9
Juliet
I returned to my room. It was a luxurious space and guilt riddled me over the king-sized bed with eight pillows. The canopy rippled overhead. The curtains billowed around the open balcony door. I refused to close off the tropical fragrance or the mild heat. Too many months were spent in cooler temperatures in Maryland to pass on this warmth.
I’d curled onto my bed and let the tears silently fall, tears I hadn’t shed in years for him, over him. My heart begged to be ripped from my chest. It ached for him in a way that made me breathless, and yet, nothing had gone smoothly, just as I had predicted. Damn Miller. We needed the money, but did we need it this badly? My face rolled into the pillow, smothering my tears, as I struggled with the memories. Tack’s hands on my body. His voice in my head. All of it seemed wrong compared to the man who sat to my left at that fancy dinner table. That man was nothing like the man I remembered. His smug smirk. His winking eye. His blatant lies.
Had the island only been an adventure to him? Camping? Hiking? Was it a luxurious vacation to him after all?
I drifted to sleep with these thoughts.
Later I woke with the sensation I was being watched.
“Tack,” I whispered, knowing he could be in my head, but silently desiring him to be real. He stood at the foot of my bed, surrounded in darkness, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon, his clothes from the evening still intact. His hands buried in his pockets. When he knelt on the bed and crawled over me, I knew I wasn’t dreaming.
“Was I part of the experiment?” he hissed. “Was I just a pawn in your project?”
My hand came forward. I don’t know if I prepared to slap him or cup his cheek, but he stopped me either way. Suddenly, both my wrists were pinned on either side of my head. His body hovered over mine.
“No,” I choked. “No, definitely not,” I added louder, rolling my head on the pillow. “I knew nothing about it.”
“What happened?” he snapped.
“Lillian. She lied to me. Used me.” We stared at one another, pleading eyes to glaring ones.
“Did you feel trapped with me? Is that why you took the name Mouse Trap?” He stared down at me, his eyes unfamiliar with their cold glare.
“No,” I snapped. The tension rolling off of him angered me. “What about you? Were you part of the game? The perpetrator there to taunt the victim? Did you play me so I’d fall—“
“Don’t,” he barked, breathing close to my lips. “Don’t you dare say what you’re thinking.”
Both our chests heaved, our breaths coming rapidly. He’d squeezed my wrists, forcing them against the bed as he spoke. I gasped, a memory flashing, and he slightly loosened his hold.
“I just thought, since it was all an adventure for you, a giant glamping trip…” The harshness to my voice faltered as his eyes opened wider, the green darkening in a way I didn’t remember. A flash of who he had been the first time I lay under him, the night he almost raped me, came to mind.
“How could you say that?” He growled, the sound guttural and low. I would say what I wanted. His anger infused me with the power to speak my mind.
“I have a lot to say. I—” His mouth came closer to mine, cutting off my speech. I feared he would kiss me. If his lips touched mine, I didn’t trust myself. I hated him and desired him in perfectly matched intensity. Instead, he paused, his breath caressing my lips. His hands slid forward from my wrists, finding my palms, and his fingers slipped through mine. I clasped his hands in return.
“I have a lot to say,” he whispered. “But I don’t want to talk.”
The tropical breeze in the room seemed to heat up to a hundred degrees. His body pressed partially down on mine. The length of him resting just above the achy spot between my thighs. His upper body was still elevated. His strength amazed me.
“We both know I could take what I want from you,” he warned, his voice sharpening.
We’re going to play this my way. The eeriness of that memory crawled through my mind.
“But we both know you want my permission.” I don’t know where the strength in me came from, but I spoke back to him with the same determination, same frustration. I trusted he’d never try to take me against my will. At least, I wanted to believe he’d never go there again with me.
“I ask for nothing,” he mocked, the coldness of his tone sending a shiver down my spine, but I wasn’t frightened. I was emboldened.
“You will from me.”
To prove me wrong, his mouth descended on mine—brash, harsh, punishing. As quickly as he captured my lips, he pulled back. The pressure might have left a bruise. I didn’t recognize him like this. Even that night, that fateful night, he’d asked.
