Once Upon an Island

“Isla,” he says, and the way he says it has me grinding my teeth.

“No.”

He considers this and then says, “What if I wanted to give you my fortune?”

“No.”

“An island?”

“No.”

“A home on the beach?”

“No.”

“A yacht?”

I dig my nails into my palms. “No. Not even if you offered me the moon.”

He looks lost for a moment and I almost feel sorry for him. Except, I don’t.

I stand and tilt my chin to meet his gaze.

“You’re unbelievable,” I say.

He’s stunned. Good.

I poke him in the chest, right against his crisp white shirt.

“What’s wrong with you? I won’t date you. I won’t marry you. I won’t…anything with you. You’re horrible.”

Declan’s lips turn down into a sharp frown. I don’t care.

“You treated me horribly on Mariposa, insulting me at every turn. Then, you left without saying goodbye, dragging Percy away, wrecking my friend’s hopes and breaking her heart. Arya’s a good person. Decent and kind and she loves Percy. He won’t find a more honest, better person than her. Well done. You ruined a good thing because of your conceit and pride and inability to see other’s as they really are.”

Declan leans forward, his jaw tight and his eyes stormy. “Is that all?”

I refuse to step back. “No. Definitely not.” I gesture around the room. “You come here, apparently to profess your love but instead of telling me why you love me you tell me why you shouldn’t love me and all the things that are wrong with me. Why would that entice me to marry you? It wouldn’t. A billion dollars can’t compensate for being a jerk.”

He swallows and takes a step back. “I see. You don’t reciprocate my feelings.”

My stomach goes queasy. I don’t like seeing his face close off and return to the look he wore when we first met. But what can I do? He’s not a good person.

“No,” I say, and my stomach drops like a diving airplane. “If your horrible recitation of why I’m not good enough for you wasn’t enough to turn me off, then your initial treatment of me was. Beyond that, you ruined my friend’s happiness. And equally bad, you stole Mr. Sherman’s pension, he was an old man for crying out loud. And then you attempted to ruin Michael’s life, and you nearly did when you caused the end of his engagement with his fiancée. I can’t say that there’s anything about you that would recommend me to marry you, date you, or even like you. So please, stop thinking of me, stop being consumed by me, just stop, it’s not reciprocated. Not at all.”

There.

It’s said and done.

I cross my arms and try to ignore the churning in my stomach and the sharp aching in my chest.

Declan doesn’t speak. He merely stares at me for a good fifteen seconds, completely silent. His irises have shifted to icy cold, like freezing rain sleeting over green hills.

I get the feeling that I won’t ever be seeing him again. Not after what I’ve said.

I almost want to take my words back. Almost. But what I said about him being awful is the truth, and you can’t hide away the truth.

Finally, Declan nods, and I feel that he’s filed me away in a closed off part of his mind. The part he doesn’t visit. Ever.

“That’s how you feel,” he says.

It’s not a question. Still, I say, “It is.”

“You don’t care for me.”

I swallow. There’s a lump the size of an apricot in my throat. “Not really.”

He tilts his head and little brackets form around the tense edges of his mouth. “I suppose this is where we say goodbye then.”

He holds out his hand.

I look at it for a moment, hanging between us. Take it, Isla, I chide myself, take it. He’s finally saying a proper goodbye.

I reach out and slip my hand into his.

My chest pinches at the contact. He’s warmer than I remember. Except, he was warm that night on the island, wasn’t he?

Oh gosh. Maybe I like him a little. He has some good qualities.

No, Isla, stay strong. He’s a beast.

“Goodbye,” he says.

“Goodbye.”

He drops my hand.

I don’t say anything more as he walks out of my life.