by Jessie Cooke
“Obviously.”
“Part of what was used were the schematics and drawings from Christo and Bella,” Reece said to the group.
“Really?” Christo asked.
“Yep. You guys and your design helped sell this place before it was even finished. That should make you feel good,” Reece said with a smile.
Bella felt her chin raise a bit in a moment of well-deserved pride. Who would have thought she’d have been able to sell a place that didn’t even exist with just her ideas sketched on paper? She felt a sense of accomplishment wash over her, and there was a small part of her that wanted to call her mother—the age old desire to please her parents and prove herself.
“Is Mr. Grayson going to make it to the grand opening?” Christo asked.
“Unsure still,” Reece answered. “His work at home is piling up, and the doctor is being very strict. Apparently some complications arose after the surgery, but I don’t have all those details.”
“What’s he like?” Bella asked, getting into the conversation.
“Why? You interested?” Reece said teasingly.
“I have a beau, thank you,” she answered, realizing that this was the first time she’d thought of Luke in quite a while.
Reece looked surprised. “You’re dating?” he asked.
“Have been for a while,” she answered, unsure of how much detail to give him. There was a part of her that wanted to rub his nose in it, let him know that she had bounced back, but there was a part of her that felt like it would take a lot of work to truly convince Reece that she was happy with Luke, at least as happy as she had been with Reece.
“We work together,” she supplied.
“And yet you didn’t choose him to be on your design team?” Reece asked. “Seems like this would be a great place for a pair of lovers to spend all hours of work and play for a month.”
“Christo and I had more experience working together,” Bella explained. “Plus, Luke’s style is quite different than mine, which is great for our clients, but hard when you need to work on a project like this. Where I see curves and plush, he sees straight lines and cool surfaces. He’s a great designer, we just have different signatures.”
Bella thought she caught a glimpse of disappointment in Reece’s eye at the mention of Luke, but she waved it away just like she tried to wave away the image of Reece in his swim trunks, bare broad chest and six-pack abs with just the right amount of dark curly hair on his chest. She tried not to keep looking, but it was hard not to when he was sitting so close and his body was so perfect. She figured she was safe, her sunglasses shielding her eyes so that no one could really tell that she kept glancing at the faint trail of dark hair that started under his belly button and disappeared below the waistband of his shorts into a region she knew all too well.
“Cooler’s empty!” Christo called, and Bella realized just how thirsty she’d become trapped within her thoughts of what she couldn’t have.
“No problem. I’ll call Gabi,” Reece said, and he picked up his cell phone and within seconds had his assistant on her way.
When she arrived, she brought with her two white-suited men who set up at one of the bars close by to them. They chopped open fresh coconuts with their machetes, poured in white rum, squeezed a lime into each, and stuck long straws into them and brought them over.
“An island refresher,” one of them said, and they handed them around.
“We are here until you leave, Mr. Hamilton,” the other informed them. Please let us know how we can be of service. Sandwiches will be delivered within the half-hour.”
Bella took a sip from her coconut, and the rum warmed her instantly. “That’s strong,” she sputtered.
“Pace yourself,” Reece told her. “I know exactly what kind of drunk you are, remember?”
Bella was glad she was an amorous drunk, not a loud, obnoxious, mean drunk, but she did worry that Reece could find himself the recipient of a booze-induced ardor, not to mention the fact that she was afraid of what she might say when the truth serum that rum can be had taken over her mind.
“I’m gonna need to get that sandwich in me before I have too much of this concoction,” she agreed.
“Yeah, two gays won’t be much help in warding her off,” Christo said to Reece. “But something tells me that you could handle yourself—and her—just fine without any help.”
“I have been known to handle her quite well, if I do say so myself,” Reece said as he winked over at Bella. “At least I had no complaints from the little lady here.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Bella said, feeling her body tingle at the thought of past pursuits with Reece.
“We’re going for a walk,” Christo said as he took another long swig from his straw.
“We are?” Simon said glancing up at his partner. “Where?”
“Well, I want to see the top of the volcano. I’m thinking the view has got to be pretty good from there, and we may as well enjoy a little private time up there before it is running over with screaming children.” Christo pulled at Simon’s toes from where he stood at the end of his chair.
“But sandwiches are coming,” Simon slurred, the coconut concoction already getting to him a bit too.
“Come on, lover,” Christo prompted with a pouty whine in his voice. Simon winked at Bella, took another long sip from his oversized straw, and then hopped off his chair to chase after Christo, stumbling into a few lounge chairs on the way.
Reece and Bella laughed.
“I hope you have a medic on speed-dial,” Bella said. “I don’t know if it’s safe for them to be climbing up to those water slides in their condition. Simon especially.”
“Yeah, he needs that sandwich and soon,” Reece commented. “But you, you’re not drinking.”
“Taking your advice,” Bella said.
“I wish you’d take my advice about other things,” Reece shot back.
She snorted. “What are you talking about?”
