When Logan had finally whisked her out of the hotel suite and into his waiting rental car, she’d checked her phone. There had been three voice mail messages from Stephen. Variations on a theme. He was sorry. It wasn’t her. There wasn’t anyone else. He just couldn’t do it.
She didn’t understand, but now as her carry-on bag tumbled onto her toes, again, she felt something inside her snap. Because it didn’t make any sense that it wasn’t her. Of course it was her. She hadn’t been enough for him. He couldn’t see himself with her forever.
Hot, frustrated tears scalded the inside of her eyelids as she squeezed them shut.
“Breathe, Tori,” Logan said, his voice low and right beside her. Steady. Non-judging. “In and out. Long, slow breaths.”
“I can’t.” The two words caught on each other, turning into a single, hitching word. I-uh-can’t.
“You can.” He inhaled in her ear, then exhaled. “Just like that. With me. In thirty minutes, we’re going to land in paradise. And I’m going to do everything in my power to distract you from whatever feelings have you crying again. That’s right. Breathe in. And out. Good girl.”
As he stroked his hand up and down her forearm, she felt herself relax again. “What a shitty vacation for you,” she finally murmured.
“Hardly. You said there are rainforest hikes, right?”
She groaned. She had said that. “Mm-hmm.”
“There is nothing I like better than a good waterfall, Tor. Don’t you think for a second this week isn’t going to be awesome for me.”
She nodded. Maybe.
“Hey, look at that…islands.”
She cracked her eyelids open and peered out his window. It was too soon to be Miralinda, but the first glimpse of the Caribbean islands made her smile, if still a bit weakly. “Yay.”
“That’s better.” He leaned back against his seat, his gaze glued to her face. “We’re going to make the best of this. Promise.”
Four
The original plan had been to take a taxi to their resort because Stephen hadn’t been interested in exploring the rest of the island. As soon as Logan heard that, he’d gotten on the phone and organized a rental car.
The Miralinda International Airport was so small that once they cleared customs at the small hut on the edge of the tarmac, Logan could go one way to the rental car desk and Tori could go the other to the luggage pick-up, and they never lost sight of each other.
The downside of arriving at a sleepy little island airport was that nothing went quickly. Their suitcases came off the airplane, but then sat on a cart for a while. Tori pulled out her sunglasses and slipped them on to protect her eyes from the bright sun.
A brightly painted sign nearby caught her attention. Bière. Oh, yes, a beer sounded divine in this heat. Of course, they still had a drive to the resort, where they could get all the beer they wanted, and probably in any and all languages. French. Spanish. English. Jilted-bride-ese.
That would be a hiccuping sniffle if the last twenty-four hours would be any indication.
She wandered over to the sign—and the two men standing behind it, next to an ice-filled cooler. “Two…deux bière, s'il vous pla?t.”
They laughed, and one dug into the cooler while the other gave her a lazy wink. “You are American, yes?”
“Yes.” She blushed. “I’m sorry, my French is non-existent.”
“That’s okay. Our English is…very existent.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you.” She handed over her carefully counted-out money. “Keep the change.”
He flashed her another bright white smile and handed her two bottles of lemonade as well. “For the car ride.”
“The car—?” Her question was cut off as Logan’s arm slid around her shoulders.
With his free hand, he was flipping the rental car keys flipping around his index finger.
She grinned. “Right. Hey, you. I got us some drinks.”
Logan kissed her gently on the temple. “Perfect.”
An unexpected warmth flooded through her. Yes, it was. Not at all what she expected to be doing today, but piling in a car with Logan, heading off on an adventure? She couldn’t think of a better silver lining to the storm of being left at the altar.
As they drove away from the airport, Logan felt Tori turn into a completely different woman beside him. The high-stress, high-maintenance bride fall away, piece by piece, and when they pulled up at the resort a half-hour later, it was his best friend who bounded out of the car and greeted the valet and the doorman with a cheerful smile.
He passed off the keys, then carried their suitcases through the lobby to the check-in desk.
“Welcome to Le Soleil de Miralinda, how may I help you?” the clerk asked in a light French accent.
“I’m Victoria Fletcher and this is Logan Dwyer. We have a reservation. I called about it yesterday.”
The clerk nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything about the sudden change in the guest names or the request for new accommodations. “Yes, we have a two-bedroom suite ready for you, Ms. Fletcher.” He handed over a map and pointed out their rooms, which were actually in a standalone villa on the edge of the ocean.