Chapter Twenty-Five
The sunlight streamed through the thin linen curtains and swayed in the salty breeze.
After the chaos, overstimulation, and complete storm surge of unresolved tension with pretty much every person in a two-mile radius, sleep had been a weighted blanket, pinning me to Earth.
I squinted against the light and listened to my own breathing.
The steady pattern of each inhale and exhale.
Wait.
I focused harder, and from behind me, I heard a mirroring of my breath, deeper and more sound, a slight growl beneath it. My inhalation. Other inhalation. My exhalation. Other exhalation. I felt it on my shoulder as real as my own.
Oh.
My.
God.
Not Matty. Not Matty. Pleeeease, not Matty.
But sweet Jesus, if it’s not Matty, then who the fuck else would it be?
I rolled over, ready to punt whoever it was straight out of bed, when—
Leo.
Leo?!
Hair mussed, mouth slack in sleep, one arm thrown over his head like he’d been reaching for me in a dream. A faint line creased his cheek where it had pressed into the sheet, and his skin almost glowed in the cast of the morning light.
For a second, my brain couldn’t compute what my eyes were seeing. Like I’d conjured him out of sheer need, like my body had sent up a flare into the universe and he’d followed the smoke all the way to me.
Relief hit first. Not the quiet kind, but the sob-in-your-throat, knees-give-out variety that moved through me like a tidal wave. It didn’t make sense. Him being there. How relieved it made me feel. And how much I realized I’d needed him. None of it made any sense at all.
And maybe that was exactly the point. I hadn’t been aware of how tightly I’d been coiling all the muscles in my body, like a lion ready to strike .
. . until I saw him. In that instant, every last one of my defenses unclenched.
Not because I decided to. Because my body did.
On instinct. Because it finally felt safe.
But I still couldn’t wrap my brain around how Leo was here, lying next to me after everything that happened last night.
In fact, it seemed so implausible that maybe he wasn’t really here at all and this was just a sleep-deprived, stressed-out, half-hungover manifestation.
I blinked at him, examining how the soft hair on his muscular forearm blew in the stream of each heavy exhalation, and slowly poked a rigid finger into his chest. As my fingertip pressed into the firm muscle under his shirt, he stirred to reposition himself, but his eyes remained closed.
I poked again. Harder.
His lids fluttered, and the faintest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “If this is your idea of foreplay, we’ve got to work on your technique,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep.
“You’re really here.” It came out more like a question than a statement.
He opened his eyes, gaze still a little hazy through thick lashes, but unmistakably warm. “Of course I’m here. I got in very late last night, and since you were sleeping like a stone, I didn’t want to wake you.”
I sat up, trying to untangle myself from the bedsheets. “But . . . after last week. The fight. The infrequent texts. The way I left. You saying you needed space. I guess . . . I just thought . . .”
Leo pushed up onto one elbow. “We had an argument. That’s all it was.
A real one, yeah, but still, it was just a fight.
I needed a minute, not a lifetime. I’ll be honest and say there was a moment where it felt easier to fall back into old patterns and bury myself in my work.
But you mean too much to me. This means too much to me.
So I decided there was no choice but to get on that plane.
Though, I wish I had known it was a glorified wind-up toy.
I white-knuckled it the whole time, and I fly a lot. ”
A lump formed in my throat. “I really didn’t think you were coming,” I managed. “I figured you’d probably had enough. That I pushed you away too hard this time.”
His eyes softened, and he reached out to caress my cheek with his thumb. “There’s no such thing, Elliot. We’re adults. In a real, grown-up relationship. And I understand now that when you love someone, you show up.”
His words almost split me in two. So simple, so uncomplicated, yet powerful enough to steal the air from my lungs.
Showing up. Staying.
Table stakes in most relationships. But uncharted territory for me. Trust had always felt like a gamble . . . one I kept losing. So I started folding early, protecting whatever pieces of myself I had left.
Emotion rose, sharp and sudden, in my throat. I bit my lip, nodded, and leaned into his shoulder, letting my forehead rest there, his solidity as sure as gravity. He was here. He had come.
So why couldn’t I just believe this was real? That he wasn’t going to be one more hand I’d misplayed? Why couldn’t I just give in to the moment?
Because.
Because I knew how much it could hurt to be wrong. Because being around Matty last night reminded me what it was like to have it all fall apart, and I’m not the type who falls apart anymore. I’m the one who helps other women put themselves back together.
Leo swung his legs around the bed, pushed up, and stretched, muscles rippling down his back. He turned his head toward me, a teasing spark in his eye. “I’m heading into the shower. Care to join me?”
His offer was tempting. I mean, I was only human after all.
And yet for all the reasons I was desperately trying to convince myself were true, I couldn’t shake the idea that taking the leap would end up costing me everything.
“I promised Marin I’d take a beach walk with her this morning.
We like to get our ten thousand steps in before noon.
