by Ella James
As Margo brought a fork-full of fried banana to her mouth, she wondered which was thicker—the humid air or the anxious aggression rolling off her new roommate. He glanced at her plate, then began cutting his enchilada, silverware scraping china with a squeak that pinched her bones.
He put a bite in his mouth. Chewed.
She took a long sip of her orange juice.
He cut another piece.
She considered just chugging her whole glass, taking her plate and leaving without a word. He could eat alone. She could run up to the room, grab her cell phone and see if—
“So.” His low voice made her jump. She glanced up. His face was bleak. As was his tone, when he asked, “How’s it going?”
She froze with her fingers around her glass. How’s it going? Surely he was making some joke, but his face was…well, still bleak.
She looked back at her plate. Pushed some grits around. It’s terrible, she thought, and wanted to tell him he was why. She settled for “fine.”
She picked up her fork again, spearing a piece of enchilada. She was conscious of his eyes on her as she closed her lips around it. He was watching her so closely. Like he’d seen her naked.
The shock of the memory made her throat constrict, and a lump of chicken got stuck. She gulped for air, but nothing could get in.
She rushed her glass to her lips, and Logan started rising from his chair. She stuck out her hand and waved until he sat back down. “I’m fine,” she gasped.
His eyebrows arched, but the rest of his face was cruelly passive.“Good,” he mumbled. “Glad you didn’t…choke.”
Margo laughed, but it was more a snort. He didn’t sound like he was glad.
“Right,” she murmured, glancing sideways at him.
For the next sixty seconds or so, there was nothing but the swish of the fan and the thin scrape of silverware. Through the gauzy screen walls, she saw lightning bugs sparkling against the dark, dripping yard. The moon’s glow spilled pearly light on the gently sloping treetops, and Margo thought how far they were now from the terror of the plane. Had that even happened?
Yes, it had.
And how wretched was her luck?
She was shoveling sweet potato in her mouth when his voice rumbled again. She looked over, thinking he was going to speak, but apparently he was just clearing his throat.
Good grief, how awkward was this going to get? Friends or not, they should be making conversation if they were stuck out here.
“Do you guys always eat this late?” she tried.
“It just depends.” Those blue eyes found hers, and it was like a puzzle clicking into place. Margo felt her face warm up and prayed he couldn’t see it in the flickering candle light.
“On what?”
“Other researchers. Where they are. This is breakfast for the Japanese team.”
“Guess that explains this.” She gestured to her grits and her bananas.
He nodded. Even… was that a not-frown? Their eyes met again—nothing exploded. Feeling a shade better, she returned to work on the banana.
“You like this kind of food?” he asked.
They were talking to each other!
She felt a little rush, followed by a surprising urge to keep the convo rolling. “I like it okay,” she said. “I really like your accent, too. It’s Southern.”
He smirked. “Is your accent Californian?”
“I don’t know.” Was he making fun of her? Well, fine. If that’s how he wanted to be, she would definitely quit trying. He surprised her when, a second later, he said, “So…” His deep voice vibrated in between them, his strong hand flexing as he twirled his fork. “You ride.”
“Yeah,” she said, only half-sure he was talking about horses.
“You ever go to competitions?”
“I do.”
“Like mother like daughter, huh?” He smiled slightly.
“I guess.” She looked down at her plate, deciding not to go on. She’d lost her read on him, and she wasn’t about to get personal again.
“So, you go to boarding school?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Me too. Well, I did.”
“You did?” She looked up at him, at that one dark strand of hair drooping over his brow, at his wildly handsome face, at his body, which was big and taut, like a great, prowling cat. A leopard, maybe, or a puma. Of all the boys she’d known, this one seemed the least tame. He slouched. He cursed. Even now, his big hand clutched the fork like a weapon. “Really?”
As soon as she said it, she wanted to die. He’d definitely stamp her as a spoiled bitch now.
She heard a deep breath from him, but didn’t dare to look. Here it came. The scathing bite-back.
Instead he said, “I work a lot. You won’t see me much around the room.”
He slid his chair back, and she could feel him getting up. Margo lunged, catching his large, solid wrist. “Don’t. I, um, I want to…get to know you more.”
She’d shocked his socks off; she could see it on his face.
“I’m sorry for making assumptions.” She forced herself to meet his cool gaze. “I know that most boarding schools are very expensive. Out of range for most people. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
His face was stiff as marble, so she just kept going—still holding onto his warm wrist.
“I’m sorry for earlier, too. For how I behaved earlier tonight, and for whatever happened in the room. I really just want us to be friends. Friend-ly.” Margo shut her eyes.
“It’s okay.”
