It takes me over a week to build my nerve. Finally, with a pounding heart and a stern lecture to myself to get on with my life, I send Jonas’s toothbrush off with a sample of hair yanked from my scalp. And I wait.

Diana and I work every afternoon and evening at The Green Frog. Don always shows up just before closing time and whisks Diana off. She crawls into bed around sunrise and sleeps until time to start it over again.

Blake gets up early every day to head to the dive shop. I miss climbing into his beat-up Hyundai and going with him. I loved everything about working there. It’s just one more reason to curse Zach Lowery.

If you by cursing, you mean fucking, then yes, by all means curse Zach.

Restless and feeling like my nerves run on the outside of my skin, raw and exposed, I make myself wait until midmorning every day before walking to the post office several blocks away. I try to keep myself from strangling anticipation, telling myself the ads of a three-day turn-around can’t possibly be true. And even if they are, shipping out of the states will add extra time. But I go to the post office every day with my heart in my throat. Every day I walk home dragging my heart behind me.

On the sixth day an envelope sits in my box. The return address shows the lab where I’d sent the toothbrush. I think my ribs will crack with the wild beating inside me. My mouth loses all moisture, but my palms break out in a sweat. My fingers shake as I take the envelope out of the post office to the side of the road.

There are no sidewalks. I walk along the cracking blacktop road, barely wider than one lane. The ragged front lawns of the small, brightly painted houses fade to the pebbled edge of the road and my flip flops crunch along with my heavy breaths. I mean to wait until I get back to my house but in the end, I can’t take it. I stop halfway home, with the sun pressing on my head and the breeze tossing my hair around my face. My shaking fingers tear at the envelope flap.

I scan the letter and all the official junk. My eyes fly over the tables of figures and terms I don’t understand fully. They finally find the one word I’ve been searching for my whole life.

Match.

I belong to someone.

Hot. Cold. I feel invisible and heavy all at once. I might have stood on the side of the road for an hour. I have no idea. When I finally come back to myself, I look around. The tacky houses stand silent. The rusted cars and accumulated junk along the road and in the yards is the same as when I’d passed here before. But everything is different.

I am different.

I have a father. I’m connected to someone. I’m not alone. And I’m not poor. I will no longer be part of this world where we count every penny. I won’t stand in the grocery store and tally up my cash to see if I can afford the good cheese or if I have to settle for cheese food. I won’t have to sleep on a used mattress, stress about this month’s rent, or wear clothes I’ve owned since high school.

Once Jonas has the proof that I’m his flesh and blood, he’ll take care of me. All I want from Jonas is tuition for grad school. Once I have my masters, I can study for CPA certification, and my career will take off. With no school loans to drag me down, I’ll be flying high in no time.

Guard your heart.

Don’t hope for anything but money.

I run down the hot blacktop one-lane road the half-mile to the main highway that circles the island. Thank god it only takes a few minutes for the eastbound bus to arrive and I jump on board, fighting the fidgets of excitement. I can’t wait to tell Blake.

After what seems like a decade, the bus finally spits me out in front of the resort on the eastern tip of the island. Dive Love, the shop I worked at until a few months ago, and where Blake still works, is attached to the resort.

With relief, I see the boats are still tied to the dock behind the shop. They’ll be getting loaded with divers and gear. I race around the dive hut and the tank shed, feeling the uneven weathered boards of the dock through my thin flip-flops.

Blake is in one of the smaller boats, head bent under the shelf at the bow. Richard, one of my favorite boat drivers, waves when he spots me. He breaks into a wide grin and speaks with a thick island accent. “Sweet, Kylie. I knew Mike would see sense and hire you back.”

A pang of sadness stabs at me. The sun on the water, the give of the dock, the smell of the gas from the boat engines, salt air, the call of seagulls. It all makes me long for the days of dives and meeting new people, showing divers from all over the world the wonders in our particular corner. I clutch my papers.

This changes my whole world. When Jonas acknowledges me, I’ll launch into my grown-up world. Diving will be something I do two weeks out of the year. But that’s what I want. What Mom would have wanted for me.

It is what I want. A successful financial career.

Diving every day isn’t a real life.

Blake pops up from the bow when he hears Richard. He hurries toward me.

After a quick hug for Richard and an explanation that Mike hadn’t recanted my firing, I take Blake’s hand and pull him along the end of the dock, toward the water.

I show him the report. “Look at this.”

He glances at it, face crumpled into a frown. “What is it?”

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I let it out in a rush. “It means I’m Jonas Knightly’s daughter. You know, the guy who runs JK Investments.”

“I know who he is.” He hands me the paper and studies me. “This is why you came to Cayman, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He seems about as excited for me as we’d been for Diana’s news about Don. “I got sidetracked by working here and I lost sight of the goal. But I’m going after it now.”

“And this super-rich Jonas Knightly is the key to your happiness?” He sounds almost mad.

“It’s finally happening.” The excitement stirs in my belly again. “I’m going to make Jonas pay for what he did to my mother.”

Make him acknowledge me.

Blake gives me an amazed look. “What he did to her?”

