Sink or Swim (Beach Kingdom 3)

“Please, Jiya.” His eyes blazed. “Don’t come over here with another man’s ring on.”

She drew up short at his growl. After a few seconds of recovery, she shoved her ring finger into her mouth and used the moisture to pull it off, neatly tucking it into her pocket. “I’m only obeying because you’re h-hurt…” The sob launched up her throat as if shot from a cannon and her eyes filled with a new crop of tears. “Why are you hurt?”

Her tears visibly devastated him. “Sweetheart, don’t.”

“Who did this to you?”

A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he offered no answer.

Jiya took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, splitting a glance between Jamie and the nurse. “Would you mind giving us a minute, guys?”

Once they were alone, Andrew watched her stonily, his attention occasionally straying to the pocket where she’d stowed her ring. “I’m not in a good place for this right now, Jiya.”

“Neither am I. I’ll never be in a good place to see you hurt.” Her pulse tripped over itself, her arms yearning to be wrapped around him. “I will always come if you need me, though. That’s part of the deal. You said we would stay friends, no matter what. You promised.”

“You don’t understand,” he pushed through clenched teeth. “I’m being the best goddamn friend I know how to be to you.”

She scoffed. “By ending up in the hospital, Andrew? What is going on?”

His jaw muscle popped. “Go home, please. I’m begging you,” he said hoarsely. “You think I’m beat up on the outside? Having you this close and knowing you’re engaged is rotting me from the inside.” His mouth opened and closed, his next words emerging in a near whisper. “How did it happen so fast?”

Today she’d found out he’d paid for her flying lessons. His words now only confirmed that there was so much…yearning going on beneath Andrew’s surface. For her. Meaning their friendship had been lacking honesty. Vital honesty. And she wouldn’t continue that bad habit, because it had landed them here. With him bruised and stitched up in a hospital wheelchair and her engaged to another man. “His parents are investing in a restaurant. A second location for Spice.”

Andrew blanched, the skin around his stitches turning white. “I…y-your parents must be…fuck, I don’t know if I’d be able to do that for you, sweetheart…”

The spiky pressure in her throat was unbearable. Tears blurred Andrew’s image. I’d be happier with you. So much happier. Don’t you know that? She wished she’d discovered how Andrew felt before dinner with the Chauhans. Wished she never found out about the potential restaurant. But she did know. She did know about the huge opportunity being handed to her. What was she supposed to do now?

At this very moment, with the diamond in her pocket, she could only be Andrew’s friend.

And her friend was clearly keeping something dangerous from her. Something that had gotten him badly injured—and honestly, she was pretty pissed about his secrecy and their circumstances. Above all else, she wanted to rail against the timing.

“Here’s how this is going down, Andrew,” Jiya breathed. “When we get home, you will tell us what’s going on. All of us. You’re going to stop being a stubborn idiot and let us help.”

After a moment of visible deliberation, he wheeled himself past her. “Let’s see if you still think I’m worth helping an hour from now.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Everyone sat at the kitchen table with Andrew at the head, expectation heavy in the air.

Not only his brothers were present, but their significant others, Marcus and Olive, held spots at the table. Jiya sat to his right and it was everything Andrew could do not to pull the woman into his lap, bury his face in her sweet neck and beg for a reprieve. From this discussion. From the situation they found themselves in.

Godddamit, he didn’t want her to know the worst thing about him.

Even if he wanted to pull Jiya into his lap, he couldn’t. The ring in her pocket was the seventh presence in the room. Not only that but her fiancé’s family was putting up the money for a fucking restaurant. The flying lessons he’d secured seemed like peanuts now. If he was a good man, he’d be happy for her and the rich future she’d been offered, but he was ablaze on the inside. Having lost the right to be the one Jiya counted on, he would burn forever.

The silence around him started to buzz, curious eyes doing nothing to divert him from his misery but reminding him they were at the table for a reason. The discussion wouldn’t be put off any longer and Christ, at the moment, he didn’t feel like he had anything to lose, anyway.

Late afternoon haze filled the kitchen, but they hadn’t put on a light, leaving everything shadowed. Car engines hummed past outside, kids playing street hockey down the block laughed and shouted, seagulls called. But they were wrapped in the tight cocoon of the kitchen and every eye was on him. On his busted eye, the half-moon of stitches above his eyebrow. The cuts all over his face. If one of his brothers…hell, if anyone at this table showed up with these injuries, he would demand to know what happened. He wouldn’t stop until he’d gotten an explanation and every stubborn chin at this table told Andrew how close they’d grown. As a unit. In the beginning of the summer, it had been the Prince brothers. Jiya. Now Olive and Marcus had joined their ranks and he could trust them. That wasn’t the issue. He just didn’t want them to know what he really was.