Paradise Bay: Resort 1 (Surrender Isle #1)

by Havana Scott

  “I’m not letting anyone drag me. I simply want to see him, let him see that I’m here for him, that he’s not alone—”

  “But he is alone!” I shouted, feeling like an ass, but Jesus Christ, she needed to wake up and see things for what they were. “The sooner he sees that, the sooner he’ll leave you alone and start dealing with his problems. But…as long as you keep ‘being there for him,’ he’s going to keep up with his codependency crap.”

  “It’s not crap, Tristan. You don’t know him. You don’t understand…” she kept saying. “He still loves me. I…ugh…” She grabbed at the sides of her head.

  God, I was furious, but I couldn’t go off on her. She was leaving when we—I—needed her most, but if this was what she wanted, who was I to stop her? “Paris, please…please listen to me. This guy has been nothing but a distraction to you from the moment you arrived here. From the moment you stepped off the plane, he has not let you be at peace. Do you think, for one second, that if he loved you, that he’d allow himself to be a burden to you like that? If he loved you, wouldn’t he let you be happy? If he loved you, would he have pulled this stunt?”

  “It’s not that simple. He’s depressed, or he wouldn’t be in the hospital.”

  “I won’t argue with you there, but you can’t be his savior, his mother anymore. He is seeking attention from you. You have to separate yourself from him. You have to stay here.”

  “Why? Because you say so? Because you’re ordering it? I don’t work for you, Tristan. Or did you forget that?”

  I wanted to kick a fucking wall. “This isn’t the time to go feminist on me, Paris. I’m not trying to order you around. I’m only looking out for you, and you running back home to the bedside of your ex-husband who is clearly doing this for your attention is a bad move any way you look at it. He’s a distraction.” I paced the villa, taking mental note of the things she was packing and the things she was leaving behind.

  “A distraction from what? Your book that you want me to write? Is he slowing me down from finishing your project, Tristan? Is that why you’re so upset?” She yanked open drawers and slammed them closed. “You’re worried about your numbers and your investor. That’s what this is all about.”

  “That’s not fair, and you know it. This has nothing to do with the book.”

  “No? What does it have to do with then?”

  “It has to do with culling people from your life. As much as it might hurt, because you don’t want to look like a bad person, you have to remove bad influences from your life. If you want to succeed, if you want to go higher, you have to stop catering to those weighing you down. Paris, you have to remove the dead weight, love. Maybe that makes me a bad guy, but that’s how you solve a problem.”

  “Dead weight. You think my ex-husband, who I once loved and still care about, who at this very moment, is laying in an ICU bed, because he tried to take his life last night, is the same as dead weight? He’s not some person you can just fire for not doing their job, Tristan.” She stared at me in disbelief and for a moment, I felt the absurdity of my own words even though I firmly believed them. “Since when did succeeding become more important than humanity? Why does going far in your career and making money take precedence over helping a friend in need?”

  I had no answer for that.

  “I never said I was going back to him, did I?” She added. “I never said I was running back to his arms or remarrying him. He doesn’t have my heart anymore, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” A wall of tears welled up in her eyes. “But he needs help, and because I loved him once, it’s only right to be there for him during his lowest point. Don’t you think? Am I wrong here?”

  Again, I had nothing to say. She was taking everything I’d ever known and understood to be true and twisting it around like a fucking pretzel.

  “If you are going to be in my life…if you, Tristan, are my friend, you’ll stand by my side on this. You can support me or not, but I have to go home.”

  Why did I have this horrible sinking feeling that if she left right now, I would never see her again? She would get sucked up into Ben’s world again, she would feel immeasurable guilt just being near him, and she would never return to the life she’d started making for herself here on Sorendi. It would be my father giving up his true love of writing all over again. Once again, I’d have failed in helping those I loved the most achieve their dreams like I had.

  What good was attaining my goals if I couldn’t bring my loved one along with me?