Reece turned his full attention to her and grasped her hand forcing Bella to have to look at his half-naked body. The magnet-pull of it was felt deep between her legs, and she wished fervently for the sandwiches to arrive.
“I’m talking about taking my advice about being with me,” Reece said softly. “Taking my advice about seeing our relationship as something that has nothing to do with Nicky and the baby.”
Bella found herself back on the boat in Labadee. She was having that same feeling she’d had watching Simon and Christo parasailing: the feeling that she could do this as long as Reece was with her; the feeling that going through life would be a whole lot easier—and just all around better—with him than without him; the feeling like she was missing out on a new adventure all because of the fear she felt.
She was biting her lip, and Reece knew she was actually thinking. He felt himself lick his own lips, a prelude to what he was imagining could transpire. If only he could be the one biting on her lower lip.
“I just wish you’d trust me again,” Reece whispered. “I’d do anything to get you back.”
Bella looked at him, glad that the sunglasses she was wearing would hide the tears she felt pooling in her eyes. She knew he would detect her weakening resolve, but she would do whatever she could to convince him otherwise. And though she felt the pull of the tears even within her chest, and she fought against Reece’s gravitational pull that so easily tugged on her, a clear voice within whispered for her to just let go and be . . . with him.
36
Bella didn’t know if she had the energy to keep fighting against this vortex that Reece created whenever she was near him. It was all she could do to maintain her ground and not allow herself to be swept into the frenzy and passion that she’d shared with him before. She knew rationally that she should have nothing to do with him; that there was no way she’d be able to trust him completely, but at the same time, she found herself connected to him by some magical force that would not allow her to break away.
&nbs
p; And he knew this!
That was the infuriating part. He could tell. He watched her, reading her body language as adeptly as anyone ever had, and he knew she was struggling between head and heart.
“You trusted me to parasail. You let go of your fears then. Why not trust me with us?” he asked.
“That’s totally different,” Bella tried.
“Oh, yeah. You could’ve plunged to your death parasailing. With us, you’ll just finally be happy and be treated like you should be, like the incredibly amazing woman you are.”
“Very funny,” Bella retorted. “And, no, I can’t be treated like I should be. I’ve told you before, Reece; I want to be the only woman. You’re in no situation to make that promise, and if you did, then I wouldn’t want to be with you anyway. You can’t not have a relationship with the mother of your child.”
“You would be my only woman, Bella. Nicky would never have that hold on me . . . she never did. It’s always been you.”
Bella took a sip from her coconut more to occupy her hands and mouth than from want of the liquid inside, though the rum did seem to lighten the weight that rested on her shoulders.
Reece stroked her hand as he held it, and Bella realized that she hadn’t pulled it away yet. She sat staring at their hands. His were tanned and large, his long fingers enveloping her small ones easily. She had recently cut her fingernails back, and she thought her hands looked even smaller with stubbier fingers, more like a little girls’ than a grown woman’s. Reece’s were cut, neatly squared and clean, wide and manly fingernails that tipped long capable fingers. It was a picture she captured in her mind’s camera. It was a picture of how she wanted to live her life but would never be able to.
“Let me take care of you, Bella,” Reece whispered, reading her mind again. “You don’t know how much torture this has been for me. So much happiness and sorrow and regret all crashing down on me, and the only person I really want to be sharing all of this with is you. I felt like it was a sign when Bryce got appendicitis and couldn’t come, leaving it to me to come here. You were here. I’d be with you. It was as if a pathway had been cleared, a way was made for me to get right back to you. Don’t you see that? Had that appendectomy never happened, we never would have been here together. I’d still be in Dallas wondering how in the world I could get back to you.”
“I don’t know if I believe in all of that,” Bella said, though she didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears.
“You don’t have to believe in it for it to be true,” Reece said. He silently lifted her hand, still in his, to his lips and kissed it tenderly. She felt it in the pit of her stomach.
“You know how you gave me that one weekend to woo you?” he asked suddenly.
She nodded apprehensively.
“What if we did that again? Only it’s a little different. What if you just tried it? Tried giving me a chance to show you that you can be my only woman, that even as a father, I can be fully committed to you and only you when it comes to love? What if I could prove myself all over again?”
Bella bit her bottom lip. Inside her mind she screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and threw her arms around his neck, nestling her face into the scent that she knew as him. In reality, though, her heart thumped hard against her chest begging to be freed from the icy cage she’d built around it.
“You had that chance,” Bella forced herself to say. “And you weren’t honest with me. You still hid everything from me. How can I really trust you ever again? And how can I really allow myself to love you the way I would want to when you have a child with my best friend?”
“Jesus, I wish you’d get over that!” Reece said harshly. “Ever make a mistake, Bella? Ever live to regret it?”
“You’d better not let your child ever hear you say that,” Bella said, her heart smarting from the blow it had received.
