Amelia balked. There was an urgency in his voice, something that intrigued her. Every bit of her felt fiery with anger toward him, but she kept herself there as he tied up the ropes and then sauntered down the dock, toward where she stood on the boardwalk. When he neared her, his forehead gleamed with springtime sun, and she noted just how white and crisp his sailing uniform was. He reeked of money, but there was something so animalistic, so physical about him, especially out here, outside the walls of Amelia’s office. Amelia had to force herself to breathe.
“Amelia,” Oliver said as he beamed at her. “Thank you for waiting.”
Amelia crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m surprised you’re here. I figured you would spend the rest of the week scrambling for relevant permits,” she said pointedly.
Oliver’s smile widened. “You don’t miss a beat, do you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Oliver cackled. “You know, of all the islands I’ve built on and all the people I’ve come up against, you’re about the most difficult. I thought this would be like the others. Sign a few documents, and then, boom! A new resort. Everyone’s happy. But you put up the barriers right away. You don’t like me. You don’t care about my money.” He clucked his tongue and then added, “I have to say. I kind of like that about you.”
Amelia flared her nostrils. “I don’t care whether you like me or not.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Oliver replied quickly. “But you’ll be happy to hear that I’ve decided to give up. You won’t let me push the rules, and I just don’t see any way to move forward on the property. You get the news straight from me, which I’m sure gives you a whole lot of pleasure.”
Amelia certainly hadn’t expected this. She arched an eyebrow and tried to drum up some kind of response. Everything felt lackluster.
“Well, anyway,” Oliver said. He palmed the back of his neck and glanced back toward his sailboat. “I guess I’ll head to Nantucket. I haven’t broken ground there yet, and I heard they’re a bit more flexible.”
“I wish you well on your mission to destroy as much of our natural world as you can,” Amelia shot suddenly, now totally unable to hold back her tongue. “I only hope there’s someone like me on Nantucket. Someone to get in your way.”
Olivier chuckled. “I can tell you; there’s nobody like you. Not anywhere.”
Although Amelia appreciated the compliment, she still detested its source. She turned her eyes back toward the horizon line, even as she felt Oliver’s gaze upon her face.
After a long, strange, pregnant pause, Oliver spoke.
“Why don’t you head out with me?”
Amelia yanked her head back around in pure shock. “What do you mean? To Nantucket?”
Oliver shook his head. “No. I mean, in a more immediate sense. Why don’t you come out on the boat? It’s chilly, but the sun is shining and it’s beautiful out there. I have some extra blankets on board, and you don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”
“I really can’t,” Amelia blurted. The thought, in and of itself, was ridiculous.
But Oliver, being the ever keen businessman, pushed her.
“Come on. It’s the least I can do after all the trauma I put you through.”
“You give yourself too much credit,” Amelia returned. “You didn’t put me through any trauma. I was just doing my job.”
“And I was just doing mine,” he returned. “Let’s have one sail together—just one. And then, we can go back to our everyday lives and everyday jobs. It would mean the world to me to be able to show you how much I respect you—really.”
Amelia had no idea why this man wanted this so badly. She hardly trusted him. But a final glance out toward the Nantucket Sound tugged her heartstrings. She hadn’t been out in a boat in ages. And there was something appealing about being out there, so far from her everyday problems — away from Mandy, away from Amelia’s perceived life failures, and away from her family, who was so “sure” that her singleness was a Godsend.
“All right,” she said finally, with a funny shrug. “But if you make even a single pass at me—”
At this, Oliver burst into raucous laughter. “I respect you way too much to flirt with you. You have my word on that.”
“How charming,” Amelia returned.
