Chapter 14
The muscles in Sylvie’s face were sore from smiling during the video call with Lilly, but she refused to let her niece see how absolutely miserable she felt. “It really is just so beautiful,” she said for the tenth time. “I can’t get over it.”
“Right? Send me more pictures!” Lilly gushed. “Are you going snorkeling?”
“I don’t think so, honey. I’ll send you some snaps tomorrow, okay?”
She tried to ignore Lilly’s sarcastic eye roll.
What did it matter if her niece thought she was boring?
Or afraid to get in the water? Or, if she were being honest, a little self-conscious about the idea of wearing a swimsuit in public, where every beachgoer seemed to fall into one of two categories—model or octogenarian with a tanning obsession.
Sylvie knew she wasn’t in the first group and had no desire to be mistaken for the second.
“You owe me at least ten,” Lilly said. “You didn’t send me any yesterday.”
“Not true,” Sylvie retorted. “I sent three. The rest of the day, I was getting over the jet lag.”
Lilly looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Aunt Sylv, we’re in the same time zone.”
“I know that,” Sylvie replied. “I meant more like the exhaustion from traveling for nearly twenty hours!”
“Okay,” Lilly said. “I’ll forgive you, but only if you have the best time!”
Sylvie promised, and Lilly finally let her hang up.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to the girl; she just didn’t want to talk to her right now.
She was still tired, even though she had slept most of the previous day, but she hadn’t been able to shake the melancholy that had settled in since dinner that first night.
Everything was lovely. There wasn’t a single thing she could want for at the hotel.
It was beautiful; she had been introduced to the massage suite and told that three massages were included in her package, the food was delicious, and Portia had even stopped by her table at lunch the previous day to say hello.
But she couldn’t stop herself from raking over the Sweet Somedays.
Sylvie had been adamant that she wouldn’t bring the notebook with her, and she hadn’t.
Instead, she had taken pictures of every page on her phone and then written them out neatly in her pocket notebook on the plane. She obsessively read through them until she could recite them by heart, and she even dreamt about them last night.
Shaking her head as she sat down at the terrace table, she opened the notebook and deliberately skipped over the pages with the copied list. She moved to a blank page and started jotting down the places on the island she wanted to see—locations from Femme de Force.
The movie clearly hadn’t been a big deal here.
There were only a few references to it in the hotel, and no themed tours from local vendors like there might be back home.
But then again, maybe there wouldn’t be back home, either.
She didn’t know every movie shot in South Carolina.
Why should these folks know a random film from a thousand years ago?
“Sylvie Sweet? There’s no way that’s you…”
A male voice behind her made her head spin. No… She must be hallucinating.
She slowly turned in her seat, feeling faint. Standing in the Caribbean sunlight, dressed in a sharply tailored linen suit and dark sunglasses, was the guy she once thought she would marry.
“Luke?” Her heart clenched, and her throat closed.
“My God, it is you,” he said, walking toward her. “Twenty years? I don’t think I’ve seen you since—”
The day before you left for college, she thought.
“After you graduated,” she said aloud, not wanting to ruin the moment with something snippy.
He shook his head as he approached, his gaze locking on hers like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “How is this real?”
The lump in her throat made swallowing painful. Nevertheless, she stood. “I don’t know. This is just…crazy.”
There had been something else she’d planned to say, but then he wrapped her in a hug that took her breath and her thoughts away.
She hugged him back and tried not to panic.
When they pulled apart, she looked at his face.
He wasn’t taller than he had been in high school—she still only came up to just under his chin—but he seemed taller. Broader. Stronger.
He looked down at her, golden eyes warm and searching. They both realized at the same time that they were staring.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, stepping back and clearing her throat. “I mean, what brings you to this place?”
Luke laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “What am I doing here? More like what are you doing here? I’ve had the most chaotic few days—nothing’s gone right—and then bam, I look up and there you are.”
The way he looked at her made her blush, and he must have noticed because he blinked hard and looked away.
“Sorry. I’m here for a wedding,” he added quickly. “What about you?”
She didn’t want to get into everything with him, not now. “Oh, just a trip holiday. Took the chance when I had it.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie.
“Wow.” He smiled, eyebrows raised. “That’s not the Sylvie I remember.”
She smiled faintly and shrugged. “I guess not.”
“Are you here alone?” he asked, glancing past her.
“Uh, yeah. Just me.”
“Mind if I sit for a bit?” He lowered his voice, suddenly more grounded. “It’s kind of nuts seeing you again.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Even though talking longer probably meant telling him about her mom, there was a thrill in having him here. “Sure,” she said, glancing behind him. “But aren’t you supposed to be with the wedding crowd?”
He smirked. “Funny story. Thanks to a perfect storm—food poisoning, a highway pileup, a dust storm at one airport, and a fuel issue at another—I’m the only one who made it.” He raised a finger for each catastrophe.
Sylvie’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. That’s brutal.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “And my flight was delayed by three hours. By the time they gave out meal vouchers, everything was closed.”
“So you’ve suffered equally with the violently ill and the permanently grounded?” she teased.
His grin widened. “Exactly. You always had a way of cutting through the noise.”
Her cheeks warmed when he noticed the single place setting. “Me, myself, and I,” she said. “The staff here have been ridiculously sweet—set me up with my own table and everything. We’ll need to grab you some cutlery if you’re staying.”
“Wouldn’t dream of imposing,” he said, but he didn’t move.
She smiled back, remembering this about him. He didn’t push. He waited until you gave him the green light.
And just like that, she realized she already had.