Rushing back to him, I wanted to argue. To find some way to keep him inside the vehicle until I could get someone to assist, but he already swung his legs out and sank his bare feet into soft sand.
He closed his eyes and groaned. “Christ, I’ve missed that.”
And just like that, I couldn’t share this moment with anyone else. We would take our time. I would carry him if I had to. But I wouldn’t take any more of his independence away. “Lean on me.”
His blue eyes met mine. For a moment, he looked as if he’d argue. His cane sank into the sand and he poised to push upright to stand. Inhaling sharply, he looped his arm over my shoulders and allowed me to take some of his weight as he unfolded from the ATV and stood trembling, getting his balance.
“Okay?” I asked gently.
“Okay.” Stepping forward, his momentum was stifled and constituted a shuffle instead of a step. I moved with him, not complaining at our slowness or begging him to rest when his t-shirt grew damp with sweat from strain and island heat. Slowly, we made our way into the building and gradually became surrounded by chaos.
Sully sucked in a breath as he slammed to a stop, leaning on me as his gaze darted from the temporary pens holding the bandaged recuperating animals from Serigala and the latest arrivals of skittish lab creatures who were undergoing vet checks before they would be found comfy enclosures to begin healing.
Four vets had their hands full and no one paid any heed as we stood on the perimeter and let life ebb and flow around us.
A scruffy jack russell got loose from one of the vets, bounding over to us. He barked at Sully, sniffed his sand sprinkled feet, then bolted off before the male vet could grab him. He wasn’t running from fear...it was a game.
A tongue-lolling play that I doubted any lab creatures had ever indulged in.
I didn’t know how long we stood there as the soft hammering of nails and the rasps of a saw added background noise to chirps, snuffles, and wuffles, but Sully slowly lost his tension.
He eyed up the construction, his quick intelligence understanding what I was doing without asking a single question.
The workmen had started on the extension for a fully equipped surgery. Equipment and medical supplies had already been ordered. The vets who worked here had been given accommodation in the goddess villas along the beach, and Cal had been in touch with the rehoming outfit Sully used, to advise they would soon have a few cows and donkeys ready to go to a new forever farm.
I’d done my best to give these creatures a second chance.
And in a way...Sully too.
Finally, Sully cleared his throat and clasped me tight to him. His hand turned white around his cane and his body shuddered. Burying his face into my hair, he inhaled and exhaled, seeking comfort and strength before pulling away and murmuring, “What you’ve done here, Eleanor, surpasses what I could’ve imagined. I know you were worried how I would react with yet another rescue facility and you are right to be worried. Most of me wants to shut this place down before anything else gets hurt because of me.”
He grimaced but continued, “Each time I try to help, I end up hurting instead. My good intentions seem to come with pain—”
“Don’t be—”
“Let me finish.” He glanced around the busy space before twisting me to face him. He stumbled but glared at me when I went to hold his weight again. “Stop babying me. If I fall, let me fall. I want to look at you while I say this.”
It took everything not to help him but I let go and nodded. “What is it?”
“I need you to promise me something.”
I narrowed my eyes, looking up into his intense ones. “Okay...”
“Tell me you won’t allow me to get obsessed. I...I have a tendency of trying too hard when faced with an animal that’s suffered. That’s why I didn’t have much involvement with Serigala. I’d visit but the day-to-day running wasn’t my responsibility.” He laughed coldly. “I take each case personally. I seek out those who hurt them. I plot ways to deliver the pain tenfold. I become consumed with the need to have them live, regardless if they’ve given up the fight. It’s not healthy for me to be so involved. And you’ve just brought them right to my door. You’ve made their healing personal and...honestly, that isn’t a good thing.”
What Cal told me about the cats Sully rescued echoed in my mind.
“He stabilised them. Got attached. They haemorrhaged. Died a miserable, messy death and I guess he just snapped.”
The cats were the reason Sully had gone after so many charlatans and cruel bastards of the world. He believed he killed those cats because he’d gone over the vet’s expertise.
