Footsteps thudded on the dock in quick order, and Marek snatched Colin's keys right out of his hands. Colin swung his head around and glared. Marek said softly, “If you want to go, I'll drive you back. It's dark, you had a few glasses of wine earlier, and it's not safe for you to operate your boat.”
Colin pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and searched for the boat rental company. “I'll call someone.”
Marek's jaw clenched, and it ticked a million beats a minute. “I'll keep your keys.” Anger edged his voice.
“Fine.” Hostility covered the hole torn inside Colin. “Leave me alone. I at least deserve that.”
Marek stood next to Colin on the dock, his body so close his heat still reached across the space between them, no matter that he wished it didn't. His blue eyes burned as they had the day they jumped through the waterfall, and Colin knew the man wanted to dare him to do something risky again. The fire was banked as soon as it shot high, and the light went out.
“Whatever you want,” Marek said. “Good-bye.” He walked away. His steps grew softer as he retreated, until eventually, Colin did not hear them anymore. He didn't dare turn around, though. He could feel Marek watching him, probably from the porch.
Colin could still feel and hear the house calling to him too. Despair suffocated the breeze floating in the night air.
Forcing a steel rod into his back, Colin didn't crumble until the taxi-boat came and drove him away.
Chapter Seventeen
“I will cut off his balls,” Jordan raged the next morning. She still wore her robe, and bed head tufted her short red hair. “I swear to God I will shove them down his throat and then hang the son of a bitch by his cock.”
Colin sat at the table, across from Jordan, in Jordan and Tag's honeymoon suite. Through the open balcony door, Colin could see Tag leaning against the railing and sipping a cup of coffee. He'd been unable to talk to his other friends about what had happened, so they had taken it upon themselves to contact Jordan first thing in the morning, and she had instructed one of them to drive Colin right to her hotel. Colin felt awful for crashing Tag's much-awaited honeymoon, but the man assured him it was okay.
“What he told me last night…” Colin still trembled, all these hours later. “I felt beaten up all over again, only this time it was like I had the person who did it right in front of me, and I hit him. I was so out of control, I punched him, and it felt good. It felt right.” Colin rubbed his gritty eyes. He hadn't slept one minute all night. “But it scared me too. What he did to me…” Colin couldn't even get the words out anymore. It had cut him up inside to relive the confession and ensuing fight when telling everything to Jordan. “I don't know what to think or what to do.”
“You get the hell out of Fiji tomorrow is what you do,” Jordan instructed hotly. “Just like you would have done if you never saw that house or met that man in the first place. You do not give him the chance to crush you again.”
“Now wait a minute.” Tag spoke from the balcony. He moved from the railing and leaned his shoulder against the sliding door. “A week ago, you believed this man to be your destiny. You saw that house and then met Marek, and you were sure something bigger than you could understand had guided you to Fiji and to him. From what you've told me, I thought you accepted on a fundamental level that those dreams you had, and the emotion and connection you experienced in them, was real, and that Marek was the source of that pain you were driven to heal.”
Jordan shot up from her chair, and if she had fur running down her back, it would be raised on end. “Tag, the guy had a hand in Colin's beating.”
“No, he didn't,” Tag answered. He walked inside and put his mug down on the table. “He made a really stupid, jerk move when he was seventeen, a mistake that clearly haunts him to this day. But he did not go with those guys and aid in what they did. And he didn't turn a blind eye knowing they were going to do it either.”
Growling, Jordan said, “But he didn't do a damn thing afterward once he figured it out.”
“Guys.” Colin stood and got in between the couple. “Please don't get in a fight over this. I don't want that.”
Tag circled around Colin and put his arms around Jordan. He pulled her against his chest, and their hands twined at Jordan's stomach. “Colin,” Tag began, “Jordan and I disagree all the time, and it's certainly something we're going to do more than once over the course of a marriage. We both have strong personalities, and conflict is going to occur. It's part of being honest about who you are in a relationship and trusting the other person will accept you.”
Colin narrowed his stare at Tag. “Are you trying to hint I didn't do that with Marek?” His voice rose in disbelief. “I didn't pick a fight with him. I never hid myself from him. He sold me out, and then he lied to me about it for a week.”
“He showed you the ugliest, most secret part of himself, something that filled him with shame.” Tag paused, but his hazel eyes pinned Colin right to the wall. “And you walked away.”
Tearing his gaze from the penetrating scrutiny, Colin rubbed his neck and took to pacing the hotel room. “This is different than what most people consider a 'big' secret they're afraid to tell a spouse.” Colin slipped back in time to lying on that gravelly concrete, battered and cut open; he shivered with renewed fear. “Marek
