by J. L. Berg
I’d decided to have the IUD removed, hoping to reduce the risk of miscarriage later on.
I’d left, wanting Taylor more than ever, despite the fact that he’d hurt me more than anyone.
“Aren’t you scared?” I asked Molly, feeling kind of ill prepared with my small duffel bag and purse.
The rest of my luggage would be shipped by Molly when they returned.
Assuming they had something to return to.
“Of course we are, but if we let it get to us, we’d never be able to live here. Hurricanes and storms are just a part of life around here. Sometimes, they pass us by, and we can breathe a sigh of relief, and other times…well, they don’t, and we have to do this.”
And by this, they meant pack up all their valuables—including family pictures, jewelry, and anything else they didn’t want to be swept away or lost—and simply walk away, hoping for the best.
And that was just their home.
That didn’t even include the two businesses they were leaving behind.
“It just all seems so—”
“Hard?” Jake intervened, giving the tailgate one last shove to make sure the minivan was properly shut.
I nodded.
Leaning against the back, he looked back at his beautiful blue house and gave a warm smile. “I’ve lived all over the country,” he said. “California, Chicago, and I traveled a bit, too. But nothing compares to here. And it’s not the stunning views you get while enjoying a pint at Billy’s or even the salty sea air I love when I take my morning runs. It’s the people. My people. And, yeah, it sucks, having to pack all our shit up and leave the house we’ve built together, wondering if we’ll ever see it again, but I know that when we come back, whatever we find, we’ll all be in it together.”
I swallowed hard, knowing, after this, I’d most likely never return to this island again. Because that was what us Harts did.
If it hurt, we avoided it.
And this island and all its memories hurt more than I could bear.
“You ready?” Jake asked, reaching out with his arms to grab my bag, but he stopped short, his eyes moving past me to the road beyond.
Tires crunched the gravel drive behind me, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.
My heart felt him before I even turned around.
Taylor’s door pushed open and he stepped out, determination in his eyes as he stalked over. “You’re coming with me,” he demanded.
My eyes widened as my breath quickened. I tried to slow it, but I couldn’t. “The hell I am.”
Every step he took closer to me, I felt my resolve weakening.
And it pissed me off.
“Yes, you are. Get in the car, Lani.”
“Only my friends can call me that,” I spit out.
A menacing grin took hold of his lips as he grabbed my bag from my hands. “We were never friends,” he reminded me.
“No, we definitely weren’t. We were much better off as enemies.”
He didn’t wait for permission. He simply turned back toward his truck and tossed my bag behind the passenger seat. Then, he turned back and waited. “I’m not leaving this fucking island without you.”
Letting out a frustrated huff, I gave Molly a parting look.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Jake can force his hand, if you’d like. It might be kind of fun to see them wrestle.”
She meant it mostly as a joke, but I knew if push came to shove, these two would go to blows for me.
The corner of my mouth turned upward, but I declined. “Thank you, but I’ve been avoiding this for too long as it is. He deserves to know, especially since I’m leaving.”
She patted my shoulder and then pulled me into a hug, knowing I needed it. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said before heading toward the truck and an impatient-looking Taylor.
After I hopped into the passenger seat, he joined me, putting the car in gear and pulling back onto the road.
“You going to wear that scowl on your face the entire car trip?” I asked, my arms firmly folded across my chest.
“You gonna bitch the entire time?” he countered.
“Well, seeing as how I didn’t really get much of a choice in the matter, maybe.” And then, for shits and giggles, I added, “But, then again, I haven’t been getting much choice in a lot of things lately.”
He didn’t have a witty comeback for that one and remained silent the rest of the way out of town.
“How’d you know where to find me?” I asked as we coasted down Highway 12.
He kept his focus dead ahead. “It didn’t take a genius to figure out who you’d turn to for a ride out of here.” His fingers gripped the wheel hard and his jaw ticked with annoyance.
“Well, Molly is a reliable friend.”
“Yeah, she is.”
The traffic was heavy, everyone making a run for it at once. It made getting on the ferry a cumbersome task, but eventually, the line ambled forward, and we were parked in a sea of vehicles, waiting to move across the sound toward the mainland of North Carolina.
“I’m assuming you’re meeting up with everyone else at the regular place?” I asked once he’d shut off the engine, and the silence had become too much to bear.
“You know about our meeting place?”
I smiled, glad to have the upper hand at least once. “Molly and Jake told me,” I explained. “I was going with them, and then once the storm let up, they were planning on dropping me off at the airport.”
His eyes finally met mine. “You’re leaving?” he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse.
I looked away, tears prickling my vision. “There’s no reason for me to stay,” I simply said.
“No,” he agreed quietly. “I guess there isn’t.”
Coward.
That was what I was.
A fucking spineless coward.