Helps offset the afternoon cocktails. How about I meet you at breakfast? ”
He smiled. “Breakfast it is. See you there.”
“Leo!” Marin’s voice rang out across the resort restaurant as she bounded over to where he was standing in line at the omelet station. “You came! I knew you would.” She flung her arms around his neck, then turned to me, one brow raised and a satisfied smirk on her face.
“How was your sunrise walk?” Leo asked.
“Great. Just enough cardio for me to be able to justify that stack of pancakes over there,” Marin said, pointing to the buffet table. “And after I polish those babies off, I’m heading straight back to my room for a little Nappuccino.”
Leo blinked. “A what?”
“My tried-and-true vacation hack. You consume your favorite caffeinated beverage, in my case, a cappuccino, then take a short twenty- to thirty-minute power nap.” She clapped her hands together.
“You wake up and—bam!—both the caffeine and the nap have kicked in, and you are ready to rock and roll. Scientifically proven and totally life-changing.”
“I’ll have to try that sometime,” Leo said, sounding almost convinced.
I quickly interjected, “I have tried it, and all that happened was that I woke up sweaty, heart racing, and convinced it was 2007.”
“Then you must not have done it right.” Marin shrugged, already turning toward the buffet. “Like I said, scientifically proven. So yeah, Nappuccino, and then I was thinking of trying surfing. Kinda always wanted to give it a shot, and the instructor is an absolute babe.”
I eyed her, and she threw her hands up in immediate defense.
“I took an oath of marriage, not a vow of blindness! Just because I’m married doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the local scenery.
Oh, look, they just brought out a fresh tray of pancakes.
Sorry, not sorry,” she said, and beelined in the direction of the already forming line.
Leo looked straight at me as he reached up to brush a stray hair from my face after she’d gone.
“If you’d told me how absolutely beautiful this place was, I wouldn’t have dragged my feet getting here.
” He gave me a slow smile and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“But honestly, it’s nothing compared to you,” he whispered in my ear as he pulled away.
“Oh, and you might want to stick with coffee or just a light breakfast. I planned a little something special, if you’re up for it, and I think you’ll want to save some room. ”
Intrigued, I nodded, already scanning for a latte to take on the road, when I spotted Matty lingering at the fruit buffet, weighing his options.
Matty, who Leo knew nothing about because I’d never told him.
I hadn’t been willing to crack that door open, to let the pain spill out and ruin the act I’d been perfecting for years.
Strange, but in all the chaos of the last few days, it had never once occurred to me that if Leo did actually show up for the wedding, he’d be standing face-to-face with my ex and the past I’d worked so hard to bury.
And now, here Matty was, frozen midsentence with one of the servers, holding a toothpick spearing a wedge of pineapple.
His eyes flicked between me and Leo, the recognition of what he was seeing unfolding on his face.
No smirk. No mask. Just a slow blink and a look that made it painfully clear that it wasn’t just the alcohol talking last night. His heart had been on full display.
“I’m going to grab some more coffee,” Leo said, leaning in, completely oblivious to the awkwardness firing between me and Matty from across the solarium. “Want anything?”
“I think I’m good. Thanks,” I responded before watching him disappear into the sea of other guests queuing for their breakfast items.
“Leo!” Dad clapped a hand on his shoulder as Leo returned, almost spilling the fresh coffee in his grip. “Glad you made it.”
Bracing the hold on his cup to minimize the spillage, Leo dabbed at his wet fingers with a napkin. “Wouldn’t have missed it, sir.”
“Good lad,” Dad said, nodding with approval. “Do you scuba dive? We’re headed to an incredible spot, the Great Blue Hole. It’s supposed to be one of the best dive sites in the world.”
“Thanks for the invite, Mr. West. It sounds brilliant, but unfortunately, I don’t.
Besides,” Leo said, turning to me, “I was hoping to spend the day just Elliot and me. I wanted to check out the town, and the guy at the front desk told me about this hidden beach on the far side of the island. I thought maybe we could go there for a picnic. Of course, only if you want to?”
I caught sight of Matty across the room again.
Part of me wanted to go over and introduce him to Leo, just to get it over with and see whether there was any chance the two of us could ever find solid ground again.
But I already felt too exposed, even after the little softness I’d let slip last night, breaking maybe the most important commandment I’d written in Sharpie across my heart: Put thyself first. If you don’t, no one else will.
I was Elliot-freakin’-West, forged by fire, and every time, I’d had to rise from the ashes when everything else burned.
And thankfully, right now, Matty, today’s fire, was politely staying out of my way.
I didn’t have to face the past. I could just pretend I was on some glorious tropical vacation (instead of whatever version of hell this was) and go with Leo on this little adventure.
I nodded. “Alright, let’s see this hidden beach of yours.”
No promises. No expectations.
Just one day. On my own terms.
Exactly how I liked it.