  “What about culling people from your life?” She wiped her face then began the task of closing her very full suitcase. “You talk a big talk, but you don’t walk it.”

  “What are you talking about? I practice what I preach—always.”

  “Do you now? Who’s Tatianne, Tristan?”

  And there it was. How had she found out? I supposed Paradise Bay was a small town like any other, where everyone talked. I was worried that the regulars would see me coming out of Paris’s villa a few times over the last month, but most here didn’t know Tatianne from a crab in the sand. It had to be one of our own who informed her.

  “Tatianne is an ex-girlfriend,” I said. “Not even. Ex-lover. She’s the one who lent me the money I needed. She arrived here a few days ago by surprise, and all I’ve wanted to do was get rid of her. I’m working on letting her go. See? I do practice what I preach.”

  “Well, I don’t want to ‘get rid’ of Ben. I just need to make sure he’s okay. We’re different in this respect, Tristan.”

  A deal-breaker. Who knew one would come so soon?

  “He won’t be okay until you remove yourself from his life. Paris, you are the one making it hard for him to let go, because you keep yourself within his reach at all times. He’s never going to fly on his own if you are there, smoothing his wings down. You’re doing more damage to him than he is to you, because he’s not as strong as you are.” I knew I sounded like an asshole, but I also spoke the truth.

  She stared at me a long time. My hope was that she was listening to a scrap of what I was saying and would come to her senses any moment. Unpack her bag. We both made sense, but if I was honest, I didn’t want her leaving, because I just fucking didn’t want her to. I just wanted her here with me. Selfish, maybe, but I knew I could give her what she needed. She just had to see that for herself.

  “You’re leaving anyway, aren’t you?” I felt a deep panic rising into my chest, weighing me down. “What do I have to do, Paris? What about twenty thousand? Would twenty thousand for the book make you stay? Thirty? I can do thirty.”

  She blinked, sobs shuddering deep in her chest. “I can’t believe you’re trying to buy me. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  I couldn’t believe it either, but I didn’t know what else to do to make her stay.

  “I’ll find someone to finish the book for you in case I don’t come back. Thank you for the experience of a lifetime, but I have to get back to the real world now. Goodbye, Tristan.” She zipped up her bags, Michel sauntered in to help her out, pretending like he hadn’t heard a word of our argument. And all I could do was stand there, watching the one woman who could potentially have been the love of my life—leave Paradise Bay.

  Chapter 17

  I’d only been to Kindred Hospital once before, and that was when my father died.

  His liver shut down, and thus began the process of other organs saying goodbye. I was there with my grandmother fully understanding all that was happening but feeling guilty for not being a good enough daughter to cry. Instead, my first thought when they told me the news was, Who will walk me down the aisle when I get married? I was eight and selfish.

  Eighteen years later, here I was again, being escorted to a room in the ICU. In my mind, I pictured what I might see before I entered—Ben lying in a bed surrounded by nurses giggling over how cute he was (if they only knew), smiling when he saw me. I turned the corner. The Ben-lying-in-a-bed part was true, but instead, I was met with an eerily qu
iet room, machines beeping, an older nurse who couldn’t care less if Ben was cute or not. No one else was there with him.

  One wall of the room was made of glass, and a nurse sat at a desk behind it watching us. I went out on a limb and assumed it was so he could be monitored carefully at all times to make sure he wouldn’t try to kill himself again. “Mr. Walker?” The graying nurse touched his arm. “You have a visitor.”

  His eyes fluttered open, his soft gaze focusing on me. No smile, no movement. “Did you bring the blankets?” he asked.

  “Blankets?” I glanced at the nurse for help in understanding.

  She faced me, her back to Ben, and whispered, “He’s going to be confused for a while. His body is still saturated with the sleeping pill ingredients, so expect depression, slow movements, and this type of confusion.”

  “Okay,” I said, a knot forming in my chest. “Who found him?”

