There was something about having slept with him again, I thought, that had changed things. Even though we hadn’t had sex, the idea that we’d slept in the same bed, entwined, our dreams merging together…
It was stupid. Completely silly. And I realized that, even as I was thinking it. But it felt like it had somehow made us more complete than we had been when we were apart. Like it had done something to bond us together.
I could only wonder if it would help us bridge the gap that had opened up between us since China. The gap filled with distrust and what felt like betrayal.
He wasn’t in bed behind me anymore. I could feel that much, through the emptiness there. But I knew he was nearby. I could still feel his presence.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the man in question still dressed in his pajamas, his hair messed and spiky, his face still creased with sleep. But he’d been out to the kitchen already, and when I sat up, I saw that he’d brought in trays full of fruit, tea, orange juice, and—I did a double take, not sure whether I’d seen it correctly—two bowls-full, plus an entire can of whipped cream.
I looked up at him, the questions in my mind no doubt written across my face, and he gave me his most boyish grin.
“I figured, us together in the jungle, giant house, no one around…seems like the ideal time for a rematch. Besides, this is where it all started. It feels like the right place to go if we want to begin again.”
I barely even let him finish. I was already scrambling out of bed and diving for the first bowl of whipped cream I thought I could reach.
Later that morning, after we’d cleaned the whipped cream off ourselves and the walls—we’d somehow managed to miss all the probably-priceless artwork, thank goodness—we headed toward the jungle that lined the yard around the house. The vegetation was different here; lighter in color, and airier, somehow, as if the trees had just as many leaves but were pushing them further toward the sky than the ones in China had been.
But the feeling was the same. The air was sticking to our skin in the same way, and above us, the sky was dappled with clouds that promised rain at some point. They were starting to gather, and I eyed the sky with suspicion, but I’d been unable to say no when Rian had proposed a walk.
“Just a quick one,” he’d said, lifting my palm to his lips. “It would be such a shame to have this gorgeous jungle around us and not bother to see any of it.”
He was right, and I’d agreed without too much effort on his part. The promise of him and me doing something else together had been too tempting, too wonderful, to pass up.
He’d taken my hand, mentioned something about being glad that I had hiking shoes on—I’d glanced at my tennis shoes with concern when he’d said it—and then dragged me out of the house and toward what I thought of as the backyard.
Away from the water, at any rate. Toward the side of the estate that reached up the mountain behind it.
“Where are we going, exactly?” I asked, dragging back a bit. “And are we sure we can get there before it starts to rain?”
“Well, I’ve been talking to our friend, David,” he started. Then, he caught sight of my face and laughed. “Don’t worry, I didn’t ask him to drive us anywhere. I don’t want anything damaging you or…”
He cast a quick glance at my belly, and I appreciated that he’d stopped himself. I was still trying to figure out how we could fit together. Permanently. I wasn’t ready to think about fitting four babies into that equation, too. Not yet.
Eventually, we would have to deal with it, yeah. But not yet. This time on the island…it was just for us.
“I appreciate that,” I said wryly. “Your concern for my well-being is noted.”
“Just doing my job,” he said softly. Then, seeming to realize that he might be overstepping his bounds, he shrugged. “You know. As Anonymous Hero Guy. Out there in the world, helping damsels in distress.”
“Riiiiiight,” I said on a laugh.
At that point, the lawn turned into the jungle and we stopped speaking for a while, each of us focusing on keeping our feet on what passed for a trail here—and our arms and hands out of the trees around us. It was a steep climb, but not so steep that I couldn’t manage it relatively easily, and when we came to a stack of stones that required actual climbing, Rian moved behind me and climbed up with my back to him, there to catch me if anything went wrong.
“You know, I’m capable of climbing things by myself,” I huffed, somewhat amused at his overprotectiveness.
“I’m sure you are,” he responded quickly. “But as long as I’m here, you won’t have to. Just go with it. Let me feel manly and protective, for at least a second.”
I grinned and kept my mouth shut. I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t enjoying the attention. It had been so long since I’d felt as though someone had my back, and this idea that he would be there to catch me if I fell…
Let’s just say it was feeling a whole lot more like a whole-life thing than just a climbing-this-set-of-rocks thing. And I was starting to feel those walls I’d worked so hard to build coming down. Brick by brick. Stone by stone.
He was opening a hole in my defenses, and I wasn’t inclined to stop him. I could only hope that I was having the same effect on him.
We reached the top of the pile of rocks and looked upward to see that we were nearly at the end of what we could see in terms of the climb.
“Almost there,” Rian said, taking my hand and starting to drag me forward again.
“Almost where?” I asked, realizing that he’d never answered my earlier question about where we were going. My mind went back to the mountains around the house where we were staying, though, and I thought I probably had a guess.
“I wanted the highest place on the island, the place with the best view,” Rian answered. “I asked David, figured he would be the best source of information, and it just so happens that the best view comes from the mountain directly behind the house. I figured it was fate.”
