Rather than dress for the beach—because she’d never be able to eat her fill while sitting in a revealing bikini—she chose a tank top and shorts.
She was walking across the lobby when cool fingers wrapped around her arm. She immediately knew it wasn’t Koenraad, but she hoped…
Thomas stood there wearing jeans and a Tureygua is Paradise T-shirt that was so new she could still see symmetrical lines from when it had sat folded on a shelf. There was a smudge on his glasses, and his hair was mostly obscured by a Harvard baseball cap.
“Were you looking for me?” he asked.
She went stiff in shock. “Thomas…” was all she could manage. Surely there was something neutral she could say? Then she noted the full duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
He followed her train of thought and patted the bag. “I’m heading back to the airport,” he said with a little shrug, though his eyes never left hers. “I thought it was the romantic thing, coming down here to change your mind. You don’t know how disappointed I was… Anyway, I’m so glad you came by, even if it was at the last minute.”
Her stomach twisted as she stared up into his eyes. It had been one thing to despise him from afar. She’d been so furious about how he’d left her a dateless bridesmaid, and about the horrible things they’d said to each other the night before the wedding, that she’d forgotten there were things she liked about him.
Like the way he looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world. He was doing it right now, and it never failed to make her heart beat a little faster.
He adjusted the duffel’s strap over his shoulder, and that reminded her of how great his massages were. He had strong hands, and he knew just when to dig into a knot and when to reduce his touch to a soft caress.
“I didn’t…” she began, but it felt cruel to tell him the truth, that not only hadn’t she decided to find him, she was staying in the same hotel with her new boyfriend. “I didn’t want this to be a big deal.”
He frowned, no doubt suspecting she was hiding something. “But you’re here now, and I’ve got about forty minutes before I have to leave for the airport. Let’s see how much groveling I can do.” He smiled, but Monroe felt tense.
“I am seeing someone else. That wasn’t something I invented to get back at you.”
“Look, I understand why you’re pissed at me. If it helps, I’m pissed at me, too. We’re on the same side here.”
“Then you understand why we’re not good for each other.”
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree about that, but I need help understanding. Who is this guy you met?” His voice turned harder, and hurt flashed in his eyes.
“Look, Thomas, it wasn’t planned. I met him and we hit it off.”
“You met him here?” He adjusted the strap again. “This bag is heavy. Why don’t we go into the restaurant, order a coffee. I won’t try to change your mind, but I think we can’t end things the way we did. There needs to be some kind of resolution.”
Monroe had gotten her resolution right about the time Koenraad was showing her how to use a snorkel, but she felt her resolve weakening. It was partially Tara’s fault, for giving her a mini guilt trip about avoiding Thomas.
“That’s fine,” she said.
As they walked into the restaurant, Monroe wondered what he was thinking. Surely nothing good. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her if she’d slept with Koenraad.
She really hoped Koenraad wouldn’t come back early.
They chose a seat at the window with a view overlooking the tropical garden, complete with bright orange and red flowers and verdant foliage. There was a narrow walkway winding through it, and just beyond, a stretch of sand, flashes of the Caribbean Sea.
A toned woman in a white bikini passed just outside the window, but Thomas didn’t seem to notice her. “Were you happy?” he asked.
Monroe hadn’t expected him to start with that. “I… I don’t know,” she said.
The waiter came and Monroe ordered a sandwich. She was relieved that she wasn’t asked her room number. She didn’t want Thomas to know she was staying in this hotel; her daily quota of awkward had already maxed out.
“Monroe.” Thomas looked at her hands twisting the cloth napkin. He didn’t move to touch her, though. “I want you to know how deeply sorry I am about everything that happened between us. It was a real wake-up call for me.”
“You don’t have to—”
“If I could go back in time, I’d have been at that wedding with you. I want you to know that.”
“Ok.” This was getting even more awkward than she’d feared. She wanted to run back upstairs, but she was frozen in her chair.
The waiter brought two cups of coffee. Thomas stirred cream into his and took a sip. Silence stretched out tensely. It practically begged to be filled, but Monroe couldn’t think of anything to say, so she didn’t. She found herself staring at the Harvard baseball hat, and she wondered if he’d bought it a separate seat on the plane or if it had been forced to travel on his head like a common hat.
Thomas cleared his throat and locked his gaze with hers. “You wanted me to care. I care. You wanted me to fight for this relationship, and I’m fighting for us.”
“There is no us, Thomas. I’m seeing someone else.”
“You’re having a fling. When you get back to New York, then what?”
She thought it was a rhetorical question, but he waited for an answer. To buy some time, she took a long sip of coffee and tried to decide how much she owed him. Less than total honesty, but more than a brushoff. She chose her words carefully.
“It doesn’t matter what happens between me and… my friend,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to say Koenraad’s name; it would have felt weird. Thomas was her past. Koenraad was her present, and possibly her future. “I guess that’s what I wanted you to understand. I’m sorry you had to come down here to hear it.”
Her sandwich arrived at that moment, but she left it on the edge of the table. She was hungry; her watering mouth and sharp hunger pangs had become distracting, yet she had zero appetite.