Chapter Twelve
Amelia stepped lightly onto the sailboat, perched in a little white chair, which was attached to the boat itself, and watched curiously as Oliver Krispin ducked about and prepared the boat to disembark. His face was focused, terribly handsome, and his motions were urgent. With a brash yank of the rope, he fleshed out the sails and brought the boat out from the dock. There was a great feeling of being lifted, and soon, the boat glided atop the waves as sunlight glittered across Amelia’s cheeks. For a moment, she was able to pretend that everything was right as rain and that she was just another of these rich, sailing elites, with the entire afternoon to devote to the waters and the sands and the sky.
They sailed east and then cut around the lighthouse to head west again. They passed the Fuller Street Beach, then swept past Eel Pond, before heading out past the Joseph Sylvia State Beach, which was a thin stretch of white sand, and one of Amelia’s favorite walks, which she often did alone when she wanted to organize her thoughts.
She remembered a particularly strange walk along that stretch of beach approximately five years before, when she’d fully acknowledged her age, that of thirty-five, along with the fact that she hadn’t bothered to meet anyone or have a family. Out on that strip of sand, she’d come to terms with the idea that perhaps, motherhood was not part of her future. You had to be brave to be a wife and a mother. You had to take chances.
But she’d told herself, on that day, that she was, in fact, quite brave not to do it, also. There was courage in remaining alone. At least, she had to believe that.
When they neared Oak Bluffs, they spotted one of the ferries, headed out of Woods Hole. Without thinking, Amelia lifted a hand to wave to the ferry passengers. Oliver laughed, and she dropped her hand to her thigh with embarrassment.
“No! No. Don’t stop waving on my account,” Oliver told her. He sounded genuinely sad that he had upset her. “I’m just not from the kind of place that waves to passers-by like they do here on the island. It always surprises me to see that kind of thing.”
“Surprises you to see people being nice to each other?” Amelia asked, arching a brow.
He nodded as his green eyes flashed. His handsomeness was horrible, although just now, he didn’t use it as a weapon. It was just how he looked.
“I guess so.” He paused and then asked, “I guess you haven’t spent much time off the island, have you?”
“Hardly more than a few days at a time,” Amelia confessed.
Oliver formed his lips into a round O and whistled. “That’s insane to me. I might have gone crazy, all cooped up here.”
Amelia shrugged. “I never knew anything else.”
“You’re like a caged bird. You don’t know what’s out the window,” Oliver said.
“What’s out there?” Amelia asked. “Anything I should know about?”
Oliver arched an eyebrow. He then turned his nose out toward the rolling waves, the glorious bright blue horizon line. He closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, and said, “No. You’re right. There’s nothing out there like Martha’s Vineyard. Stay in your cage, little bird.”
Amelia laughed and was surprised to hear the happiness behind it. Sure, this man was terribly arrogant and far too handsome for his own good, but at least he was semi-clever. That was a rare thing.
As they swept westward toward Makonikey, Oliver poured them glasses of champagne. Amelia accepted the glass but didn’t take a sip. She watched as the bubbles crept up the side of the glass, as Oliver spoke longingly about Martha’s Vineyard and all the years he’d wanted to be a part of it. For some reason, Amelia’s thoughts spun toward Michelle, that long-ago day when they’d lost her off the back o
f the boat in the middle of the night. It was strange how she carried that tragedy around with her. In some ways, she remembered almost everything about Michelle. She remembered the funny laugh she’d had, one completely different from Jennifer’s, and she remembered her courage, which seemed to stretch over every possible thing. But in other ways, Amelia had to reckon with the fact that she lost memories of Michelle almost every day. Michelle’s memory was probably just an echo of an actual memory, now — stories Amelia and her best friends had told one another too many times so that they’d taken on lives of their own.
Again, Oliver whistled. “Yoo-hoo!”
Amelia blinked up to find him directly over her. “You okay?” he asked.
Amelia realized she’d spaced out. She pressed her palm across her forehead and passed her glass of champagne over to Oliver. “Sorry. It’s been a weird few weeks. I don’t know if I’m totally here.” She was surprised at her honesty with him; in what world did he deserve it?
