Lunch was over by the time they made it back to the other side of the island, sweaty and exhausted, but also exhilarated by the exercise. Lia and Blake headed back to the kitchens where the staff was already preparing for a lavish dinner later that evening. They managed to score a few pieces of leftover jerk chicken and a large bowl of salad. Taking the food out to the sand, they sat together on a large towel and picnicked.
The island was quiet, except for the distant sound of day-trippers on jet skis, the waves and the wind in the banana and palm trees. It appeared everyone else was taking a siesta. Or almost everyone else. From one of the distant cabanas, the faint sound of guttural groans, and then softer moans reached them on the wind; the sounds of a couple making love.
“My money’s on Nicki and Gabe,” Blake said, biting into a chicken leg.
“As long as it’s not in our cabana,” Lia laughed. “Because I want to get a nap before dinner. That sun, and the hike wore me out.”
“Well, sounds like you’re not the only one being worn out.”
Lia nudged him hard. “Ew! That’s your sister you’re talking about!”
“Hey. Good for her. More than likely they’ll be married within a year. Starting a family within two. Gabe might be a big guy but I can tell she’s the one who’s got him whipped.” Blake shook his head. “And I wouldn’t want it any other way. Nicki deserves that. Someone who’s all about her for a change.”
“You do, too, y’know?”
“Yeah. Maybe one day.” Looking at her, Blake reached for his fork and stabbed a pile of lettuce in their shared salad bowl. “What about you? You on the market?”
Lia shrugged. “I guess. Not actively looking, but open.”
“My brother likes you. You like him?”
Lia nodded, not meeting Blake’s gaze. “I do.”
“He has a hard time letting himself have what he really wants.”
At that Lia laughed. “That’s funny. Coming from you.”
“Nah. It’s different with me,” Blake insisted shaking his head. “What I want, there are plenty of people to tell me I shouldn’t have. A relationship … a real relationship with another man? There are still people out there who would die to deny me, to deny people like me, that right. But Kevin? He just stands in his own way.”
“Like how?” It was prying, but Lia didn’t care. “Give me an example.”
“Well, the photography for one.”
“And …?”
“Christina.”
At the sound of a woman’s name, Lia’s heart sped up. Who the hell was Christina?
“He was engaged once. To someone who was completely wrong for him. It was obvious she was out for something; something other than being Kevin’s wife.”
“And what happened? How come they didn’t …?”
“Someone intervened. To show her up.”
“Sounds dramatic.”
Blake gave a grunt, then a harsh bark of laughter. “It was. Believe me.”
“Well then don’t you do that, Blake. Stand in your own way, I mean. I think you should tell your father. Tell your mother. About, you know.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” Then he reached over and touched the side of her face with the back of his forefinger. “You got a little sun. Your skin … you look amazing.”
Lia smiled. “You sure you don’t like girls?” she teased. “Because you sure know a little something about how to make ‘em feel good about themselves.”
Shaking his head, Blake let his hand fall. “That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m just telling the truth. You look amazing, Lia Hill. You are amazing.”
Leaning in, Lia kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
~13~
Kingfisher Key, FL, Wednesday, 8:39 p.m.
The entire day had been one long exercise in restraint. He held back when Lia and Blake disappeared for their hike; and when they returned, Kevin pretended not to care when Justin made leering comments about her body during dinner; and again, when Blake rested his arm casually across Lia’s bare shoulders, touching her like she belonged to him.
If he didn’t know better, he would have thought Lia and Blake had …. taken things to another level, or something. But Blake no longer went to that level with women. And Lia and Kevin had an understanding. Or at least, he hoped they did. Watching her across the table, smiling and joking with Blake; and Blake’s eyes resting on her with what was unmistakably affection, Kevin wondered exactly what had gone on in those hours that they were gone. But whatever it was, it had served its purpose because Lia and Blake were long past acting. That they liked each other a lot, was clear to anyone who looked.
But what if Lia really liked Blake? If she did, she wouldn’t be the first woman to fall victim to the charm. Like Christina; she had fallen for it, all the while thinking she might have a chance at capturing the First Prize: Blake Morgan, rather than the Runner-Up, Kevin Taylor. It didn’t matter that she was weeks away from their wedding, she had taken her shot.
But, no. Lia wasn’t Christina. And Blake, though he’d been angry when they parted at breakfast, was not the person he had been back then, either.
Kevin shoved the unwelcome memories to the back of his mind, concentrating on the marlin steak on his plate. Tonight, dinner had a nautical theme. Not original, considering they were in Florida by the water. But everyone had gamely gone along with it, dressing in blue, or white. The women had shell jewelry and the men looked as though they were captaining, or passengers on a yacht. Only Gabriel Wynne was not dressed consistent with the theme. He was staying only until the end of the meal, and then was returning to the mainland and then back to DC.
Glancing across at Blake and Lia once again, Kevin watched her stand and say something brief before heading off in the direction of the cabanas. When she walked into the dining room in her white dress, the contrast against her skin stunning to behold, that was when he knew every ounce of his restraint was going to be tested. Now, he knew he had to get her alone and to himself again, somehow, someway.
