Once Upon an Island

I’d like to say, “I don’t want tea, I want you to stop being a meddling prick.”

Instead, I nod then lick my dry lips. “Please.”

He reaches forward and I watch as he lifts the flower-stenciled teapot to pour us both a cup of tea. I never noticed how long his fingers were, or how the tendons on the back of his hands belie his strength.

When he’s finished I reach forward and take a sip of the steaming liquid. It’s Darjeeling, Harriet’s favorite.

“Thank you,” I say, after I’ve had a taste.

He nods and we both sit in silence while we sip the tea. A minute passes, then two. I can’t take it anymore. The tension, the warm, magnetic pull vibrating between us.

I have to say something. “It was horrible what you did—”

“I have to tell you, when I said I believed in love at first sight—”

We both start and then stop at the same time.

I blink, unsure what he’s going to say. Something about love.

“Please. Go ahead,” he says.

I shake my head, embarrassed to have started in on him without warning. “No, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

I turn my knees toward him and they brush against him. He looks down at where we’re touching and then back at me.

“You remember when I said I believed in love at first sight?” he asks.

I nod. There’s a weird electric tingle traveling over me. “With Vicky.”

Declan lifts the edge of his lip. “Not Vicky.”

Huh. “Okay?”

He looks at me like I’m missing the point.

“You,” he says.

“Me?” What in the heck is he talking about? He believes in love at first sight with…the tingle turns to a jolt and I sit up straight.

“Me?” I say more forcefully.

“You.”

That warm tingle is doused by the bucket of ice water that is the word you.

Declan Fox loves me?

Me?

He stands and paces to the other side of the room. He runs a hand through his short black hair, messing up the neat trim, making him look more human. He turns around and he looks almost as if he’s in pain, and then I notice that he has bags under his eyes and he looks tired and conflicted.

“You love me,” I say. Just to confirm. The words taste weird in my mouth.

Declan rubs his hand down his face then nods. “I know. It doesn’t make sense.”

I frown at him. “You think?” I say, and I don’t think he hears the warning in my voice. I remember the first time he saw me. It was at the Valentine’s Day brunch when he mocked me and called me a pathetic, sad, single woman. Love at first sight my foot.

“You’re not as attractive as the women I typically date,” he says.

He gestures at me, like me and my ugly brown sweater are exhibit A. My eyes widen at the train wreck of Declan’s declaration.

He starts pacing again.

“You aren’t as ambitious or as well-connected.”

Excuse me?

“Right.”

He doesn’t seem to realize that I spoke through gritted teeth. In fact, he seems to think that we’re on the same wavelength.

He gives me a pained, beseeching look. “I date CEOs, the daughters of dukes, politically and socially connected women.”

Are you kidding me?

“I see.” My hands curl into the wooly fabric of my sweater and I clench the material tightly.

He stops his pacing and faces me full on. “It doesn’t make sense. You don’t bring anything to the table. In fact, it would be lunacy to marry you.”

Whaaaa? I drop my hands from my sweater. The word marry tumbles around in my head until it comes to a crashing stop.

Declan wants to… “Marry?” I choke out.

He gives a sharp nod. I suddenly have the overwhelming urge to drag him outside and find a shark pool to toss him into.

“The second I saw you, wobbling through the sand, your laugh as bright as the sun, your face covered in chocolate, I knew. You were the one. I said to myself, Declan, if you don’t marry that girl, you’re an idiot.”

Oh my gosh.

He and I definitely have a different memory of that day. Vastly different.

“Then I heard your friends talking at your table. Wanting to bag me.” He gives me a black look, like Kate and her white whale obsession was all my fault. “Needless to say, I reacted badly.”

He reacted…badly.

Wait a minute. “You didn’t hear them until the airport,” I say. Even though I was all woozy that day, I clearly remember our conversation on the plane.

“I heard them for the second time at the airport,” he says.

Which means, from the moment he met me, he knew we “planned” to lure him in and “bag him.”

“Fine,” I say.

We stare at each other, Declan with a conflicted, hungry look on his face. And me, I imagine I just look cranky.

Marry.

My subconscious latches on to the sparkly word and adds a wedding dress to my apricots on the beach and sheep in the heather fantasies. I slam the door on that thought. Just because I find him inexplicably attractive doesn’t mean he’s marriage material.

Declan agitatedly runs his hand through his hair again, messing it up even more. It reminds me of how he looked when I woke up on top of him. Sleep-mussed and attractive. Until he ruined it by telling me to get off of him.

He looks at me and his eyes are beseeching. “You aren’t who I would’ve chosen for myself, but I can’t get you out of my mind. Your laugh, your humor, your perspective on life—everywhere I turn, you’re there. You consume me. I persuaded Percy not to make such a monumental mistake as marry a woman out for his status, but I can’t do myself the same favor.”

He’s admitted it. He purposely ruined Percy and Arya’s relationship. And now he wants to…marry me?

Because I consume him?

An apparently pseudo-attractive, unconnected, unappealing, status-seeking woman?

Plus, he still thinks I want him for his status?

No. Oh no. Nuh uh. No.

I see red.

I always thought seeing red was a made-up thing. I never believed people actually saw red when they were angry. Well they do. For a split second my whole vision turns bright angry red.

When my vision clears Declan is standing in front of me.

“Would you…”

“No.”

He stops. “You haven’t let me ask the question.”

I shake my head. “No. Whatever it is, no.”