SLEEPING NEXT TO DAMIAN WITHOUT touching him was torture, and not in a romantic or sexual way. I felt like a part of me that had been cast away had floated back, and I wanted to hold it, hug it, keep it from slipping away. I knew it would freak Damian out, so I suppressed the urge, although I may have accidentally, in my sleep, draped an occasional arm around him. For those few seconds, I allowed myself the luxury of re-acquaintance, the warmth of his skin, the realness of my long-lost best friend lying beside me. Then Damian would slowly pick up my hand and return it to my side. I had a feeling he knew it was a ruse. After all, I had stuck tenaciously to my side of the bed on the boat, my body as stiff and straight as a board, lest any part of me touch any part of him. And now I was all arms and legs. I knew he knew, and that made me smile, because he inched away, and I inched closer, until he was perched at the edge of the bed, and the only thing that kept him from falling was the mosquito netting tucked under the bed.
Whether I stuck to my side or invaded his, Damian was up at the crack of dawn. Not surprisingly, he looked after the cooking, although he left me chores without saying a word: a broom and a mop, standing square in the center of the kitchen, laundry detergent sitting on a stack of towels, a toilet brush dangling from the bathroom doorway. I fumbled through my tasks, but if Damian noticed that I mopped before I swept or that the towels were now a weird shade of pink, he didn’t say anything.
He brought in all my shopping bags from the boat, and although my sequin skirt wasn’t exactly toilet scrubbing gear, I caught him checking out my sparkly ass. I trailed him all day in that skirt, a cropped top, and the shell necklace he’d given me. I had pretty much been stuck to Damian’s side the whole time he was recovering, so it was my first real look at the island. It was just a few square miles around, hemmed in by a white, sandy beach on one side, and lush, tropical forest on the other. The little house was nestled in between, under the shade of tall trees. The front faced mirror-calm waters, protected by a coral reef, and the back opened up to palm groves, papaya trees, and shrubs with thick, glossy leaves.
It was obvious that Damian knew the island like the back of his hand. He knew where to find small, red bananas with a texture so creamy that they tasted like thick, sweet custard, with a hint of raspberry. He knew where the sun hit, at what time, and where the coolest breezes came off the ocean.
“Do you come here often?” I asked, as he checked on the generator. It seemed like the place was pretty self-sufficient. A generator, tanks to collect and process rain water, propane to heat up the water we used for cleaning and bathing.
“It was home for a while,” he replied.
“You mean when you and Rafael were hiding, after the incident with El Charro?”
“How do you know about El Charro?”
“Rafael told me.”
It didn’t seem to bother him. He was who he was, with no pretense about his past or the things he had done.
“Does anyone know you’re out here? I mean, whose property is this?” I asked.
“It’s mine now,” he said. “No one else had much use for it. It’s too small for tourism, too much beach for farming, too remote for fishermen.”
“But you don’t live here?”
“No. I go where my work takes me.”
“So . . .” I fiddled with the hem of my top. “We are okay here?”
Damian stilled at my words. “There is no ‘we’, Skye. We grew up. We became different people. We live in different worlds. As soon as it’s safe, I’m dropping you off at the mainland.”
“You’re just going to drop me off?” I stared at him incredulously. “What about MaMaLu? You said you were going to take me there. I need to see her, Damian. I need to see her grave. I never got to say goodbye.”
“Neither did I,” he spit out. “I was taking you there so you could see, so you could understand why I did what I did. But you already know the truth.”
“So that’s it? You unload me somewhere they can find me, like some unwanted cargo? And what am I supposed to do? Forget everything that happened? Forget that you abducted me, turned my life upside down, and then turned me loose? Just like that? Well, you know what? I did forget. I forgot about you until you came back into my life. You’re a selfish fucking bastard, Damian. Pick me up when it suits you, drop me off when it suits you. I’m not some mindless, emotionless pawn you can move from here to there in this game you’re playing with my father. I’m real and I’m here and I care about you.”
And there it was, a flash of raw emotion on Damian’s face, a hitching of his breath like he’d been punched in the gut. And just as quickly, it was gone.
“Don’t care about me,” he said. “I am a selfish fucking bastard. I’ve killed people, planned, plotted, and orchestrated the whole thing, and never felt an ounce of remorse. And I planned, plotted and orchestrated to kill you. So don’t care about me, because I’m only going to disappoint you.”
“Bullshit! You’re just afraid to let me in, you’re afraid to let anyone in.”
We glared at each other, neither willing to back off.
Then Damian turned and disappeared into the trees.
Fine.
I stormed off to the beach.
I shimmied out of my skirt, tossed my top onto the sand and walked into the water. It was warm, and so clear that the sun’s rays danced on my feet. I lay on my back and gave myself up to the ocean.