Breaking up sucked, especially when one person didn’t want to let go. The next time a guy told her it was over, she would do them both a favor and graciously walk away.
Thomas cleared his throat, and Monroe braced herself. “You promised to meet me for dinner to talk about this,” he said. “I’m holding you to that.”
“No. You and I, we’re bad for each other.” How many times did she have to tell him?
“That doesn’t make sense. A few days ago you were crying, begging me to fly down here with you—”
“And you didn’t, did you?” she snapped before she could think better of it. “Yes, I begged you. Shamelessly. Do you remember what you did?”
“Well—”
“You handed me a tissue and told me I was too needy.”
Thomas winced.
“Yeah,” Monroe said. “It was really low.”
“It was. But we’d both had a few glasses of wine—”
“Don’t you dare!” she hissed.
His eyes went wide as he realized his misstep. He threw up his hands in conciliation. “You’re right, of course. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.” Then he smiled. “If you were over me, you wouldn’t have reacted like that just now. You’re upset, and you’re lashing out, punishing me by hanging out with this other guy.”’
“We’re not just ‘hanging out’.” She grabbed her sandwich and took a furious bite, not caring if she offended Thomas with her lack of table manners.
“This isn’t you, Monroe. You’re not the kind of woman who jumps into something with a stranger. Anyway, I don’t need to know the details.”
“I’m starting to think you do,” she said around a mouthful of food. She swallowed. “He and I are…” She didn’t want to tell Thomas all the reasons she liked Koenraad. “I don’t know what we are. But I like how he makes me feel. No one has ever made me feel this way.”
“Monroe, I don’t need to know.”
“What happened to veritas?”
“It’s still my personal motto, but I don’t want you saying things you’ll later regret. Take it from me. You don’t want to be that person.”
It was Harvard’s motto. He was so obsessed with his alma mater, she wondered if he knew the difference anymore.
But she felt bad for him, now. If she hadn’t been seeing someone else, she’d probably have considered getting back together just to make the tension go away. Which was really stupid.
He set down his empty coffee mug and toyed with a paper-wrapped cube of sugar. “You used to like the way I make you feel.”
“No, you still don’t understand. It’s not about him. Let’s assume you’re right, that he’s a fling and I’ll never see him again. That changes nothing between us. We are bad for each other.”
“That’s an exaggeration and you know it. Until I screwed up, things were great. And if we’re really over, explain this: you were willing to discuss things in New York, and then an hour later you weren’t. Nothing of substance can change in an hour. You’re using this man as a distraction, but sooner or later you have to come home. And then we’ll talk.”
“It… I…” Why had she agreed to have a final dinner with Thomas? One moment of weakness…
Sometimes she wondered if Thomas might have been able to talk her into getting back together. Koenraad didn’t think so. He believed she didn’t love Thomas—which was true—and that she never would have accepted him back for that reason.
But she wasn’t sure Koenraad was right. She just didn’t know, and it bothered her.
Thomas was nodding, a small gleam of triumph in his eyes. “When you return to New York, and you get back to your life and routine, you’ll think of things differently.”
She decided suddenly that arguing with Thomas wouldn’t get her far. He loved twisting her words. “Maybe,” she said neutrally.
“All I ask is that two or three weeks after you get back, we have dinner. And we’ll talk about things like rational adults.”
She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Why? What’s the point? I’m not going to change my mind!”
Thomas was laughing as he said, “Shh. You don’t have to scream. Listen. In a few weeks, you’ll be less emotional. We both will,” he added quickly when she opened her mouth. “Then we can talk about things. One dinner, when things settle down. Can you do that?”
Jesus. There really wasn’t any way out. He’d bought a last-minute ticket down to see her, and she doubted he was going to let this go. If only they hadn’t run into each other in the lobby. “Fine.” She picked up her sandwich.
Thomas’s smile stretched across his face. “Thank you, Monroe.” He glanced at his watch and then stood. “I need to call a taxi,” he said.
“Why? Got an important business meeting tomorrow?”
He’d been pulling the duffel bag onto his shoulder, and he froze, his eyes wide in sudden fear. “Uh, I do, but… if you want me to stay…”
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
“Because I would.”
“I know,” she said quietly. It was as much a lie as the one he’d just told. She could strip off her clothes, lie on the table, and beg him to fuck her, but nothing would keep him from getting onto that plane.
It was tempting to call his bluff, ask him to stay, just to watch him panic.
He extended a hand, and when she went to shake it, he pulled her to her feet and into an embrace.
“You probably don’t believe this, but I miss you,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ll see you in a week or two.”
“Or three or four.” She wriggled out of his grasp.
“Two weeks.” He winked, and she looked down to avoid rolling her eyes.
She sat as he moved away from the table with long, certain strides. Only when he’d been gone for several minutes did she heave a sigh of relief.
With any luck, she would never see Thomas again. He’d probably think it over on the plane home and decide not to call her. Then he could tell himself that he had ended things.
Oh, she didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t fair to demonize Thomas like this. He’d been a mediocre boyfriend. If he treated his next girlfriend with more appreciation, then maybe their relationship hadn’t been a complete waste of time.