“She...” A memory flashes. My mother, gray and wasted. Waxy skin. Ravaged to the bone by cancer. How hard she fought to stay with me. “He could’ve saved her.” I look away, shaking my head. “If he’d been around, he could’ve saved her.”

“From what you’ve told me, she didn’t want anything from this guy, your father. She kept his identity from you and raised you herself. I didn’t know her, but when you talk about the life you shared, it seems like you had a special relationship that most people never have. There’s a reason she never contacted Jonas.”

He doesn’t understand. “It was a different time. Maybe she was ashamed.”

“Of you”? His face softens. “I’ll bet it was the opposite. You were so close. She had to have loved you and been proud of you.”

Tears spring to my eyes and I blink them away. “I don’t want anything from him but money. And then, only enough to cover grad school tuition. That should be easy for someone with his wealth.”

“Money?” Blake speaks as if I’m a little kid. “I know you, Kylie. This isn’t about money. You’re setting yourself up for heartbreak.”

Why doesn’t Blake get it? “You’re wrong. I’m not like you. I’m not going to get scholarships to pay for school. The only reason I earned my undergrad degree is because Mom got practically free tuition at Harebridge.”

For the first time I see a hint of anger in his face. “You haven’t even tried. You’re twenty-years-old. You’ve got an accounting degree. You have unlimited options. Get a job, make a plan. You don’t need Jonas Knightly to set you up with millions.”

I feel myself waver. Maybe Blake is right. Maybe I don’t need Jonas. Maybe mom—it’s thinking about my mom that does it. strengthens my resolve. “He owes me. Mom should have had better care, treatments he could have paid for. She’s gone but I intend to collect.”

He trudges toward the boat. “You’re making a mistake. Money has never been the issue.”

“Issue?” My temper rises. So does my voice. “Now I have issues?”

A laughing group of divers, probably a trip arranged from a dive shop in Colorado or someplace, is loading onto a boat next to us. They stop and stare at us.

Blake turns to me and lowers his voice. “You can make money any time you want. You could’ve been with me and I’d have taken care of you. Not like Jonas Knightly, but I wouldn’t ever let you starve or go without a home.” He lets that sit for a moment, the realization that whether he wants to admit it or not, the fact that I rejected him still stings. “The point is you have options. Options that don’t include extorting money from Jonas Knightly.”

The sun burns on my head and arms. “I’m finally getting what I want, why are you so mad about it?”

This isn’t what you want.

This isn’t who you are.

He stomps toward his boat and I struggle to keep up. “Do you hear yourself? You sound like Diana. It’s only what you think you want. It won’t make you happy. It’s not what you need.”

“If insane wealth isn’t it, what is?” Even as I say it I know he’s right. Money won’t make me happy but I cling to it, my plan of making Jonas pay because it’s all I have. Everyone leaves me. My mom. Blake and Diana.

Zach.

Everyone leaves and once they’re gone, I’ll be alone.

I’ll have no one.

Nothing.

“I can’t help you, Kylie.” He stops walking away and really looks at me. “You have to figure out that you’re good enough on your own. I can’t do that for you. No one can.”

“What? You’re crazy.”

Several divers wait in his boat. A middle-aged couple stands on the deck, handing their gear to Richard. Blake swings his head from them to me. He has to go, turn on the charm, give them the affable, competent dive master they expect for their money.

“You resent anyone with money.” He leans over, his voice quiet but harsh. You’re consumed with this idea that life hasn’t been fair. But the truth is, you had everything you needed growing up with your mother. She loved you and made sure you learned how to take care of yourself. But somewhere along the line, you got this idea that because you don’t have wealth, you’re somehow inferior. Because you didn’t have a dad, you don’t belong. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit.”

His words pummel me like fists and I drop my head against them.

“Why don’t you talk to Liesa about this?” His tone softens. “She’s been through a lot because of money. She’d probably be able to help you.”

I have this vision of Liesa and Blake, sitting on her patio, looking out over the canal that leads to the ocean. Their feet resting on padded chaise lounges, frosty drinks side-by-side on the small table between their chairs, discussing poor Kylie and her misguided ways. “When Jonas claims me and I have money, you can live with me. We can get an apartment in New York and you can go to school without worrying about a job.”

“Are you serious?” He narrows his gaze on my face like I’m crazy. Like he’s disappointed in me. “It’s like you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.”

I throw my hands up. “Because you’re not making any sense.”

“You aren’t happy here.” He shakes his head at me. “What makes you think you’d be happy in New York?”

“I’ll be happy because I won’t have to worry about money anymore.”

“And around and around we go.” He lets out a one note laugh. “How rich do you think Liesa is?”

I don’t say anything.

“How happy does she seem?”

I still don’t answer.

He takes a step toward the boat. “Don’t do this, Kylie. Have faith in yourself. Trust your mother. She didn’t want you to have anything to do with Jonas. There’s probably a good reason for that.”

He plasters on a grin and jumps to the edge of the dock by the boat. He lets out a loud blast of the chorus to the Little Mermaid’s Under the Sea.

He knows there’s no place I’d rather be than on that boat.