Chapter Two

Kelly

Her cellphone alarm went off yet again and Kelly Cullen sighed, dismissing it with a swipe and then throwing her blanket off the bed, pulling herself upright. She had been awake since two and had tossed and turned so much since then, she wondered why she hadn’t just gotten up and started her day.

Leaning back against the headrest for a moment, she yawned and stretched before getting up. She padded over to the curtains of her small home, inherited from her mother after she’d died in an accident, one Kelly chose never to think about, and shoved the heavy fabric aside. Light streamed in, so bright she cringed briefly before adjusting to the powerful rays. They poured into her home and simultaneously reflected off the dazzling white sands of the nearby beach, one of the perks of life on Element Island.

Her phone buzzed and Kelly picked it up without looking, knowing already who it would be. “Hey.”

Miska, her coworker at the Andrade Hotel, was always just a shade too cheerful. “Morning, sunshine.”

“I hate that nickname,” Kelly muttered. “It’s stupid. Might as well be moonlight.”

“Okay. Morning, moonlight,” Miska said easily. “How are you doing?”

Kelly sighed. Miska was one of the few people who knew about how stuck she felt. She wasn’t one to complain, but life on Element Island had begun to feel increasingly stagnant.

“I can’t keep doing this day after day, year after year.”

She walked over to the closet and began selecting two outfits for the day. One was her usual drab hotel uniform, in khaki from head to toe—khaki, for God’s sake!—the other, her evening outfit for that night’s shift.

“So don’t,” Miska said simply. “You’ve saved up some money by now. You should be close to escape, right?”

“Escape to where?” Kelly asked, choosing a simple but elegant cream dress that would cling in all the right places, but not cross the line between slutty and sexy. Society might have a misguided impression about her work, but she herself made the distinction very clear from the first minute she met a client. “My entire skillset involves maid duties and ‘fascinating conversation.’”

“You’re more than a maid and a paid companion, Kelly. You could go to college after all, maybe on a dance scholarship. Or see about selling some of your paintings. Even look at journalism, like you once were interested in …”

While Miska rambled, Kelly walked around putting her evening bag together. Companion. She hated the word more than she could begin to explain to people. It was nicer than the alternative word, but still conveyed all the wrong impressions. Yes, after her mother had unexpectedly died when Kelly was just 17, she’d found a way to make ends meet, a way that snooty noses often frowned upon. But all she did was spend evenings with gentlemen at restaurants or bars. There was no—categorically no—touching involved, and very definitely no sex.

“Kelly …” Miska singsonged, and Kelly tuned back in.

“Huh?”

“I was asking whether you want an extra few shifts this week. My aunt is in town, remember?”

She started the water running and peeled off her comfortable old T-shirt, the only thing she ever slept in. It was endlessly comfortable, decidedly unsexy, and Kelly loved the shirt all the more for it. She heard sexy so much at both her jobs—whether it was hotel clients trying to pinch her ass as she walked by with an armful of bed linens, or an evening client who didn’t quite understand her terms of service until she put him in his place—that she’d come to hate the word.

“Sure,” Kelly agreed, catching a glimpse of her toned, tanned naked body as she walked from the bathroom back to the hallway to find a clean towel. “Just text me when and I’ll be there.”

Miska chattered on for a few more minutes before Kelly ended the call and got into the shower, enjoying some of the only quiet minutes of her day. All too soon, she rinsed off, dried off, and put on the hideous khaki slacks and matching blouse. As always, she vowed to herself that someday she would find a job that would require her to use her brain more than her witty repartee, and one that would allow her to wear something that didn’t look like a camel’s backside.

She combed out her long, thick black hair and then tucked it into a low bun right at the base of her neck. At twenty to nine, she walked out the door, dress bag in one hand, gym bag in the other neatly packed with heels, jewelry, and makeup.

***

There was no real point to owning a car on Element Island, not unless you were coming from the airport and/or wanted to explore the outer reaches of the island, so residents walked almost everywhere. As she turned onto the mile-long footpath that led to the Andrade Hotel, a path bordered by foliage that was intended to look Hawaiian—lush hibiscus, fragrant plumeria, and exotic Bird of Paradise—she brushed past tourists milling around, already with tall, fruity drinks in their hands. As always, Kelly wondered where they were from and how long they were going to stay.

She met her fair share of people passing through the island, but when it came to forming relationships, that was a whole other story. Maybe it was because her job required forming constant false relationships, pretending every evening that she was best friends with a complete—sometimes unpleasant—stranger, that Kelly preferred solitude to partying or doing much in a crowd. She kept her close friends close, and her need for privacy even closer.

She relished the quiet peace of the short walk, and, as the hotel appeared just ahead, began mentally preparing herself for the day ahead.