probably? We never discussed it at all. Not even Sheila knows the full story,” she mutters, her voice muffled against my chest. Then she perches up, blinks at me with red-rimmed eyes, her nose all snotty, but a smile teasing her lips.
“You have to admit it is funny. At St Chalamet I got fired for sleeping with management, and with Beaumont it is a freaking requirement.”
I smile back but now I get it. It all makes sense now, why she’s been freaked out by this whole fake engagement situation.
She drops her head to my chest with a deprecating chuckle, wipes her nose on my T-shirt, and clings to me. “I need to be octopused.”
“Yes, you do,” I say with a silly grin as I wrap her in my arms, weave her legs with mine, trapping her so close that we’re one body with eight limbs.
Eventually her breathing evens out as she calms, and I loosen my hug so I can play with her hair.
Rain dances on the roof and the fresh scent of wet earth and the cool shift of air that comes with it are so welcome after weeks of solid, humid heat.
It’s only when Lexi’s hand slips from where she’d been resting it against my chest that I realize she’s fallen asleep.
Sweet angel. It’s way too early to go to bed, but I’m not surprised.
She’s emotionally exhausted. She tries to be brave and upbeat, but the past few days have been a wringer.
Even sweeter though is that she was relaxed and comfortable enough with me to fall asleep like this.
We do this every night now, but this time it’s different.
She felt safe in my arms. I blink, my Adam’s apple scraping as I swallow.
That feeling of safety goes both ways. I’ve never told anybody about that week in the Caymans.
Is this what being married is like when it’s done right?
I close my eyes, savoring the moment of being this close to her as the rain gradually tapers off. When she stirs with a deep inhale and soft snore, I smile into her hair. Her hand snakes to my side as her head lolls over my arm.
“Did I fall asleep?” she murmurs in a bit of a daze.
“Mm-hmm. Just a catnap.”
Lexi snuggles in, and my heart breaks into a thousand pieces. This is a moment in time I’ll never have again.
“The rain’s almost stopped,” she murmurs as she trails a foot over my calf and down to my ankle. “And you have sandy feet.”
“So do you,” I say with a chuckle.
“All that rain splatter as I rushed home along the beach.” Her lips brush up my neck, and I suppress the neediness in my groin as I splay my fingers over her ass and tug her close, wanting the pressure of her pussy against my budding erection.
Lexi trails her fingers through my hair and pulls me down for a kiss, soft and slow.
“Do you think I should go check in on the guests?” she asks as she pulls away for a breath. “Dinner is probably almost done, and it would be a good time.”
“No.” My fingers find their way underneath her shirt to her breast. “I think you should be a good little honeymooner for once, like all our guests, and stay right here in bed.”
“Honeymoon, hmm?” she hums. “Tristan Martinelli, I’ll let you know that I fake only one thing at a time with you.”
I smile and dip my head to kiss her. Yes, Lexi is as honest and true as it gets. Nothing between us has been fake—except our engagement, and that is starting to freak me out. Not because of the engagement lie, but because lately I’ve been wondering what it would take to make it all real.