I was pushing the woman I loved away, basically hand-delivering her to the airport with a giant sign on my forehead that said, Don’t come back, thanks to the things I’d done over the last week.
Coward.
It was the only word to describe my actions.
My brother had been right.
I had issues.
Major ones. But they didn’t center around my inability to love because of some hang-up with my dead father.
No, I’d gotten over that. With Lani, love was easy. So easy that I’d barely even registered the fall.
Until the morning in the kitchen.
I’d climbed down the steps and seen a future.
My future, if I wanted to take it.
She could be mine; I could be hers. Here on the island, just the two of us.
“Are you in or out?”
That was the question her father had asked me.
God, I wanted to be in.
In on breakfast and never-ending history lessons. In on stupid fall festivals and lazy nights on the couch.
I wanted to be so in that it hurt.
But a life on this island wasn’t the life Lani was supposed to live. She was meant for more than these four square miles of nothing, and I knew that, if I let her stay, she’d regret it.
Just like I regretted never going to college and making something of my life.
Sure, it’d abated with time. Regret had turned into something sort of like acceptance, which had then morphed into a reasonable life.
But was it the life I would choose again, if given the chance to do it over?
I wanted Lani to have every chance.
So, I’d done the unthinkable. I’d done something stupid and rash, but it was the only way to guarantee she’d never give up on all those lofty dreams of hers.
I’d bought her damn hotel.
It’d turned out, saving her father’s cell phone number had come in handy after all. It’d cost me almost every dime I had, including most of what I’d squired away to keep the family business afloat. When Dean saw our next financial statement he’d be furious, but at leas
t, now, she would have a real future.
“So, we have a deal?” I said, every word coming from my mouth feeling like another betrayal. Another knife jabbed into my heart.
“Yes,” Mr. Hart answered. “I’ll sell you the hotel—for a hefty profit.”
My teeth gritted. “And you’ll give her the promotion?”
He let out a sigh. “I don’t really see how this part of the deal benefits me.”
“If she stays here, you’ll lose her. For good. She’ll give up everything, including her legacy. Her dreams.”
“So, by buying my property, you’re being the bigger man?”
“I’m simply giving her a chance.”
“No,” he argued. “It seems I am the one doing that, Mr. Sutherland. You’re just breaking her heart.”
“Will you give her the project or not?”
“The Chicago project will be hers,” he confirmed. “It would be nice to not have Rebecca traveling back and forth so much.”
I shook my head. “Happy doing business with you.”
Jackass.
It was painful, more painful than I could comprehend, to know she’d be leaving this island, hating me. But, at least now, I knew, when I watched her go, she’d go with her dreams intact and her whole life ahead of her.
So, was I in?
Yeah, I’d always be in when it came to her.
But it sure as hell didn’t feel good.
Especially since she hadn’t spoken a word to me in nearly six hours.
We rolled up to the hotel that was the meeting place for many of the people in town during an evacuation. It brought a sense of peace to those who didn’t have family to visit, and we could huddle together as a group while we prayed over our town and waited for the all clear to return.
“You going to buy this one, too?” Lani asked the second I parked, giving the well-known hotel name a once-over.
“Funny,” I said through gritted teeth.
Guess I deserved that one.
Reaching back behind the seat, she grabbed her duffel and pushed open the door handle.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
“To get a room,” she said. “Did you think I’d be staying with you?”
Honestly, yeah, I’d kind of hoped.
“Make sure you give them the right name, Pookie Bear,” I said with a bite.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she answered. “I wouldn’t want to be confused with a snake. Oops, I mean a Sutherland.”
I watched her leave, headed for the hotel lobby as I pounded the steering wheel with the palms of my hands.
Repeatedly.
It didn’t help one bit to dampen my frustration.
But it passed the time, and by the time I was done beating the shit out of my car and headed into the lobby, Lani was on her way up to her room, doing her best to ignore me in the process.
Check-in was quick, and soon, I had a room of my own.
I took the elevator up to my room, trying to forget the last time I had been in one. I remembered thinking, as I’d held Lani in my arms, her tears soaking my shirt, there was no possible way I could ever hurt someone like her father had hurt her.
And yet, four weeks later, here we were.
With the small backpack of clothes I’d packed on my shoulder, I rode the elevator to my designated floor and walked the short distance to my room, only to stop short when I saw a familiar face standing next to it.
“Need a hand?” I asked, seeing her fiddling with her key card.
Frustrated, she looked over at me, her shoulders slumping at the mere sight of me. “Really? You couldn’t be on a different floor? They had to put you right next door?”
I shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t pick the room.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
I looked at her still standing by the door. “So, do you need help?”
The question seemed to stir something inside her. “No,” she answered. “I don’t need anything from you.”
I let out a huff, stepping up beside her to my own door, and simply shook my head. “Well, you know where to find me.”