In any event, she refused to think about him for a second longer. He was gone. Out of her life. They never crossed paths in New York, so she wasn’t going to run into him at the grocery store.
She accidentally scraped her chair against the floor as she moved it to face the open window. The sun had cut through the clouds, blanketing her in warmth and light. She picked up her sandwich but had to wait for her smile of relief to leave her face before she could take a bite.
After finishing lunch, she changed into a new bikini that Koenraad had insisted on buying for her. It was a bit too small, but it flattered her curves, and the white fabric looked great with her tan. She wrapped a blue and white sarong around her hips. Not bad. Shame Koenraad wasn’t around to appreciate it. Not wanting to take her cell phone on the beach, she scribbled him a note on hotel stationery, telling him where to find her.
As she walked across the lobby, she couldn’t help but look warily around, expecting Thomas to ambush her again. But he was long gone, of course. With any luck, he was already on the plane.
She hadn’t walked this way to the beach when she was with Koenraad, and the resort signs were confusing, sending her in circles. She passed a giant kidney pool, a smaller kiddie pool, and a four-lane lap pool that had to be Olympic size. All of which were filled with tourists.
Noting that the bartender was serving drinks at the kidney pool, she continued down a few sets of concrete stairs. Fat iguanas sunned themselves in her intended path. Slowly, so as not to startle them, she withdrew her camera from her beach bag and squatted down as far as she could, trying to get on the same level as the animals.
They looked like small dinosaurs, and she’d never seen so many shades of blue and green. She wondered if the crest of spikes that ran down their backs was dangerous. They looked a little floppy. Actually, they reminded her of a coworker. He was balding, and he spiked his hair with too much gel. For the first time, she almost missed work. Almost.
The iguanas’ tails, in contrast, were like long whips, and their toes ended in claws. Best not to get too close.
There were certainly plenty of them around, in all shapes and sizes. She wondered if they were considered pests. People ate them; she’d flipped past a morning television show about them when she’d been lounging in bed earlier, right after Koenraad had left. The show had been in Dutch, but there were visuals.
In her opinion, iguanas were too cute for words. But then, she was also starting to think of sharks as cute. Their big, dark eyes looked surprised rather than hungry. Maybe when she got home, she’d get a lip piercing and a studded collar, too. Trade in her dresses and tights for tight jeans and shit stomper boots, and ride the subway with an albino python. She wondered what Koenraad would think, if he’d be amused and find it hot, or if he’d be scandalized. Thomas would have been scandalized, even if she got the python a little Harvard baseball hat and taught it to play the stock market. Koenraad… she wasn’t sure.
She dropped her camera into her bag and stood. “Sorry, fellas,” she said as she took a step forward. The closest iguana hauled itself off the path, into the rocks and bushes, its long tail dragging along the ground. It seemed to have been a lot of effort for him, and she felt guilty.
She was so busy trying to plot the least disruptive path through the lizards that she didn’t look up until she reached the sand.
Starting just a few feet ahead of her, the beach was roped off. Every twenty feet was a typed paper sign inside a plastic protector.
Due to seasonal reproduction of endangered sea turtles, the beach will unfortunately be closed until further notice. We appreciate your understanding and cooperatio
n in this matter.
Sea turtles? She didn’t buy it for a second. Not after what the clerk at the other hotel had confided to her about the ocean going crazy. Shifters weren’t the only ones who’d noticed something was wrong. Several vacationers had drowned. The government didn’t want to scare away tourists, so the hotel must have decided to be proactive and close the beach to protect the guests. She wondered if all the resorts were doing that. And what about the public beaches?
The way Koenraad had run out that morning… This was bad.
There was a group of palm trees and hammocks to her left, on the safe side of the rope. She installed herself in a hammock and opened her book, but her gaze kept moving to the hypnotic blue-green waves rolling onto the shore.
What was wrong with the water here? She shivered. She hoped Koenraad was safe.
Chapter 4
Koenraad sat on the steps in front of the mansion, a towel wrapped loosely around his waist, his head buried in his hands. He heard the outer gate closing behind the truck. The driver and his team hadn’t pushed hard when Koenraad had told them the shark had gotten away, but one of the men had wanted to check around, to be sure.
This despite the fact that Koenraad was dripping wet and almost naked.
Koenraad had snapped at him. Told them to get the fuck off his property.
He rarely lost his temper, but right now he was barely holding it together. He wanted to get his teeth on something, to rip apart, to destroy. He wanted to turn the world red with blood.
Only the realization that he needed to be calm for Brady kept him from flying into a murderous frenzy. He needed to keep a clear head. Victoria had taken their son. How she’d gotten Brady to go along with her, Koenraad didn’t know. The barrier to the inlet was still intact, but she could have closed it up again.
When he’d called her, the phone had rung for what seemed like forever. She hadn’t answered.
He hadn’t left a message. There wasn’t any need. She would know that he’d called. He knew what she was doing. Fucking with him. Torturing him. For the first time in years, she had something he wanted, and apparently she was going to enjoy wielding all this power over him.
Oceans Untamed Page 3
