“Hate to be the one to tell you, but your dad’s a dick,” I whisper.
“That’s not exactly new information.” At the tree line, we slip our shoes back on to walk up the shaded path through the ferns and white flowering plants toward the restaurant. “He’s only producing this movie to bribe me, anyway.”
My ears perk up. “What do you mean?”
He pushes his Wayfarers up on his nose as we start up the wide stairway that curves around the blue tiled waterfall wall to the pool area. “It’s a long story.”
“I got time,” I return too quickly.
“It’s not explicit. He didn’t come out and say he was bribing me, but we both know it. There are…things that happened when I was a kid that he wishes I didn’t know about.”
This is the closest he’s ever come to alluding to my mother. I try to keep the excitement out of my voice. “Like what?”
But we’ve reached the pool deck, and he gestures to the hive of activity on the restaurant patio up ahead. “Now’s not the time.”
I grab his arm and turn him toward me. “You’re seriously gonna drop the bomb your father is bribing you and then you say it’s ‘not the time’ to tell me why? That’s mean!”
I expect him to laugh with me, but he doesn’t. “I’m sorry.” He lowers his voice and pulls me into the shade of an orange-flowering flamboyant tree at the edge of the deck. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just really angry at this whole situation—at myself as much as I am at him. The fact I let him bribe me and set the terms, the way he’s behaved since we’ve been here, and now that the entire movie’s going to just whoosh! Disappear because of a storm.” He sighs. “It’s appropriate though. He doesn’t deserve success, and neither do I.”
Is this what the guilt of keeping quiet about my mother’s death has done to him? The irony is that it’s exactly what I would have wanted before I got to know him. But now…Now my feelings are more complicated. “What are you talking about? Of course you deserve success. You’re really good at what you do—you’re a great writer and director and everybody loves you.” It’s all true. “No one deserves it more than you.”
“The only reason I’m here is because my asshole dad is famous.”
“So? What does that matter? Make it work for you. Do you know how many people would kill to be in your position? Don’t be a little bitch.”
He raises his eyebrows, and his dimple deepens, a sure sign he’s holding back a smile. “A little bitch, huh?”
I shrug. “I’m surprised to hear this bullshit coming from you. You never seemed like the type to feel sorry for yourself.”
He laughs. “No holds barred. See, this is why I like you, Felicity Fox.” He narrows his eyes at me. “How’d you get a name like that, anyway?”
I mirror him. “Now’s not the time.” I smirk.
I can feel his eyes on me as I stride across the sun-splashed deck toward the restaurant.
Stella
The calm before the storm stretched over the island like a cat in the sun. I stood on the porch of my bungalow gazing out at the line where the powder-blue sky met the cerulean of the sea, searching for signs of what was to come, but none were apparent. The air was still and thick, the heat oppressive with no wind to disrupt it. I raised my sweating glass to my lips and took a long, sweet draw of ice-cold rum and ginger. The trick was to drink quickly, before the ice melted. I considered the dive pool, but I simply didn’t have the energy. Inside, Mary Elizabeth yapped at a school of fish visible through one of the glass windows on the floor. I stepped back into the blasting air-conditioning, silently glided the door closed behind me, and returned to my post on the couch.
After endless debate, the weather reporters all agreed: Hurricane Celia was headed straight for our idyllic island. All day, resort employees had been hastily closing the storm shutters, placing sandbags, and doing something to the edges of the roofs in preparation for her arrival. Felicity had thrown most of my clothes into my suitcase in anticipation of our departure tomorrow morning, but I hadn’t let her pack my makeup and toiletries yet. We still had plenty of time.
Where was Felicity? It felt like it had been hours since she’d left for lunch with Jackson, but a check of my phone revealed she’d been gone only twenty minutes, which meant I still had two hours until it was time for another A-pill, regardless of how anxious I was. It was never time yet. I felt like my whole life I was always waiting for it to be time.
I still didn’t quite know what to think of Jackson. I knew I should be suspicious of him now after all Cole told me, but was Cole really to be trusted? The fact that Jackson was spending God-only-knows-what to charter a plane to fly his crew to safety sure didn’t line up with Cole’s claims, and truth be told, I’d always liked Jackson when he was a boy. I’d only spent a short time with him, of course, but he never treated me like the evil stepmonster; he was always so kind and easy that he made me yearn for children of my own, which of course made my failed pregnancy only more crushing.
He’d been kind to me now as well, and he was obviously head over heels for Felicity. I was happy for her. He wasn’t classically handsome like his father, but he had that dimple, and his complete lack of self-consciousness was sexy. Plus, if she decided she wanted a career as an actress, it couldn’t hurt that he was a budding director with a famous father. It was obvious Felicity was equally as smitten with him as he