The jungle suddenly ended, then, and we found ourselves in a grassy field that also seemed to mark the apex of the mountain—or hill, more realistically—that we’d been climbing. Rian turned to me, his arms spread wide, his expression that of a man who had accomplished exactly what he wanted to accomplish—and was ridiculously pleased with himself about it.
“I present to you, my lady, the best view on the island.”
I laughed at his clowning, but then turned to look back the way we’d come, and gasped. The best view on the island, indeed. The jungle hid the house we were staying in, but beyond that jungle lay the crescent shape of the bay, and beyond that, miles and miles of the most beautiful water I’d ever seen. The beach below us was a bright, glistening white, and there had to be at least seven shades of turquoise in the water right on the beach. To the left and right, the beach traveled the coasts of the island, broken occasionally by cliffs and rocky areas, and I could see the bends on both sides that indicated where the island ended.
Beyond that, there was nothing but water. Water and the sky.
“Oh, wow,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful in my life.”
“I have,” I heard him say.
I turned to see him staring right at me, his face dreamy. His eyes, though, were intense. And full of questions.
“Confession,” he said suddenly. “I didn’t only want the best view. I also wanted the quietest place on the island. The place where we were guaranteed to have time all by ourselves.” He dropped into the grass and patted the ground next to him in invitation.
“Because the house was getting so crowded?” I joked, taking a seat next to him.
He reached out and ran one finger down my arm, raising goosebumps on my skin and setting my nether regions abuzz. I felt my nipples harden at the sudden, casual contact, and stifled a groan in my throat.
This damn man! I wanted him, badly. Wanted him badly enough that it overshadowed everything else, I realized. Overshadowed the fear. Overshadow
ed the loneliness. Overshadowed the desperate need to be in control at all times. To protect myself at all times.
He was the thing I needed. The thing I’d been searching for all my life. The thing I’d never thought I’d find.
And I’d been playing games, keeping those walls up, trying to protect myself from falling. Second-guessing myself when I started to. Running away when I thought he was getting too close.
I leaned forward without saying anything and pressed my lips to his, letting my body do all the speaking for me. My hands went up to his face, my fingertips tracing his jawline and his chin as I let my mouth explore his, taking my time about it. Because we had all the time in the world. We had everything we needed, right there.
If we could just let ourselves trust it. Let ourselves fall. Together.
I drew back and stared at him, trying to make my tongue work. “I’ve been such a complete fool,” I finally said softly. “I’ve been hiding from the only person I can trust. But I’m done hiding, now. And I know I owe you answers.”
He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek and nodded. “So let’s hear them.”
I spent the next hour telling him exactly who and what I wanted—and exactly what we could expect when it came to the four little ones growing inside me. Trying to fill in that chasm between us. Trying to rebuild the trust we’d found so naturally in China.
When we walked back to the house an hour later, there was a more natural ease between us. And though I knew we weren’t ready to make each other any promises yet, I thought we were at least three steps closer.
That afternoon, we decided that instead of staying in for dinner, we were going to go out.
And by going out, I mean leaving the house. Not going into town and finding the local hotspot. Although I wasn’t sure there was even a town on the island. We still had repairs to make—and that required a place where it was just the two of us, our feelings for each other, and the future we might be able to build together.
We packed a picnic—laughing about how we were reliving more of our time together in China—and set out, promising each other that we wouldn’t go too deeply into the jungle, and that we’d be careful of anything that might be living out there.
I didn’t know what generally lived on a Caribbean island. Probably not tigers. But maybe something worse. Still, David had assured us that if we stuck to the clearly marked trails, we would be safe.
“Safer than we were in his Jeep. I think we can both agree on that,” Rian muttered as we stared at the jungle before us. Then, he glanced up at the rain clouds—darker now that it was afternoon—and sighed. “Come on,” he said. “If we’re going to do this, I’m thinking we better go soon.”
Once we passed over the edge of the green lawn and entered the trees, we realized that we weren’t going to be going much further. About fifty feet in, we started looking at each other with doubt written all over our faces. The trees were incredibly thick, here, and we could hear a range of wildlife in the distance.
Wildlife that made me nervous. The light was starting to fall, and it was starting to smell like rain was on the way. Being stuck out in the dark did not sound like a good time—particularly in an unfamiliar jungle.
So, when we came across a wide clearing covered in fallen leaves, where we could see up into the sky, we decided that it looked like the ideal spot. Rian quickly spread the blanket we’d brought, and we dropped onto it on our backs to stare up into the sky.
It was that time of night when the light was just starting to fade, the sunset beginning to happen on the horizon. We couldn’t see the sunset, but we could see streaks of pink and orange and yellow, running up into the darkening blue of the sky. The moon was already out—we’d seen it on our way into the trees—but up there, above us, I could only see the stars. Faint and nearly invisible still, but there.
I made a wish on the first one I saw, opening my heart and sending a prayer out into the universe that what I was about to say was right. That he’d hear it for what it was, and be open enough himself to actually act on it.