He tugged his arm free, and she sat her hand down in her lap. “No it’s not.” She’d acted like an idiot since she’d been on Isis. “I slapped you.” The words felt like putty in her throat. When she spoke again, she had to work to contain a sudden sob. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“I deserved it.”
“Of course you didn’t!”
He just shrugged, like people slapped him all the time. She couldn’t stand the tension that quivered in the air—tension from him; she’d made him uncomfortable somehow—so Margo blurted something else. “What do you really do here at the O? Isn’t that what you guys call it?”
He traced the flower outline on his napkin as he looked at her.
“The O,” he confirmed, and there was another second of silence. How different he seemed here than at the airport. So…solemn.
“I find planets,” he said finally. “Work with horses. Fly a little. About that…” She heard his soft exhale, watched him press his palm down on the table as his head shook slowly. “That’s not how things usually go.”
He was trying to make her feel better. Which meant he didn’t hate her. Which meant they could be friends—maybe. She wanted to let him know she didn’t hold their plane trouble against him, but she couldn’t say it was okay. “I don’t think I’ll ever like to fly.”
“Should,” he muttered, picking up his fork. “You’ll be doing it enough.”
“Not really. Just to and from school. I’m there all year.”
“You won’t always be.”
“Yeah, well I don’t plan to be another Cindy.” She’d do her own thing. Work a for-pay job. She wasn’t unintelligent, but she also wasn’t Cindy Zhu. How could she be?
Logan nodded, setting down his fork again. He glanced at the yard, like he wanted to go out the screen porch door, before folding his napkin in half. “Grew up living with your dad?”
“Yeah.”
“He seemed like a good guy.”
So he’d read about her father. Of course he had. Raymond Ford was controversial. A real firebrand.
“I miss him,” she murmured. “But everything will be okay.”
It hurt to say so, because it didn’t feel true, but she had to say something. She didn’t figure I just recently stopped wanting to die with him would interest Logan very much. Nor would, Yeah, maybe it will be okay if I can get to know the parent I have left or Nothing will ever be okay again so I might as well get kidnapped. Logan did
n’t care about her, or the group of psychopaths that wanted to kidnap her.
As if in confirmation, he put the napkin down and propped his elbows on the table. “Like I said, I work a lot. Being here is really important for me...”
She nodded, wondering where he was going. He fidgeted in his chair, brushed his hair out of his face. Finally, she said, “I won’t mention the plane thing to Cindy.”
“It’s not that.” Logan closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You saw Jana’s boys. Roberto and Ricardito. Good kids. We’ve got a pool. Some caves…”
Oh, God. He was trying to give her a list of things to do. Ways to entertain herself, so she wouldn’t pester him.
What the F ever.
Margo’s head felt so hot she could hardly see straight, but she managed to keep her voice steady. “I can entertain myself.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” he drawled.
But he’d implied, and she wondered if everyone on the island saw her the same way—as a charity case. She sat up straighter, folded her arms across her chest. “You shouldn’t feel an obligation to check up on me. I’m fine. I don’t plan to be here for very long, either.”
“Oh? When are you leaving?” He sounded raptly curious.
She held her head high and evaded the question. “I have no reason to stay. I had wanted to find out more about my mother, but that’s not happening. I’m sure I’ll find some way to evade the kidnappers.”
“Kidnappers?” His eyes narrowed, and she said, “You don’t know about that?”
His eyes widened. “You’re serious.”
“That’s the real reason I’m here.”
He slowly shook his head. “Makes sense,” he said blandly. “Jana told me to find you at your terminal and bring you straight to the plane.”
“You were late,” she said.
“Yeah.” Both his tone and expression were dismissive. Like she didn’t matter. Like he’d never held her hand. “Well, this place is definitely safe. Everyone here knows everyone, so it’d be hard for anyone to get you.”
“In that case I don’t need your help. We can share a room without having to be friends.”
“Good,” he murmured, pushing back his chair. “I’m not signing up to be one.”
7
Several hours later, Margo slipped inside the side door of the casa. She felt like a criminal, and how dumb was that? This was her house—kind of. It would be one day. Wasn’t that why she’d stopped off in Atlanta on her way to Kerrigan nine months ago? The memory of that first (well, second) clinical interaction with Cindy made her frown as she glided down the darkened hall. All they’d done was sign paperwork.
She had hoped her stay on Isis would be good, but it was turning out much worse than she could have imagined.
Originally, it had been the kidnapping threats that had her twisted into knots. Cindy’s people hadn’t told her anything specific, but she’d overheard Elizabeth’s stepmother talking about it, and she’d heard the word “terrorist.” She’d also seen a report on CNN, where a man in a tacky ready-made suit told the world about her troubles.
Which now meant every kidnapper in the world (or at least the ones in countries with CNN) knew that snatching her would earn a ransom. Excellent.