Oliver sipped her glass of champagne, having completed his own, and said, “Don’t worry. You can use this time however you want.”
The words were so kind, so outside of the personality she’d attributed to Oliver Krispin, that Amelia furrowed her brow in shock. Oliver said nothing more. He instead stepped over toward another sail to adjust it, leaving Amelia with her gorgeous view of the island as they churned past. It looked remarkable, just a glowing rock beneath the sun.
The sail felt meditative. Amelia gave in to the splendor of the island’s beauty. Her eyes sparkled at the sight of Aquinnah Cliffs, which Oliver admitted aloud he’d never seen. “Look at those,” he breathed. “I normally don’t sail in this direction.”
“They’re really something, aren’t they?” Amelia beamed. “When me and my friends used to hike out here, we would stand on that rock and scream out across the waters.”
Oliver’s eyes glittered as he eyed the top of the rocks. “What did you scream?”
Amelia was surprised he cared. She paused for a moment, then said, “I think we screamed what we wished for. We believed that something lived in the water. Something or someone who could fulfill our wishes.”
“Do you remember what you wished for?”
Amelia bit hard on her lower lip. She could actually hear all their screams now, as though the six of them still stood on top of that cliff and yelled out their hopes.
Jennifer had cried out for Joel’s babies and she had been given a son.
Michelle had cried out for absolute freedom. Amelia supposed, in a sense, that’s what she’d been given.
Olivia had cried out to be a famous writer one day.
Mila had jokingly asked to be beautiful for the rest of her life. Even now, she was the most perfect-looking woman Amelia knew, and she owned an esthetician salon. In a sense, she hadn’t needed the ocean or its wildness to cling to her beauty, but who was to say she hadn’t needed a bit of help?
But what had Amelia screamed for?
“I guess you don’t?” Oliver asked as the silence stretched between them.
Amelia clucked her tongue. “I can remember what all of my friends said. But for me? I don’t even know. What did I want back then?” She buzzed her lips and then found a way to laugh about it. “I don’t know. But do you remember what you wanted back then? Age sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen?”
Oliver considered her words carefully. He then smacked his hand against the mast of the sailboat and said, “I went on vacation as a kid, and I saw this guy out on a sailboat. I told myself I would have one someday. One way or another.”
“Even if you had to lie and steal and cheat your way there?” Amelia asked, half-teasing.
Oliver laughed. “I know it might shock you to hear this, but I didn’t lie or steal or cheat to get this sailboat.”
“It does shock me.” She grabbed the sails pole as she giggled just a little.
“Well, I can tell you, it was a whole lot of hard work. And college and grad school. And days wondering if I would ever make my money back after a bad investment.”
“Sounds like a lot of stomach aches,” Amelia offered.
“That’s one way to put it.”
Amelia tilted her head and allowed herself to see something else in his face: a kind of sorrow. She wondered where it had come from. Was he really alone in the world? Where did he call “home” these days? Or was home just wherever he woke up the following day, ready to rip through the ground to build a new luxury resort?
When they neared the Edgartown Great Pond, neither of them spoke. This was the area where Oliver had wanted to build his little resort — the beautiful space between the ocean and the pond itself, just west of Crackatuxet Cove. Oliver’s face was wistful as they passed by.
Finally, Oliver said something a bit too quiet so that Amelia strained to hear.
“What was that?”
Oliver tried again, but again, the wind whipped between them, and Amelia couldn’t make out his words. After the third time, Amelia burst into laughter, and Oliver joined her. As if on cue, the wind stopped then, and they could hear one another.
“I would say it again,” Oliver said as he gasped for air, “But I’m pretty sick of it, myself.”
Amelia chuckled. “Hey. Do you want to know a fun fact about Martha’s Vineyard?”
“Uh oh. Is this where your really nerdy qualities come out?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll allow it. Just this once,” he said.