  “He called 911 himself when he began feeling pain. Many patients regret their actions and panic. Good thing he called.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and the nurse nodded and left the room. I approached Ben’s bedside, taken aback by the sallow look to his skin, his thinness, and the fact that his eyes were closed again even with me here. He needed help. I hoped the hospital could help me find a good therapist for him. “Ben, I came to see you. It’s me, Paris. Sorry I forgot the blankets.”

  His eyes opened again, refocused. “You didn’t have to come.”

  I slipped my hand into his, the clammy feel of his skin making me break down. I dropped my head into his hand and released half a day’s worth of pent-up stress. Straight from the airport, I was tired, cranky, starving, and now crying. “What should I have done then?” I wiped tears with my sleeve. “Stayed on vacation? Why did you do this?”

  “I was drunk. I missed you. I missed our life.”

  “You’re depressed, Ben. We need to get you help. You can’t do this to yourself.”

  “Of course I’m depressed. I can’t even kill myself properly.” It was hard to hear easygoing Ben sound angry. With himself, with life, with me, I was sure of it. Ben had always made poor choices. I always wanted to believe he could reform, made the mistake of thinking I could reform him. Stupid of me. You can’t change anyone. They can change, but you can’t make it happen.

  “Listen. You can’t be alone anymore. You need to see a therapist, okay? You have to get help. What you’re fighting is stronger than you are. You think you can control depression, but you can’t.”

  “I don’t want to control it, Sugar Bear. I just want to end the fucking pain. You were the only good thing left in my life.” Just then, my heart crumbled into a million pieces, and he looked directly at me. “Sorry, I’m not saying that to make you feel bad. Sorry.”

  “Ben, I…” What could I say? It was hard not to think of myself as the root of all his problems, even though cognitively, I knew his problems started way before he met me. “Don’t say that. You have your whole life ahead of you. You might meet someone perfect for you. I’m still here. But you can’t do this to yourself. You have to get better, so you can move on. I’ll always be your friend. That is not going to change.”

  In my head, I could hear Tristan scoffing. If you want to move on, you have to let go of anyone dragging you down. Yeah, sure, but he wasn’t here seeing this broken man. He could never understand.

  “Until when? Until when will you be around?” He tried a sarcastic laugh, but his chest barely shuddered. I knew what was coming. I’d heard it before. “Until you find someone else, then it’s so long, Ben? Can’t be your friend anymore, because my boyfriend doesn’t like it, Ben? Sugar Bear, you’ll find someone else in a heartbeat, you’ll get remarried, have a baby, and I’ll still be alone. I love your intentions, but they’re unrealistic.”

  “Stop talking that way. It doesn’t have to be that way.” I gripped his arm, desperate for him to understand me. Old undercurrents seeped in, and I found myself caressing his hand.

  “It is that way. I’m just being honest.”

  “Look, let’s not argue right now. What did the doctor say would happen next?” I asked.

  “I don’t fucking know. I don’t even know how I’m gonna pay for this with no fucking insurance. They’ll watch me a couple days, then I’ll be released with the phone number of a therapist. That’s it. Nobody cares.”

  “I care. Now, stop it.” I glared at him.

  There was a tap at the door, a doctor come to see Ben. He was tall and thin with salt and pepper hair and glasses, but young with kind blue eyes. “Good afternoon. You’re Mrs. Walker?”

  “She’s my ex. She left me,” Ben chimed in.

  I muttered to him, giving him the evil eye. “Would you stop?” To the doctor, I replied, “I used to be. Is he going to be okay?”

  “He took a combination of sleeping pills, anti-depressants, and alcohol. Sleeping pills are not as potent as they used to be, so it wasn’t all effective, but he’s going to have some side effects for a while.” The doctor went on to explain the process from here, how he would be under observation another twenty-four hours then he had appointments with a therapist every day this week. Was there anyone who could be with him every day to make sure he remained under observation? The doctor wanted to know.