He carried so much guilt for so many things.
I wanted to tell him I knew about the cats and I understood why he struggled. Maybe one day I would, but not here. Not while he was still healing and the haunting in his tone hinted he was honestly afraid of what he was capable of.
Nodding, I whispered, “If you need me to be a voice of reason...then I will be.”
“I need you to keep me from believing I know better than the experts and stop me from attempting to save their life when that life is over.”
I nodded. “They don’t have to stay. Once Serigala is rebuilt, they can be relocated.”
Running his hands through my hair, he brought me close until our foreheads touched. “I love you so much. I love your golden heart and your empathy. Just please...promise me you’ll keep mine in check.” He bent and captured my mouth, kissing me swiftly and deeply before murmuring, “Don’t let me hurt you, Eleanor. Don’t allow me to smother you in my need to keep you safe. I can already feel it happening—the desire to keep you by me at all times. The fear of ever losing you. It will drive me to do reckless, dangerous things. I’m not kidding when I say I hurt those I love. I do it because I love too much. I don’t know when to stop. So you need to promise me you’ll make me stop if I don’t.”
I kissed him again, wrapping my arms around his waist. “We all have that problem, Sully. You’re not a monster for wanting to keep me safe.”
“I’m a monster if I would willingly slaughter entire cities to keep you.”
I dared to smile. “No, that just makes you a man in love.”
“The luckiest man to be in love with you.”
We fell into another kiss.
Yet another promise cemented.
Yet another step to our forever.
* * * * *
“You won’t be able to fly if you eat another thing, Pika.” I laughed as the green fiend attacked yet another roasted chickpea from our dinner.
“He’s getting fat,” Sully chuckled, reclined on a deck lounger, cast in silver from the moon, he looked good enough to eat for dessert.
After our visit to Euphoria, we’d driven around the island and stopped off at the beach to drive slowly through turquoise shallows. As the sun set, his energy levels depleted and we returned home, grateful that Louise and her team had returned to their villas for the night, leaving us alone.
Sully had dozed on the lounger as I ordered some dishes from the kitchen and we’d eaten outside, serenaded by Nirvana and the night chorus of insects.
The remains of a shared meal of coconut chickpea curry and a tempeh nasi goreng waited to be cleared off the table. Sully had retired to read on his tablet, skimming over work documents that needed to be cleared by the board in the morning, and I’d found the cell phone I’d purchased in Jakarta when I’d attempted every which way to return to Sully before hiding it under a bush when I’d swum ashore and been snatched by Drake.
I’d charged it and waited for it to start up as Skittles fluttered to my shoulder, yawning with feathered fatigue. I scooted farther down my lounger, the rattan kissing Sully’s so we lay side by side on the deck.
The comfort of just hanging out was almost as precious as wild lusty sex.
Sully reached over and took my hand as the phone finally activated and the menu appeared. “That’s the device you used for your dad to
follow and call the police?”
“Uh-huh.” I clicked through the apps until I got to Facebook. I’d been delaying a long message to my parents and it’d gone past forgivable to rude. My mother wouldn’t mind. She had no idea what had been going on in the background, but my father...he knew too much to be able to relax and not enough to trust I was safe.
Sully arched an eyebrow as he placed his tablet onto his lap and eyed up my profile. “So that’s social media, huh?” He visibly shuddered as a picture of someone’s steak bleeding on a plate with the hash tag #gottabebleedingtobegoodeating appeared.
“Yeah, it’s not a healthy place to hang out.” Bringing up the message bubble for my dad, I added, “I was never really into it—it’s convenient for keeping in touch but I hate the drama and fakery.”
“You know...you can stay in touch with your past, right?” He licked his lips, his eyes narrowing with sudden thoughts. “You’re not trapped here, Jinx. I hope you get that. Yes, I prefer it to only be us, and I haven’t exactly been shy in not wanting to share you, but...you had a life before me, and you can still have that life, even now we’re together.”
