Authors: Karina Halle
There! Another sneaky glance.
“You guys! Come on. I need to know. I won’t say anything.”
Lucia sighs. “Well I don’t live here, so I don’t have much to lose. And anyway it isn’t a big deal. A girl Charlotte used to work here. She and Logan went out a few times.”
“Oh my god,” I exclaim, feeling somehow both jealous and angry. “When?”
“Maybe six months ago?” Nikki muses.
“Did he cheat on Juliet with her?”
“What?” Nikki asks, scrunching up her nose. “Cheat on her? Logan would never do that.”
How badly I want to tell her otherwise.
“No, it was short, maybe a few dates. Charlotte had a mad crush on him hey, and finally he gave in,” Lucia says with a laugh. She gives me a quick shrug. “I don’t know. I think he kind of needed it. It was really hard seeing him after she died.”
“Like he was actually upset?”
Nikki frowns. “What kind of person do you think Logan is?”
What kind of person? Once again, I think I have no idea.
We stay there on the lawn for a while longer, talking about Lucia’s newest boyfriend in Hanalei, a lifeguard, and some live music show playing at a lounge in Kapaa’a tomorrow. But all I can think about is Logan. Now this Charlotte woman. It’s completely possible that this was the person he cheated on Juliet with, especially if she worked here. Nikki and Lucia might think they know Logan, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t privy to anything important. Not like that. Juliet had a hard-enough time confiding in me, I’m sure she would go out of her way to make sure no one else here knew what was really going on.
The night is balmy and the clear sky is doing something to my head. Or maybe it’s the copious amounts of punch. When Nikki and Lucia decide to leave, I wander past the restaurant and down to the beach, passing a plumeria tree. I shove my nose into the center of the white flowers and breathe in deep, then start plucking them off the tree. I know it’s wrong and I should only pick up the ones that have fallen to the ground, but I’m drunk and the idea of making my own lei or decorating my body with them is extremely appealing.
Plus the smell is so intoxicating. It’s just as sweet and heady as the air here, a smell that makes me really feel I’m in paradise and has an immediate relaxing effect.
“Duplicitous,” Logan says from beside me, his voice low and rough.
I jump, the flowers flying up and out of my hands and twirling to the sand below. “Jesus, way to sneak up on me!” I cry out, hand at my chest.
He stares at me, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. He looks different, his eyes less hard, his face more open. The half-moon illuminates his face just enough for him to look both mysterious and devastatingly handsome.
Damn him.
“Sorry,” he says, quickly bending over to pick up a flower. He holds it out in front of me, then his hand goes over my right shoulder and he slides the flower behind my ear, his fingers rough as they graze the tip of my lobe. I can’t help but close my eyes, my breath stilling inside me. Even the waves seem to slow down, the surf echoing in my ears. “The right side means you’re not taken.”
“Well I’m not,” I say, but my words come out in a whisper. I slowly open my eyes again and he is still there, this beautiful, troubled, strange man that no one seems to know and everyone thinks they’ve figured out.
“No, you aren’t.” His voice drops a register, sounding almost melancholy.
“What did you mean? You said duplicitous. Just now. When you scared the shit out of me.”
“The flowers are not what they seem,” he says, finally breaking our heated gaze. Thank god, because that was getting a bit intense. My heart is still pounding so hard I’m afraid he might hear it over the waves.
He runs his hand along the flowers and their dark, shiny leaves. “Plumeria, Tiare, Frangipani. No matter what name we give them, they remain a lie.”
I peer at him closely. “Are you drunk?”
He cocks a brow. “What makes you say that?”
“Well I’m drunk and we’ve all been drinking Dan’s potent punch. Plus you’re talking about lying flowers, so there’s that.”
“I’ll have you know I’m not drunk,” Logan says but he kind of slurs it. And it’s kind of adorable. “And I don’t have to be drunk to be talking about lying flowers. Here, smell.” He plucks one off the tree and steps even closer, the distance between us tightening up into intimate levels. He raises the center of the flower to my nose and I don’t have to lean far to stick my nose in. I take a deep breath just as I had been earlier when I was hitting the blooms up like I was huffing paint.
“They bloom at night,” he says, taking the flower away and smelling it himself, rather delicately. “To lure the sphinx moth. Only they don’t have any nectar—it’s all a rouse. So the bloody moth flies from flower to flower, in a fruitless search for nectar. And while it does that, the moth pollinates, ensuring the flower’s survival.” He flicks the flower to the sand and stares at it for a few moments.
“Is this a metaphor for something?” I ask after a few beats.
He glances at me quickly before turning his attention to the waves, the spray illuminated by the moon and the faint light of the hotel rooms. “If it is, you’ll have to let me know who you’d be…the flower, or the moth.”
“Neither,” I say. “I’m just the girl who wants to put the flowers in her hair.”
He chuckles at that and nods a few times, shoving his hands in his pockets. Silence is a line between us, weighted and heavy. I have this feeling that if I don’t say a word, the silence will continue, thickening by the minute, like adding flour to water.
I look at him. “Can I ask you something?”
“No.”
“It’s about Juliet.”
Finally, his eyes come back to meet mine, brows furrowed with worry. “What?” he says hesitantly.
“Did you cheat on her with that girl Charlotte? The one who worked here?”
For a second it seems like he hasn’t heard me. Then his eyes widen and he physically recoils, shaking his head. “What the bloody hell, Veronica?”
“I just want to know. I need to know.”
“Why?”
“Why?’ My voice can’t help but rising an octave. “Because she was my sister. I have a right to know.”
“We’ve already been over this. You don’t have a right to know. That was our marriage and our business.”