Just one, he pleaded. He’d never kissed me like this.
“Tell me how many men have you been with since me?” he commanded.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“You’re my business. Tell me.” He pressed at my hands for emphasis, lowering the weight of his body to rest on mine. I bucked up, searching for friction. My legs desperately wanted to wrap around him and draw him to me. I wanted to prove I had power over him.
“None,” I hissed. “There’s been no one but you.” My hips thrust forward, but he stilled. He might have even held his breath. The moment gave me a thought.
“What about Miller?” he harshly whispered before I could speak.
“He’s my best friend,” I replied, almost disgusted at the thought. “How many have you been with?” I demanded, my tone softening with fear. I’d seen the blonde. I recognized her from the articles about him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, allowing his lower body to relax over mine. One hand released mine and cupped my jaw. He’d kiss me next. This was his move.
“It matters to me,” I said, struggling under his fingers.
“A few. No one important. No one like—“
“Get off me,” I hissed. My head struggled to roll away from his grasp. He tightened his hold, nearly pinching me. “Get the fuck off of me.” I could have screamed, but I didn’t want to wake Miller in the next room.
“Mouse?” His hand released my face and flattened on the bed next to my head. “Where are you?” he whispered, his tone softening to one I recognized. He stared at me, as if he didn’t see me before him.
I’m still me, I wanted to yell.
Where are you? I wanted to reply, but it was evident, he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten everything.
+ +
“Wakey, wakey, cuppie cakey.” Miller’s voice startled me, and I rolled to my back, my head rotating to face the opposite pillow. Tack was gone.
Last night, he had rolled off of me and laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling. I twisted to my side, facing away from him. I thought he’d leave when I presented my back to him. We weren’t the same two people we’d been on the island. He even looked different. His hair was styled. His face shaven. I found no trace of the man I knew. But at some point, he turned into me, his chest pressed against my back. His arm looped over my waist.
“Let me back in,” he whispered to the nape of my neck. Hesitantly, I reached for him, stroking from his elbow to his wrist to raise his arm against my chest. His fingers fisted with mine until I placed our joined hands over my heart. For the first time in a long time, the pieces came back together, and I realized even more how much I missed him.
And just like when we were on the island, his disappearance made me question if he had been there at all.
“Looks like we had a visitor? Did someone get lucky last night?”
My head spun to Miller. His brows wiggled as his eyes suggestively shifted to the dip in the pillow next to mine.
“No one got lucky last night,” I snorted, combing through my long hair.
“Well, you didn’t, at least.” He winked.
“Who?” I giggled.
“My secret,” he said. “Now get out of that bed.”
“You give new meaning to the term manwhore,” I said, falling back against the pillows with a false laugh. “I can’t do it. I can’t face him today.”
The mattress dipped as Miller sat next to me.
“Etty, you can’t keep hiding from him. You said you loved him once. Based on the way he looked at you last night, I’d say he still feels the same way about you now.”
I stared at Miller. Look who was imagining things now, I thought.
“Just say I have a headache. I promise this morning will be the only time. I’ll participate fully in every other activity.” I could not face Tack yet, my emotions in too much turmoil.
“Just this one time.” Miller scowled but the look didn’t work for him. He couldn’t pull off tough. He leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
Each organization was scheduled to pitch to Tack and his team with excursions to the local market later in the day. I decided to see the market while the pitches were happening. I was familiar enough with island markets as Miller and I visited some when we started our organization. We saw what sold. We saw what didn’t, and we decided what products to make from there. Our most popular item was still the leaf-material bracelet. Tack had some variation of that bracelet on his wrist, but it wasn’t mine—the original one he promised to never take off. I couldn’t imagine it lasted. Two years was a long time, and as he’d told me, there had been others.
Miller was better at pitches, anyway. Donation solicitation was his expertise. He understood the business end and our financial needs better than me. He could sell snow to an Eskimo and have him pay double for it. My comfort level rested in the creative aspect, as the idea person, and I wandered aimlessly through the market stalls, handling jewelry for texture and material. I admired other wares, like reed baskets and woven trunks, but for now we wanted to stick to the personal accessories. The Mouse Trap items were intended to accessorize with natural materials of grass, leaves and stone, instead of precious metals like gold and silver.