“I know.”
“Do you, eh...want friends to come and visit?”
He looked so earnest and sweet, he broke my heart. “No.” I shook my head, jostling Skittles as she bobbed with tiredness. “I’ll tell you if—”
The phone suddenly vibrated and trilled in my hands.
An image of my dad’s profile popped up.
“Oh, no...he’s trying to video call me.”
Sully sat straighter on his lounger, rolling his eyes as Pika flew to his head and nestled in his midnight strands. “What’s wrong with that? He’ll be worried about you. I know I’d be fucking losing it if I were him.”
“But...we’re not dressed.” I eyed Sully’s lack of shirt. Tonight, the humidity levels had stayed far too high for clothing inside the villa. Sully had slipped off his t-shirt and shorts and stayed in black boxer-briefs while eating dinner, and I’d slipped into a copper bikini with tassels dangling off the top. My hair was wild with island waves, and Sully looked positively sinful.
He smirked. “Better answer it. He knows you’re online.”
“I’ll just go put some clothes on—”
Sully reached across and in a move too fast to stop, swiped accept. He gave me a quick wink. “It’s time I met your father, don’t you think?”
The screen loaded an image of my dad, his greying hair spiked from his hands, bags heavy under his eyes. He’d aged and guilt squeezed me for being the reason.
“Hey, Dad. I’m so sorry I’ve been an awful daughter. I should’ve called you weeks ago. It’s not fair at all.”
He cleared his throat, his eyes casting over me in my state of undress. “You finally answered. I’ve been calling this damn thing since you left that terrifying message on my voicemail.”
“I know. I have no excuse. I’m unbelievably sorry.”
“You, um, have a parrot on your shoulder.”
I rubbed my cheek against Skittles, earning a quick beak kiss. “I do.”
“Why do you have a parrot on your shoulder?”
I smiled. “Because she adopted me, and I stole her from Sully.”
“Sully being the man who caused all this mess. The man who I read very disturbing things about online. The man many are calling a heinous murderer and a psychopath.”
“A man who has a past but isn’t a psychopath. A man I fell for.” I winced, wanting to ignore the fact that he’d read the articles I had online, not sure how to brush such things away.
He scrubbed his face before muttering, “I think you have some explaining to do, young lady.”
I smiled wider, hearing the switch in his tone from angry to miffed. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
He huffed. “Those allegations...are they real? He won’t hurt you?”
“He’d never hurt me in a million years, and as for the allegations, they’re in the past. He isn’t that same man anymore. You’ll just have to trust me on that and forget you read such things.”
“I expect a deeper explanation soon, Ellie, but right now, I’m just so glad you’re alive.” Peering around me, he asked, “Where are you?”
The outdoor lantern painted us in a romantic hazy illumination and the splash of Nirvana most likely distorted some of the sound but at least he could tell I was in one piece.
I was alive, and lucky enough to be sharing my world with someone I’d almost lost.
“I’m in the archipelago still, at the coordinates this phone gave you. It’s called Goddess Isles.”
“And that man who you assure me won’t hurt you? That pharmaceutical CEO who ought to be in prison if the newspapers have a shred of truth—”
“Sully, sir.” Sully leaned forward, crowding into the screen. His naked chest probably gave my father incorrect conclusions of what we’d been up to. “And your daughter is quite right, I would never hurt her and those allegations online are no longer who I am. However, I will admit that I would hurt any man or woman who dare put Eleanor in danger. She’s changed me in many ways, but I would still make others bleed if they put her life in jeopardy.”
“Sully,” I hissed. “Stop it.”
He just shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “You have my word, Mr. Grace, that you have nothing to worry about from me. I love your daughter more than I’ve loved anyone.”
“Eh...” My dad’s wrinkled cheeks pinked as Sully nodded respectfully all while Pika stayed dozing on his head and Sully’s eyes flashed with violence. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
Sully smiled, doing his best to shed his aggression and be magnanimous. “Let’s just focus on the here and now. It’s an honour to finally meet you.”