My key worked fine, the green light flashing, and I turned the handle, stepping into the nondescript room. I’d no sooner thrown my backpack on the bed before a loud knock sounded at my door.
Pulling it open, I had to step aside as Lani pushed her way in, her face filled with anger and frustration.
“Why’d you do it, Taylor? Why?! I’ve been racking my brain for days, trying to figure out why you’d go through such lengths to woo me, seduce me, make me feel—” She caught herself. “Anyway, why’d you do it?”
My arms folded across my chest as she paced in front of me. “I wasn’t sure you’d pick the right design. I had to put the town first.”
“Bullshit!” she shouted. “That’s complete bullshit, and you know it! You could have bought that hotel at any given point, long before I came into town. So, why now, Taylor? Was it fun to string me along? Or maybe you were just tired of blondes? Figured you’d try something different for a change? Did you and my dad have a nice laugh over that one?”
“You were going to stay if I didn’t!” I roared, my chest heaving from the effort. “You were going to stay.” The words echoed from my lips, quieter this time. “And I couldn’t let you abandon your dreams for a worthless nobody like me. So, I made a deal with your father.”
“You talked to my father?”
“I knew you’d go if I bought that stupid hotel, but I had to make sure you had something waiting for you.”
“What?”
“He’ll give you what you want now, Lani. A promotion, the company—everything. You don’t have to prove yourself anymore.”
Her eyes met mine, a heady mixture of disbelief and pain. “So, you ran.” It wasn’t a question. She turned her head, shaking it in disbelief. “Molly was right. Men are so frustrating. You really did run.”
Silence fell as she continued to stalk back and forth, gathering her thoughts. Finally, she turned to me, her gaze a powerful blend of emotions. “Dreams change, Taylor,” she said. “You would have known that if you’d given me the common courtesy to ask what mine were, but instead, you decided for me, refusing to give me the right to think for myself.”
“I…”
She was right. All the regret I still carried from the life I’d been denied so long ago, I’d put that on her. It wasn’t her regret I had been worried about.
It was mine.
And it was time to let go.
“Do you want to know my dreams?” I asked.
Her gaze was so full of mistrust that it made my heart ache.
“Yes,” she said, her body stilling for the first time since she’d walked through the door.
“I want a life filled with happiness,” I said. “One where I look back and I feel nothing but fulfillment and wonder. I want someone by my side that is strong-willed and puts me in my place when I need a good ass-kicking. I want that woman to be you, Lani.”
Her breath caught. “What else?”
“I want you to turn that hotel into everything you imagined it could be, and I want us to run it side by side.”
“But it’s yours now.”
“No,” I corrected. “It’s always been yours.”
“I can’t pay you for it,” she said. “The money I have, it’s not my own.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll gift it to you right now if that’s what you want.”
“You what?” Her voice ricocheted across the small space. “Are you crazy?”
“Probably, especially considering I used the business as collateral.”
“Oh my God,” she moaned. She grabbed her abdomen and looked like she was going to be physically ill.
“Are you okay?”
“No! You bought my hotel and now there’s a storm coming that could obliterate it! Do you see the problem here? We could be destitute.”
I smiled. She had said we, hadn’t she?
Ste
pping closer, I tested the waters to see how hot they still were, sliding a tentative hand around her waist. When it didn’t get slapped away, I pulled her close, feeling her melt against me.
Jesus, I’d missed this.
“You’re an idiot,” she whimpered against my shoulder.
“Yeah, but I’m your idiot,” I said, lifting her chin upward. “We’ll figure it out. Promise. Think of it as an adventure, for just the two of us. You, me, and our hotel.”
Her eyes widened, her cheeks ballooned, and then she bolted to the bathroom and spilled her guts into the toilet.
I tried to push my way in, but she continually kept shoving me back out, saying, “Get out! You do not want to see this!”
I finally managed to get in and calm her down. She didn’t let me near her though until I went and retrieved her toothbrush from her things so she could do some damage control, as she’d called it. I got her upright, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. I wiped her forehead with a damp cloth.
“Was it something I said?”
Her face blanched, making me wonder if I needed to clear the room again.
“No,” she said. “Well, kind of.”
My brow lifted.
“All those dreams of yours? They’re my dreams, too. I don’t want to work for my father anymore. But the hotel? It won’t exactly just be you and me.”
“Oh?”
“I’m pregnant.”
This time, I was the one who felt queasy as the room sort of started wobbling, my world shifting from the news I’d been given.
“You’re pregnant?” I had to say it out loud for it to be true.
My eyes went to her stomach, like I was looking for some sort of physical sign, but it was just as flat as it had been a moment earlier.
I was going to be a father.
Tears stung my eyes before I realized she was rambling, trying to apologize for the gift she’d just given me.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I thought my IUD was still good, but—”
I placed a single finger against her lips, and she quieted instantly.