As I wandered, so did my thoughts to Tack’s aggressive behavior the night before. It was so unlike him, and yet, I didn’t know him anymore. In fact, I’d known him for less than three months. Maybe who he was on the island was false. Maybe those kisses hadn’t been real. Maybe our time together had been faked. My heart ached with the thought.
I decided to walk up the sloping hill to our resort and stared at the water in the distance as I climbed. I didn’t want to believe that Tack played another man on our island, but I didn’t know true from false. I’d thought Lillian was my friend, my mentor, my advisor—and all I’d been to her was a lab rat. When I didn’t give her what she wanted, when I refused to admit the truth of Tack’s existence and our relationship, she no longer supported me. Her damning article of my dissertation nearly destroyed me, but I no longer cared about the degree. I wanted to help other women earn money and find the means to be better educated. I didn’t want others to end up like me. I’d worked hard, but it hadn’t been easy. I could have used a helping hand along the way. I thought Lillian was that for me. The only fortunate event from her experiment was the fifty thousand dollars awarded me for lost income. I’d known nothing about a monetary reward, but I took the money and invested in my company. The restoration council enforced the remainder of the year-long sentence through probation. I didn’t miss a meeting.
I didn’t understand how Tack couldn’t see that I would never have betrayed him. I didn’t want to give out his name or reveal his presence on the island with me. In many ways, it was because I held that time sacred. While I hadn’t committed perjury in my dissertation, I hadn’t been one hundred percent honest. Seeing him had been a vision quest. He molded to what I needed, and I learned from him. I found strength through him, and I thought I found love. I earned forgiveness and gave it. I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t. I loved him. I couldn’t change those feelings.
When I returned to my room, I quickly changed into a bathing suit and went down to the beach. I didn’t want to be around the resort, wondering where Tack was, trying to avoid him. It was easier to go down to the water, but sitting near the clear sea, staring out at that turquoise blue color, brought a wave of memory. The images crashed and collided as I sat on my towel, sifting the sand through my hand as if I could dig to another land. I wanted to excavate my way back to a different time.
Miller texted me and said the pitch went well. Tack hadn’t asked about me.
I didn’t ask if he did, I replied.
But you wanted to know, he typed.
I fell back on my towel. I didn’t want to think of Tack but he consumed me, just like he did on the island. Restless, I sat up again and stared out at the sea. I noticed people parting the way several feet out, and I sat forward, expecting someone to yell shark, which wasn’t common in the bays around the islands. It could have been a sea turtle, and I waited with anticipation like those around me.
Suddenly a man broke the surface, snorkel gear secure around his head. He removed the snorkel and the mask, tipping his head in a manner to swipe away the access water in his hair. It was a scene I’d viewed before—Tack exiting a bay. I stared at his physique. We’d swum together in water this pure. We talked on a beach this brilliant white. We laid on the sand under the stars. And all of it was gone. My lips pursed with distant fond memories as I watched him slowly break the water while he walked back to shore. His stature was imposing, his steps assured. He was a confident man who appeared without a care in the world, but intensity rested on his shoulders. I couldn’t look away.
Then a swatch of blonde ran for the edge of the water and leaped for him just as he hit the beach. Staggering back, he caught her in his arms as her legs kicked up from her body. He set her back on her feet, and she continued to hold him around the waist as they walked up the sand. They were a beautiful couple.
A few others, he’d said. No one important.
She definitely seemed important. She had an ease with touching him, something I’d always been hesitant about. When I wasn’t trying to force him to sleep with me, I was scared to be tender. I feared his rejection. I could recall less than five times that I initiated touches or kisses, the last time being one of them.
I’ll find you, I promised after I kissed him, but I’d been whisked away.
I watched the golden couple saunter up the beach and pulled my eyes away when my heart pinched, signaling it could take no more.