Sad thing was, Margo didn’t really care. Not like she should. Her mind was too clouded by images of Cindy on her popular investing talk show, Zhu’s. Despite Cindy’s solemn face and a tendency toward sharpness with the dumber callers, Margo had thought she’d seemed nice enough. She’d had expectations. Maybe even—oh, no—fantasies.
As she tiptoed down the hall, she told herself her negligent chromosomal donor didn’t matter. The woman was halfway across the world. Logan, on the other hand, was a problem she’d have to deal with immediately. Like when she sneaked back into their room.
She would understand if he was pissed, because, hello, she’d slapped him after he’d flown her weepy self to Isis. But after a lot of thought, she’d decide angry wasn’t the message he was sending. He’d acted like she had Ebola when he’d found her in his room, and dinner had been amazingly awkward. Awkward rather than angry. Why? She was beginning to think his apathy at the end of their conversation wasn’t actually disinterest at all. It had seemed so…intense.
Margo rubbed her eyes, wishing she had never come to Isis. But since she had, she was going to get some of the answers she was seeking. Namely how her parents had met, and why Cindy had give up all parental rights, as well as why she’d resumed them when Margo’s dad had died.
She followed the hallway past several polished doors that she guessed led to bedrooms—she heard a man snoring from beneath one; the kitchen—she refused to glance toward the patio; and several island-themed sitting rooms. She got excited when she found a spiral staircase in a window-dotted library, but it only went to the fourth floor.
As Margo started back down the staircase, holding onto the rail and focusing on her feet so the slick bottoms of her sandals didn’t slip, she heard a sound like a pile of books falling off a shelf. She froze for a moment, then trotted the rest of the way down. Where she ran straight into a blond guy.
“Yipes!” The high-pitched word was an Elizabeth-ism, her Kerrigan friend’s impression of another girl, Kathy Leon. Kathy was a gleeful, gangly dork who grinned at everyone with food in her braces and was always tripping over things and saying (what else): Yipes!
As she looked into the blond man’s face, Margo felt a brief shot of embarrassment. The guy—was he old enough to be called a man?—was attractive, with the hard, well-angled face of a movie star and a kissable mouth that formed a small “o” when she bumped into him.
“I’m so sorry.” She stepped back, feeling clumsy and disoriented.
Blondie smiled, revealing a mouthful of straight, small teeth. Ick. The teeth were oddly squarish and very unappealing. They made him look like an animal, and not a cuddly one.
“I’m very sorry,” she said again. Mr. Teeth smiled at her so long she wondered if there was something wrong with him. Then he said, “It was my fault,” and she realized he wasn’t weird. Just…Austrian? Yes, he sounded Austrian, and he was likely also a scientist. Weirdness explained.
He moved back with a courtly wave of his hand, and Margo stepped down onto an oriental rug in a study on the first floor.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said pleasantly, in the voice she reserved for adults she didn’t know.
“Nonetheless, I offer my apology.” He gave a brief bow, and when he rose, he smiled again. “May I assume you are Cindy Zhu’s daughter, Margo?”
Margo inhaled. Exhaled. “That’s right,” she told him calmly. “And you are?”
“Daniel. I come from Austria to study—” he twirled his finger, like he couldn’t remember the word— “astronomy.”
“Nice to meet you, Daniel.”
“And you.”
“Well, I’ve got to go.”
“Wait, I—”
She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. He gave her the creeps, and besides, she didn’t want anyone to know she’d been in the casa at this hour. She he heard him on her heels as she breezed down the hall, and ducked behind a statue, holding her breath. He turned a circle, muttered something, and walked away.
A few steps later, she spotted a housekeeper and ducked behind a stuffed armchair while the woman passed. By the time Margo found another stairway, discreetly placed between a parlor and a sunroom, she felt exhausted by the combination of sleuthing stress and her angst.
She shouldn’t be here—on Isis or snooping in Cindy’s house. And yet, when the stairway ended at the fourth and highest open-to-the-public floor, she didn’t return to the cabana. Instead, she felt energized, consumed by her curiosity about the fifth floor.
After another ten minutes of dead ends, abstract art, and general weirdness (the casa had two entire rooms on the fourth floor dedicated to taxidermied birds), Margo slipped into a ladies’ room on the third floor to regroup
. And there, in the center of an old-timey powder room, she found a ribbon of stairs that led to the fifth floor.
She came out in a moonlit dome filled with dozens of lilies. The dome fed into two long hallways; she picked the one with royal blue walls, ornate molding, and blood red curtains. She passed studies, workrooms, libraries, and parlors. The rooms got bigger and more elaborate, until finally, at the end of the hall… bingo!
Cindy’s room.