“Excuse me,” he said, getting up from his own seat, not caring how it looked that he was leaving moments after Lia had.
Blake shot him a look across the table, but he ignored it.
He found Lia at her cabana door, she was leaning into it, her forehead pressed against the wood.
“You okay?” he asked.
She jumped and then sighed, looking at him.
“Yeah. Fine.” She reached for the door handle and shoved the door open. Kevin followed her inside.
“It’s getting chilly out there,” she explained. “I need to find my pashmina.”
But she wasn’t meeting his gaze, and there a sliver of tension in her voice.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Lia turned and looked at him, her large limpid eyes were solemn.
“I don’t know how you all do it,” she said.
“Do what.”
“All the lies. All the secrets. I’ve only been with you guys for a few days and already I’m exhausted. Between pretending with Blake and then Nicki’s thing, and now …” She stopped.
“And now?”
“He told me.” Lia looked up. “Blake told me why I’m here.”
Kevin’s eyebrows lifted.
“He did?”
No wonder they looked closer somehow after the hike. They were closer. His brother didn’t have many confidantes. Few inside in the family—just him and Nicki, really—and fewer outsiders. Those who knew Blake’s secret only knew by necessity, having probably played some role in helping him conduct and conceal his various hookups and relationships. To Kevin’s knowledge, there had never been anyone he told because he wanted to.
“And it makes me sad,” Lia continued. “How old is he? Like thirty-four?”
“Thirty-five.”
“You’re not helping him. By doing this? You’re not helping.”
Kevin nodded. He walked toward her. “But I can
’t tell what he doesn’t want told.”
Lia nodded, her expression almost sad. “I know.”
“Look.” Kevin was close enough now, so he held her by the waist, pulling her against him. “Let’s take a break from all this. You and me.”
“We did that, remember? And the only reason we didn’t get caught was because of Nicki and Gabe.”
“I don’t mean getting off the island. I mean right here.”
“How?”
“Meet me tonight,” he said, lowering his head, and kissing her just at the curve of her chin.
“Where?” Lia let her head fall back.
“At the far end of the beach. Where we keep the wave-runners.”
“What time?”
“Midnight,” he said. “Everyone should be asleep then.” He brushed his lips against hers, wanting to kiss her deeper, but wanting even more to have her want him.
“Okay.” She exhaled and pressed closer.
They had about a minute. Less than that, before people grew curious about their whereabouts. Her shoulders—which he wished she wouldn’t cover with a pashmina—were even browner from the sun, her skin glowing with a vaguely reddish undertone, slightly shiny from what appeared to be a light sheen of oil. Up this close, Kevin could smell that it had coconut in it, and a fruit, maybe mango. It made him want to taste her.
“We have to go back,” Lia said. Her breathing was labored because now, Kevin was kissing her neck.
Beneath his lips, he felt tiny goosebumps rising on the surface of her skin.
“Midnight,” he said again before pulling away and turning to leave her. “Don’t turn into a pumpkin.”
Lia looked at him levelly, clearly frustrated by his abrupt withdrawal. “That doesn’t even make any sense,” she said testily.
Kevin smiled, pleased that she was feeling just a tiny bit of what had tortured him all day, and into the evening. “Just be there.”
Kevin sat at the edge of the water. The dark was broken only by the dim light several yards away at the dock, and the intermittent white, the flash of the breakers hitting the shore. It was still only ten till midnight, but he wondered whether Lia would make it after all.
After dinner, Nicki had walked Gabe to the boat that would take him back to the mainland. She leaned against his side as they walked, and their hands were clasped together. The sight of Nicki, leaning against the much-taller Gabe, had drawn everyone’s gaze because they were so obviously, a couple in love. Even Kim and Tanya looked a little wistful, watching them. Before he boarded the boat, Gabe leaned down to kiss Nicki, and she got up on her toes to reach him. Kevin smiled, and then across the dining room, caught his mother’s gaze. There were tears in her eyes.
For everyone else, the sight of Nicki in love was what riveted them. But for Kevin, it was that, and something else as well. It teased out a memory, something in the farthest reaches of his mind, of a time he had seen another couple, walking together, just like that. A man, and a woman, leaving a room, their hands clasped together. The woman leaning on the man, her head on his shoulder, both of them framed by a soft light.
He was little then, maybe just a toddler. In his memory, he was thinking how big the man was, and how strong. And how safe he felt, and warm and loved. He was probably in bed, in a bedroom that was likely his. But he remembered. He remembered because the woman had looked back over her shoulder and her eyes were tear-filled. And she said to the man, ‘Oh my god, he’s so beautiful. He looks just like you.’
As soon as the memory came, it went, drifting away like a puff of smoke. Or maybe he shoved it away, because the woman he remembered, with the tears in her eyes, was his much younger than she was now, mother. And the man, he believed, was his father. The sight of Jessica Morgan tonight, with tears in her eyes had provoked the memory. It was the only one Kevin could ever recall having ever had, of his mother and his father together. He didn’t even have pictures. Not of them together, and not even of his father alone.
When he was fifteen, he had gone through a period where all he felt for his mother was rage.