“Eh...likewise, I suppose.” My father swallowed, eyeing up Pika but deciding not to ask. “Um...you look different to your company photograph online. Clothing is preferable.”
“Suits have a tendency to hide the real man, sir.” Sully grinned. “And we’re currently in the tropics, so excuse my lack of attire.”
“Fine. And you don’t have to call me sir. Ross is good enough.” My dad sighed. “My name is Ross and, as long as you keep my Ellie safe, then...I guess the rest can be discussed at a later date.” He wasn’t happy and his many questions glowed in his gaze, but he’d always done his best at accepting my decisions and reserving judgment.
“Ross then.” Sully squeezed my hand, unseen from my father’s angle. “I’m the reason your daughter hasn’t called, I’m afraid. I...wasn’t well for a while and her attention was very gratefully on me. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
My dad’s gaze snapped back to me. “What on earth happened over there? And what precisely is going on between you two?” His shoulders puffed up. “I think...I think I would prefer a private conversation with my daughter, Mr. Sinclair. I need to know she’s happy and taken care of.”
“Dad, I’m fine. Honestly. I know I made you worry and you’ll be utterly confused, but please accept that things are—”
“I understand your desire to speak to her away from me, Ross, but allow me to give you the information you require.” Holding out his hand, Sully waited until I’d placed the phone into it before leaning back on his lounger and saying, “Your daughter and I met through unconventional means, but I have full belief that it wasn’t chance but destiny. I know you have no reason to trust me, or believe a word I say, but I need you to listen when I say that I love her. I love her more than any achievement or asset, pet or person before her. I love her for her strength, her empathy, her stubbornness, and her kindness. I love her so much in fact, I’ve asked her to marry me, and she’s accepted.”
“Oh, my God.” I clamped both hands over my mouth.
My father let out a noise as if someone had punched him in the gut. “Marriage? Bit soon, isn’t it? Even if you do speak very passionately about—”
“Your daughter brought m
e back to life, sir. In so many ways. I know it’s tradition for the guy to ask the father’s permission, but I wouldn’t survive if you said no, so...I’m telling you that I am going to marry your daughter, and I’m going to give her every penny I own, every island I control, and share every remaining year I have left on this planet with her by my side. You are, of course, welcome to visit at any time. I will cover any ticket cost you require. You may request to come tomorrow, if you want. However, I must warn you. I have an agreement with Eleanor that means she will marry me the moment I can walk unassisted. That day is almost here, sir. And I will not wait.”
My dad choked, coughing no doubt on absolute shock. “What? Walk unassisted? What does that even mean? You can’t just marry her. Is that what she wants? What about her travels and career choices? Her friends? Just a minute here—”
“Sully, give me the damn phone.” I reached for it, but he held it out of grabbing distance.
“All this talk of love and weddings has ensured I need to go kiss your daughter now, Mr. Grace. Please be assured she is in the best of health and is safe and please...forgive me for this.”
“Sully, no, don’t—” I launched at him, Pika and Skittles darted into the sky, but I was too late.
Sully punched the hang-up button.
“Did you seriously just say all that and then hang up on my dad?”
“I did.” He tossed my phone onto the lounger, and with a groan and gritted teeth, he swung his healing legs over the edge of his lounger and pushed into a standing position. Snatching my wrist, he hauled me up with surprising strength. “Come on.”
I looked at my abandoned phone, wondering what on earth I could say to my dad. What would he think? Would he take Sully up on his offer? How did he feel about me marrying this egotistical fool who’d successfully stitched up my heart with every delicious word and sewed me to him for eternity?
Sully looped his arm over my shoulder. Without his cane, his steps were lumbersome and careful, his bones warning him not to exceed too much pressure.
I hugged him and acted as his crutch, guiding him around the dining table. “Where do you want to go?” I eyed up the edge of the deck and the crystal pool of Nirvana, silky and inviting beneath. We were too close. One wrong step and—
Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5) Page 31