Amelia arched her brow. She couldn’t help but sense that he now flirted with her, despite his promise that he wouldn’t. But was she enjoying it? Did she possibly like it too much to call him out?
“Okay. Here it is. A big Martha’s Vineyard fact,” Amelia said as she delivered a goofy smile. “The island was once home of one of the earliest known deaf communities in the United States. This was all the way back in the late 1600s. Way before the US became a country. Back then, they developed a Martha’s Vineyard-only sign language, which was used before American Sign Language was even invented. Isn’t that crazy?”
“What did you say?” Oliver said, teasing her.
“Ha,” Amelia shot back, rolling her eyes. “But come on. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Oliver’s eyes caught hers for a long time. She couldn’t look away. She was totally captivated with him, although she would never, not in a million years, tell him that. She supposed she was drunk — not on alcohol, as she hadn’t had a single sip but on the water, the sun, the sky and the conversation. It was so, totally outside the bounds of what she normally did.
And it filled her with a sense of longing for something much more.
Oliver drove the sailboat back up Katama Bay, back up toward the docks. When Amelia stepped off the boat, her knees clacked together uncontrollably, and Oliver hopped up onto the dock to ensure she didn’t fall back. His hand cupped her elbow to steady her, and the heaviness of his grip against her made her spine shiver.
After another long silence, Amelia cleared her throat and said, “That was really something. Thank you for taking me out.”
“Of course,” Oliver said. “It was my pleasure. I told you. You’re one of the most fascinating and bull-headed creatures I’ve ever met in my life.”
A blush crept up through Amelia’s chest, her neck, and up through her cheeks. She simply couldn’t trust her body not to give her away.
“Why don’t you come to dinner with me?” Oliver said then as he yanked the rope into an intricate knot.
“You think that little knot maneuver is enough to impress a girl like me?” Amelia said.
Oliver gave her a big-eyed look. “You think I’d only tie up my boat to impress a woman?”
Amelia shrugged as yet another blush encroached on her face. Maybe he hadn’t actually asked her out? Maybe she’d misunderstood?
But then, that now-familiar arrogant smile crept up toward his ear. “Come on. Really. Dinner on me.”
Amelia took a delicate step back. She felt pulled in t
he opposite direction. After all, that one-night stand with Nathan Gregory had been enough and she wasn’t prepared to be seated across from yet another arrogant guy, no matter how many drinks he agreed to purchase for her. She’d had enough fun.
“Thanks for the ride, but I have to head back home,” Amelia said. “My schedule is packed tomorrow with other millionaires who want to destroy the island.”
“Ah. Then you’d better rest up to deal with them,” Oliver said. He reached for the zipper on his jacket and yanked it to his chin. “I know it won’t take those others long to recognize that you’re a force to be reckoned with. Unless, of course, they’re stupid.”
Amelia laughed aloud as she turned back toward the boardwalk. “Good night, Oliver Krispin. Get back to wherever you came from safe, won’t you? And don’t let the metaphorical door hit you on your way out.”
Chapter Thirteen
Days crept forward, just as they always had before. The only real darkness that hung over Amelia’s head these days was the knowledge that soon, she and Mandy would have to make real, life-altering decisions regarding her pregnancy. Daniel would have to be told; doctor’s appointments would have to be made; college would have to be pushed back. It was a lot to think about, but, as Amelia tried to translate as much as she could to Mandy, they could handle it, just as they’d handled everything else before.
Amelia tried her best not to think about the fact that Mandy had called her mother. It was strange to think of this woman, who’d given birth to both Jake and Mandy, just off gallivanting through Manhattan, eager to tell her eldest that she “just wasn’t cut out” to be a mother. Amelia strained herself not to call the woman up herself and give her a piece of her mind.
On Thursday of the following week, Amelia received several messages from Mandy. Amelia bent over her desk, between one meeting and the next, and read Mandy’s words.
MANDY: I think Colin suspects something’s up.
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