He knew Edward Morgan wasn’t his biological father. He had always known. And Blake, just four years older than him, had just finished his first year of university, so Kevin was home, most of the time alone with his mother and Nicki who was a shy and quiet, ten-year old. In Blake’s absence, suddenly, the link between Kevin and Edward Morgan felt more tenuous. Blake was the bridge. What Edward Morgan did for Blake, he also did for Kevin.
But with Blake gone, the father-son gestures were more awkward, as though they both had been made to face, for the first time, the reality that they were not father and son.
‘I want to know my real father!’ Kevin had yelled at his mother one day. ‘I want to know who he is!’
‘Shh! You can’t, Kevin. He’s dead. You know that. Edward Morgan is your father now.’
He still remembered how she looked when she said those words, the apprehension on her face, that someone might hear her. Yes, it was true that he knew his father was dead, but that wasn’t what he meant. He wanted to know him, to know who he was, not just his last name. So, for the first time, his mother told him the entire truth.
Etan Taylor was a friend. One of Edward Morgan’s oldest friends. They had known each other from the time they were boys and grew up to work together as well. Edward had brought Etan into the business with him, and alongside the two Morgan brothers, he worked as though he too, was a member of the family. When Edward met and married Jessica Sykes, it was Etan, and not his own brother by blood who had stood up with him as his best man at the wedding.
And when Blake was born, Etan was the godfather.
‘He was Edward’s best friend, but he was mine too,’ Kevin remembered his mother saying. ‘He helped me get used to my role in society. Taught me things, showed me things.’
She had, unlike Edward, grown up without wealth and material things, and was a little shy, a little insecure about her place in such a family. Edward was impatient with her insecurity, and often dismissive. He was young, and ambitious, and wanted to make a mark even larger than his own father had. He had no time and none of the will it took to coddle his high-strung wife, who was often emotional and overwhelmed with the new baby.
Gradually, the friendship between her and Etan deepened.
‘And then … before I knew how and when my feelings had changed, I was in love with him. I loved Edward, but I was in love with Etan.’ Kevin remembered his mother saying. ‘We shouldn’t have let it go further than feelings, but we did.’
The fallout was ugly. Edward tossed her out, and warned her she shouldn’t even think about taking his son. She could leave, but Blake would not go with her. Etan told her to stay, but by then it was too late. Edward would not have her back, and he bought out the small share of stock his best friend had in the Morgan business. The two men never spoke again.
‘But I was happy with Etan, and he was happy with me. And when I got pregnant, even though I was still married to Edward, we were both happy.’
They lived that way, in limbo, his mother and Etan in their own home, raising him. Occasionally, Edward would allow her to see Blake, but only occasionally. She was happy and in love with Etan, but torn because she could not raise her other son.
‘Edward refused to discuss divorce. I thought hearing that you were born would make him want one, but still, he refused to discuss it. I think he wanted to keep from Etan the one thing he had power to prevent him from having.’
And then, there was the accident. A completely senseless, common everyday traffic accident. Etan was driving home from a meeting with an investor, someone who was willing to put up a stake so he could start his own company, rather than live on the proceeds of the sale of his shares. He was excited, and had called before he left, saying that he wanted to take them all out to celebrate.
‘This is what we needed,’ Kevin’s mother told him Etan said. ‘Now our life together is really going to start.’
She s
aid she remembered that, not only because they were the last words Etan had said to her, but because she wanted to say, ‘But Etan, we already have a life together. We have a life together and I love it. I love our life.’
But she hadn’t said it. And she regretted that she hadn’t. Because when he died in the accident on his way home to her, she had to live with the knowledge that despite all the love they had, and despite the baby they had made, and the three years that they had been happy together, Etan still believed that he had taken her away from something. While she had regretted losing Blake, she had lost nothing else that she wouldn’t willingly give up, just to be with Etan.
‘Kevin,’ his mother said, when she concluded her story. ‘I loved your father very much. I love him still. You may never hear me say that again. But it’s something you should know. Something you should never forget.’
And just like that, Kevin recalled, the rage he felt towards his mother was gone.
It was eleven fifty-seven.
In the darkness, a figure was advancing toward him. In white, and moving slowly, pausing at the water’s edge, dancing away from the waves and then toward them once again.
As she drew closer, Kevin smiled.
She was wearing the same dress from earlier that evening. It was long, and though she held it by the hem, bunched in her hand, it was damp and a little sandy. Her feet were bare and her face was as well. She had washed away all traces of makeup.
She smiled back at him, and Kevin stood when she was about a foot away.
“Hi,” she said.
~14~
Kingfisher Key, FL, Thursday, 12:14 a.m.
“A strong espresso and a big, hunk of cheesecake,” Lia said after a moment.
“That’s what you want most in the world?”
“That’s what I want most in the world, at the moment,” Lia clarified.
They were sitting side by side on the rickety dock, at the end of the beach where the wave runners were tied. This dock, Kevin had explained, they no longer used for the boats because the wood was rotten and unreliable. In the early morning, before the sun was high in the sky, he said, you could look down between the wooden slats and see colorful tropical fish, hiding in the shadows. Fish with jewel-tones so vivid, they didn’t even seem real, their scales iridescent and magical.
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