Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“This is all news to me, and all I can think is there must’ve been something in the coconut,” Mila says, clutching at that straw again.
“Coconut?” Sarai repeats in a carefully bland tone.
Or maybe Mila really is onto something.
“Yeah. You know, the things that grow on trees,” I put in flatly.
“We drank the coconut water the priest gave us as part of the ceremony. After that, things are vague. I suspect Fin suffered too—maybe not to the same degree. I mean, just look at his hair!” She throws up her hand before it drops in a gesture of futility. “We both did things that just make no sense.”
I have to let her think that, for now, at least. But the truth is, everything I did last night, every choice I made, I did stone-cold sober. What’s more, I’d do it all again.
I was so happy to find her here on the island, and I put her initial snarky denials down to embarrassment and the setting, then the weird shit Evie and Oliver threw her way.
And I guess, this morning, I put her dismay down to cold feet. The decisions we make in the heat of the night often feel very different in the cold light of day. I was prepared for her feistiness and denials, ready for the challenge that is Mila, and more than ready to remind her exactly what it is she likes about me. But then I realized she was serious—that she didn’t remember a fucking thing. It took the wind right out of my sails, so to speak.
But I’m undeterred because I refuse to believe the woman from last night bears no relation to the woman at my side right now. So I’ll bide my time, roll with it, and take my opportunities as they arise. She’s so determined to discount her attraction, but what she doesn’t realize is she already confessed to so much. Last night, she said the hottest things. And I was so fucking happy to hear I wasn’t alone in dreaming of those stolen closet moments.
Over the months, I’d told myself that my memories were somehow false. That Mila couldn’t be as luminous as the image I held in my mind’s eye.
I was wrong. And she was perfect. Flattered by Fin the man, not Fin the mogul, she had no idea who I was. Yet she put her trust in me. Allowed me to kiss away her tears. She left such an impression. Maybe even on my soul.
And then last night, I found she felt the same.
“Things happened that make no sense at all.” Mila’s shrill tone pulls me back from my reveries. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
Maybe with transcendental sex, janitor-closet fumbles, naked haircuts, and—
“We signed a wedding certificate,” she says. “An actual wedding certificate with our own names.”
—there was that, obviously.
“How did we do that? How did we make such a huge mistake?”
My heart does a painful little jitterbug, though I force my expression to remain impassive. It didn’t feel like a mistake to me, more like the beginning of something new, something wildly exhilarating but real. Fuck, it’s hard to know how to explain it. My actions were pure intuition, like I was working with a knowledge that was ancient, primal. From deep within. I knew what I was doing, what I was signing up for, and it felt right.
Sarai’s gaze cuts my way. “But when you signed your own name, you said—”
“The coconut,” I say, cutting her off.
Her gaze turns wary, but she’s picking up what I’m putting down. This is neither the time nor the place to try to explain the unexplainable.
“Look, this had nothing to do with my dad,” Sarai says suddenly.
So she does have a part in this. Fuck.
“Sarai, the general manager of a prestigious resort knows better than to dose his customers.” His daughter, though . . .
“And you can’t tell him.” This is more of a demand than a request, though she rolls her lips together nervously. “Or my mom.”
“Your mom scares the shit out of me,” I admit.
“Not even!” She gives a machine-gun laugh. “My mom loves you. Every time she sees you, she turns the color of a tomato and goes all giggly and shit. You ask her to make betutu and she runs straight to the kitchen. ‘Oh, poor Mr. Fin. He is hungrrry!’” she says, imitating her mom, hand gestures and all. “‘That man needs a wife to fatten him up. He looks so thin!’” She folds her arms. “But if I ask her to cook betutu, she tells me I have to wait until my birthday. And I’m never here for my birthday! Meanwhile, you have her eating out of your hand.”
“Like a tiger, maybe,” I say with a wry grin. As in, very warily.
“He’s really good with people.” Sarai directs this Mila’s way. “For a one-percenter, he’s pretty real, you know?”