  Again, Tristan’s warnings shuffled through my head, but I couldn’t leave him alone like this. “I—”

  “I can do it.” It wasn’t me who’d spoken.

  I turned around and was met with the beautiful round face of my best friend. “Grace, oh, my God.” I shot into her arms and hugged her hard, as the doctor checked on Ben. “I missed you. Thank you for coming.”

  “When you texted me that you were here, I told Mrs. Porter I’d be leaving right after lunch. How’s he doing?” She glanced around me at Ben with the doctor.

  “Bad, but could be worse. I have to call his parents and let them know what happened, I have to talk to his therapist and find out what I should do…I have to talk to Mrs. Porter…” I had a million things to do and felt overwhelmed as fuck. Goodbye, dreamland of Sorendi Isle. Hello, real world.

  “Shh, I’m going to help you.” Grace patted my hand and led me down the hallway to an empty bench, making me sit and take a breather. “Paris, you shouldn’t have come.”

  I started shaking my head before I could hear anymore. “No, I had to.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Her wide eyes asserted. For some reason, I wanted to cry into her shoulder. “Ben is not your responsibility anymore.”

  “He’s not yours either.”

  “I know, but I can help get him where he needs to go. He can’t see you right now.”

  “Now you sound like Tristan.”

  “He must be an incredibly astute and intelligent person. I like him already.”

  I barely managed a laugh, pressing my hands into my eyes to stop the tears.

  “Paris, there is not a single thing you can do to help Ben. Even if you went so far as to remarry him, he would still need serious help. I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re not the glue holding him together. Regardless of what you say or do, he’s still suffering depression.”

  “I know I have to let him go, Grace, but how do I do that and live guilt-free about it? There’s just no fucking way.”

  “What if I told you that you being here is worse for him than if you hadn’t come?”

  “I’d tell you I hate you, because I spent a lot of money on a return ticket home.”

  “Paris…as much as I hate saying this, because I missed you…” She fake-punched my arm. “You have to go back. You were working as a real writer, you were starting a new relationship with a rich man…I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, and you were succeeding at them all. Talk about the stars lining up for you, and yes, I’m going to take the credit for all of it happening. If I hadn’t sent you that essay contest.”

  Grace looked all smug and proud of herself.

  I managed a smile. Yes, things had been lining up for me, but there was more than
what she perceived. For example, could I be with a man who didn’t understand I couldn’t abandon someone I cared about? A man who just wanted me to forget everything and pay attention to him only? A man who’d lied? Then again, Tristan was a man whose hands melted into my skin every time he massaged me, whose eyes penetrated my soul every time he awoke in the morning.

  “You never showed me a pic of him, by the way. You totally ignored my every request for a pic of you two together,” Grace said.

  “I was a little busy.” I took out my phone and searched for a good photo of Tristan.

  “Mm-hmm, busy.” She hooked her fingers into air quotes. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days? And…” She laid eyes on a pic of Tristan in the sand laughing, sun flares behind him. “Holy balls of manmeat, that’s him?”

  A male nurse walked by, giving us weird looks.

  “Shh…” I covered her loud mouth.

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Grace’s eyes spread to the size of dinner plates, and she raised her hand for a high five. “Paris Jones, you little tart! You have been keeping this from me. Fucking a sex deity, I hate you even more now.”

  Tristan was beautiful, but it was his zest for life, his determination to make things happen, and the way he appreciated me that I loved more than his body or gorgeous smile. I smiled sadly, remembering the last time we made love at his house. “Funny thing is, Grace, I never thought of him that way. Well, maybe a little. But really, he’s a good man. Full of tough love, and he can say jerky things, but a good man.”

  “Paris, you need to go back.”

  “It’s not that simple. I’m already here. I’m staying for a while.”

  “You are doing nothing of the sort,” she said, and whoa, could Grace look mean. “I can look after Ben for a while. Just point him in the right direction, that’s all.”