“Hungry?” he asked quietly.
“Famished,” I replied. “But not for food.”
I rolled onto my side to look at him.
“Rian, I don’t want to spend this entire trip—however long they decide to leave us here—tiptoeing around each other. This is too important. You’re too important. I was stupid and blind and stubborn not to see it before, to run when I should have been holding onto you with both hands, as tightly as I could. I want to hold on, now. I want to stop running. I want to stop running with you. If we’re going to be here, if we’re going to do this, I want to do it as a couple. Not as people pretending to be a couple. Not as people still questioning whether they are a couple. Not as people who don’t know. I want to know. I want it to be for sure.”
It was sloppy, and if I’d planned out what I’d wanted to say, I would have done a better job of it. Hell, if I’d known I was going to do it, I would have written it down ahead of time, made it perfect. But I was speaking from the heart, from the depth of need, from the spot I’d found earlier on the mountain top, and known I needed to listen to. And when you let that part of you take over, it turned out the words didn’t matter so much.
Rian understood. He reached up, slid his hands over my jaw, and pulled me down onto him for a kiss, and with that kiss, we promised each other that this was going to be our forever. That from here on out, it would stop being us fighting separately, and become us against the world.
Together. Two people who had found each other by accident and somehow, after all the mistakes, after all the betrayal and stupid, stubborn posturing, managed to make it through and find the other side.
We made love under the trees in that jungle twice, murmuring sweet nothings as we explored what this could mean and rediscovered things we’d forgotten—or learned things we’d never known—about each other. And when it started raining on us, we didn’t run for the house, or for shelter.
Instead, we faced the storm together, laughing as the rain soaked us and remembering where it had all started, with a girl wandering lost through the forest until a boy—Random Hero Guy—had saved her.
Rian
We got called home a lot earlier than either of us would have liked, but we also didn’t have much choice in the matter. We might have been two people madly in love, but we were still also two people who were depending on their careers to keep paying their bills.
This time when we went home, though, we went home together. Holding hands and facing the world as a unit—rather than running from the things we’d seen and not sure whether we would ever be together again. And it changed everything.
When my label called me in for a meeting about the upcoming tour—which had been effectively put on hold so I could do damage control on my reputation by running off on a vacation with Alexis—I went in with her by my side. We’d been given a month on the island, and her baby bump was in full effect now—and I couldn’t stop touching it. I’d thought it had been hard to keep my hands off her before, but these days, all I could think about was the touch of her skin on my palms, the brush of her lips across mine, and that growing bump, which we’d made by accident and now couldn’t stop planning for.
Four babies at once. My God.
When the head of the label looked at me and told me that they were making plans for me to join the band on the road and reschedule our shows, I shook my head.
“I can’t do it,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. I know it’s going to be a breach of contract in about a million ways, and believe me, I know exactly what I’m letting go of.” I reached over and touched Alexis’s stomach again, looking into her eyes and knowing that I was doing the right thing. “But I’m going to be a father. I don’t want to be on the road when my babies are born, or when they’re growing up. I want to be the kind of father they deserve.”
I turned and looked at him, working to steady my voice as I told the most powerful man in my life th
at I was choosing my family over him.
“I’m quitting the band. I want to go solo, and I want to play small gigs and focus on acoustic stuff. Just me and my guitar. But I don’t want to do it yet. I want at least a year off. Time to breathe and recharge my batteries. Time to be with my family.” I glanced over at John, whose eyes had grown incredibly large—but who was also, I could see, already making plans.
He’d been afraid I was going to retire, I realized. Instead, I was just telling them I wanted to change lanes.
“I’m going to leave you and John to sort that part out,” I said, nodding at my agent. “Come to me when you’re ready and let me know what you guys have in mind.”
Our next stop was the office of Alexis’s new agent, and though I wasn’t in charge of what happened there—didn’t have that much control over it at all—I knew it was just as important as the meeting I’d just had.
The moment we walked in, Alexis became a completely different person. It was an amazing transformation to watch. She grew taller, her shoulders got steadier, and her face lost all expression. She lost the softness she’d been wearing since we got to that island, and got into professional mode.
“Alvaro, Hannah, good of you to meet me,” she said, her voice measured and controlled. “Rian, these is my business manager and my new agent. Alvaro, Hannah, I’m sure you know who Rian is.”
Alvaro leaned forward with a welcoming smile on his face, his hand extended. “Very good to meet the man who has made Alexis so happy,” he said warmly. “And may I offer you my congratulations?”
I murmured my thanks and then looked at Hannah, who looked less than pleased.
Right, I thought, business manager who knows he’ll go on handling Alexis’s business. Newly signed agent who isn’t so sure. Made sense. I just hoped they were both still on our side once Alexis told them what she’d come here to say.
“Alvaro, do you remember the talk we had about me wanting to change careers?” she asked. At a nod from him, she turned to Hannah. “There’s a reason I signed with you. I wanted an agent who could handle a wide range of artists. Not just models.”
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