“Why does everything have to be so black and white with you?” he asked. “Why can’t you realize that in life—real life, where we adults live—there are grey areas that you have to learn to live with, embrace, in fact, if you want to be happy. It happened. I impregnated a woman. A woman who just happens to be your so-called best friend. It could have just as easily been you as Nicky. But I can’t change that, and I won’t make my kid pay the price for being born to a woman I’m not in love with. It’s not the baby’s fault, for crying out loud, and it’s not going to keep me from being the best dad I can learn how to be.”
Bella straightened her back and finally withdrew her hand. She took her sunglasses off so that Reece could see the daggers she was shooting him.
“For your information, Mr. Hamilton,” she began. “I, too, live in the adult world, and I understand the veritable grey areas that are prevalent in this life we live. And you’re right: it could have just as easily been me pregnant as Nicky. Apparently we were all three stupid a time or two when it came to our sexual encounters. But I’ll bet that over the course of all of these epiphanies and over the course of this new man you’re becoming, you didn’t once stop to think about how this all made me feel—to be betrayed by both lover and best friend; to be cast aside by both of them through their lies and sins of omission. Bet you never once stopped to think about how lost and alone and devastated I have felt as my ex-best friend and ex-lover celebrated something I had envisioned for myself!”
“What are you saying, Bella? That you’re jealous?”
Bella could feel the slur of the alcohol slowing her speech while simultaneously pushing her at a hurtling speed towards the truth.
“Of course I’m jealous, you idiot! I had fallen for you. I was ready to be with you, to be yours, and now I never will. Don’t you get it?! Every look at you reminds me of what she has—will always have—with you. What I never will have with you. I’ll never be able to give you a child—your first child . . . and that kills me!”
Reece stared at her, and Bella thought she could detect a watery glassiness in his eyes.
“Are you gonna cry?” Her words jumbled together.
“I never knew,” Reece finally admitted.
“Well, don’t trust anything I’m saying. I’m drunk,” she said with an exaggerated wave of her hand that almost cost her her balance. “Shit! That coconut is lethal!”
She bent forward reaching for the coconut again and began to topple head-first towards the ground. Reece reached out his arms and steadied her at the last minute. She looked up into his eyes and was just about to mumble a barely coherent “thanks” when his hands suddenly went to her face and pulled her to him.
Their lips met, their electricity sobering Bella in seconds flat, and she flashed back to the memory of their parasailing. She felt it even now; he had taken her high above into a blue-white euphoria.
Suddenly, Reece’s phone rang with an obnoxious clangor. He pulled himself away and scowled.
“If they’re going to bring sandwiches, just bring them. They don’t need to call to tell me every step they’re going to take,” he mumbled. “Hello?” he answered his phone brusquely.
Bella tried to steady herself, not as much from the alcohol as from what had transpired. She couldn’t believe she’d admitted her feelings to Reece. What was she supposed to do now, just abandon everything that made sense and be with him? Could she? Could she really be his girlfriend while Nicky was the mother of his child?
“Bella, are you listening?” Reece was up on his feet and rolling up his towel. He was waving to the guys over by the bar.
“What?”
“I’ve got to go. That was Nicky. It’s time. The baby’s coming!”
37
“Thanks again for helping me pack,” Reece said. He was sitting beside Bella in a company car speeding towards the airport. They’d had a car ready for them when the boat got them to the mainland, and Bella had taken control, knowing that this was the one thing she could do for him now that she had sobered up.
“I want you to be there,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I have to be there,” he c
orrected her. “My own father wasn’t ever there for me, even on the day I entered the world. I’m not about to be that person to my own child. I swore I’d never be that man.”
“And you won’t,” Bella said encouragingly.
“It’s a four-hour flight time at the very least. She’ll probably have the baby, and it’ll be walking by the time I get there.” Reece gripped the handle above the window as Bella careened around a curve and slammed her brakes at the sight of a kid herding some goats across the road.
“Women take a while to give birth. Sometimes women can be in labor for twelve, fourteen hours. That’s not abnormal, you know. You have plenty of time to get there.”
“I should have told Bryce ‘no’. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Ah, so all you said about this pathway back to me was bullshit,” Bella said, half-teasing.
“We just didn’t think it would happen this soon. The doctor said she was measuring late—assured us she’d probably go past her projected due date.”
“You’ll get there when you get there, Reece. You can’t predict everything, and you can’t be in control of everything, either. Obviously your kid is teaching you that, when it comes to him or her, you won’t have the upper hand all the time.”
After what seemed like a series of starts and stops—an appropriate metaphor for their relationship, it was seeming—they arrived at the airport. Bella threw the car in park and went around to the trunk where Reece was hauling his suitcase out.
“Everything I said to you is true, and it stands,” he said as he looked deep into her eyes. The tug was beginning again, and Bella felt like a hot wind had blown over her body. “I want you to think about it,” Reece said. “Just promise me that.”
“That’s all I can promise,” she returned.
He smiled. “Is it wrong that I want to kiss you while another woman is giving birth to my child?”
Bella found herself torn between wanting to cry at that statement and wanting to fall into his arms to grant him his wish.