“She confided in me!” I exclaim. “Don’t you understand? That means that she saw me worthy of her secret, worthy of me knowing she was married to a liar and a cheater, that one aspect of her life wasn’t perfect.”
“You think that gives you the right?”
“Yes! I do! You don’t understand, she never gave me anything. That’s all I got from her and I need the whole truth.”
“Fucking Jack Nicholson.”
I twitch in confusion. “What?” I hiss.
He rubs his hand down his face and sighs. “I can’t even respond to you without sounding like I’m borrowing from a movie cliché.”
“What? That I can’t handle the truth?”
“Much better when you say it.”
“I can handle it!” I yell. “I just need to know.”
“Why?”
“Stop asking me that!”
“But I want to know. Is it because if you knew how terrible I was, you would stop being attracted to me?”
Now it’s my turn to recoil. “Oh my god.” And fuck! Dammit! My cheeks are flaring up, betraying me right away. I turn away from him, shaking my head, wondering how on earth I can squash his idea. This is the last thing I want, the last thing his ego needs, the worst thing for my job.
“Is that why?” he keeps going, following right behind me as I walk aimlessly down the beach, sinking into the sand with each step. “Why you’re walking away right now? Because it’s your
own
truth that you can’t handle?”
“Oh fuck off, you don’t know me,” I scowl. I keep going and I don’t turn around. “Don’t change the subject.”
“This has nothing to do with me at all, Freckles, and you know it. That’s why you’re so fixated on it.”
“I’m fixated because she was my sister.”
“And because she was your sister, that means that whatever you feel for me, whether it’s lust, whether it’s more, you think it’s wrong. Unforgiveable. You hate yourself for it.”
This can’t be happening; this can’t be happening.
He grabs my arm, whirling me around. The sand goes flying.
“It’s easier for you to hate me then to like me, isn’t it?”
“You’re an easy person to hate!” I fire back. “That’s on you.”
I try and get out of his grasp.
He doesn’t let go.
He’s staring at me so intently that I’m nearly pinned to the ground.
“Charlotte,” he says slowly, “was a friend of mine. I knew she had a crush on me and she was a nice girl. It took a year and a half after Juliet died for me to finally agree to a date. We went on three. That was all. I went back to being alone. She went and found someone else. Eventually she quit her job and moved in with him. Everyone was fine.” His grip on my arm tightens. “I did
not
cheat on Juliet with Charlotte.”
How diplomatic,
I think to myself,
not denying he didn’t cheat on her, just denying he cheated on her with this Charlotte woman
.
“But,” he goes on, “the more excuses you can find to hate me, to bury your attraction to me, the better.”
God, I want to punch in his smug, handsome face so fucking bad!
“You’re a dick,” I say bitterly. “A dick with an unstoppable ego.”
“Or maybe an ego with an unstoppable dick. But no, that thought won’t help you, will it?”
“Fuck you.”
“You’ve said that already and nothing’s happened.”
I try and wriggle out of his grasp again.
“I’m not letting you go,” he says. “Until you tell me I’m right.”
“About what? That I’m attracted to you?”
He hauls me closer to him, so our faces are just inches apart. My breath catches in my throat and stays there. I’m afraid to breathe. I’m afraid…of everything. My little world I’ve built for myself on this island is tipping and I’m moments from being lost to the waves.
Lost to him.
Like I’ve always wanted to be.
“Then kiss me,” he says. It’s both a command and a growl and it nearly knocks me off balance. “Prove me wrong.”
I’m staring at his mouth of course, the way he’s holding it, the way his lips almost snarl. It’s an invitation, it’s a trap. And I would never give him the satisfaction of being right, no matter how badly I want his lips on mine.
“No,” I tell him, fixing my gaze on his eyes with as much strength and venom as I can handle. I’m a woman and my venom is as powerful as my heart. I have endless reserves. “That’s what you want me to do.”
“And if I say yes,” he murmurs, his face coming closer, the top of his nose brushing against mine, “that I want it too—would that change anything?”
It would change everything.
Everything.
“It wouldn’t matter,” I tell him. I don’t know where I find the strength.
“I think you’re lying,” he whispers. His hands let go of my arms and reach up, disappearing into my hair. “And I’ll prove it.”
Before I can protest, he swiftly leans in and kisses me. His lips are pressed, flush, wet to mine and in that moment a million waves could crash over my head and it wouldn’t come close to this feeling. I’m sinking, drowning, swimming against his lips. His mouth works against mine in perfect rhythm, his tongue so warm and soft and fucking addicting. He tastes like rum punch and lies and the first rays of morning.
Your sister
, that voice, that loud and important voice, speaks up. It’s nearly buried by the lust that’s building through me, the same lust that’s making my knees weak, my limbs tremble and shake.
But it’s there.
I put my hand at his chest and push him back. Not hard, just enough for our mouths to break apart. He’s breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring, his eyes drenched in desire, and I already feel empty without his kiss. Every part of me aches.
“We can’t,” I tell him, wishing I didn’t sound so weak.
“Because of Juliet? Your mother? Which person in your family is it?” His tone is borderline nasty.
“Because,” I say feebly, but my fingers are already trailing to the button on his shirt, just beneath his collarbone. “It’s wrong and you know it.”
“We’re adults,” Logan says. “We can make our own decisions. We can decide what’s right for us, not anyone one else, not because of what anyone else thinks.” He runs his hand through my hair, scratching along the scalp and I nearly melt right there. “Fuck, Veronica. Tell me this isn’t what you want. Tell me it’s not me and I’ll walk away and we’ll go back to what was.”
But the truth is so confusing, so dicey.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says, running his thumb over my lips. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a long time. And I’ve been wanting to do a hell of a lot more. If you think it’s been easy for me to deal with that…”
“You were married,” I tell him.