Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 157491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
This time, I feel the blow. Or maybe not, as she speaks again. “I think they were cousins, my great grandmother and grandfather. Their marriage was a consolidation, an attempt to protect land and money.” As though refusing to dwell on the topic or draw any parallels, she turns bodily to face me. “Thank you for what you did yesterday. Involving the boys in…” She flounders, struggling for the right words.
“Isla, you don’t have to thank me. I want to make you happy. I’ll do all I can to make both boys happy, too.” And if that means a little subterfuge, I can live with that. “I want them to be involved,” I find myself adding. “I want to be part of their lives, too.”
She falls quiet, perhaps digesting my words.
“I was wondering what we’ll tell Sandy and Holland, given they think you’ve already proposed.”
“We’ll tell them the truth.” I casually cross my right ankle over my left knee. “That we wanted the boys to feel involved.” We both want those things even if we weren’t aligned in the planning.
“They’ll guess, you know. Sandy and Holland. They’ll see this for what it is.”
“And what is that, milaya?”
“This is hardly a marriage made in heaven.”
“Marriages made in heaven leave lovers with their heads in the clouds.” Nico Vanyin… Poet. Businessman. Criminal. Will I ever get to the bottom of him?
“And where are our heads, Niko?”
“Where they should be. On survival and on each other.”
Her expression clouds and, for the first time since I cobbled this plan together, I begin to realize she might never love me like she once did. Meanwhile, I’d fallen in love fifteen years ago and never bothered to fall back out again.
She’s all I ever wanted. The focus of my whole life.
My hands ball at my sides as I’m washed by a sudden sense of futility. I force it away, force my hands to relax, to curl around the low arms of the chair. I haven’t come this far to give up. Nothing has changed except that my love might have to be enough for both of us.
36
Isla
We’d spent the morning by the pool again, the boys more than happy to dip in and out until their hearts were content. And Niko seemed happy to do their bidding.
Flip me higher, Uncle Van!
I bet you can’t swim to the other end of the pool without taking a breath.
Let’s have a race!
In between, we’d played cards on the terrace, drank lemonade and nibbled on delicious saltfish fritters and fried plantain. It’s so strange—it all feels so natural. Like this has been our lives for years. It’s a slippery slope, I try to remind myself.
After lunch, Niko comes back down to the terrace, no longer in low-slung swimming shorts but dressed for work. Slim fitting dark pants and a brilliant white shirt that’s going to require sunglasses to look at in the sunshine.
“You’re looking very dapper.”
“Do I?” His eyes dip briefly as though surprised but the motion is really just to hide the twitch of his lips. He knows. Of course he does. There’s not a thing that gets past that man. “I thought we could go to dinner on the mainland this evening. What do you think, boys?”
Is it any wonder my will is softening when he’s so lovely with my little men? And that’s what he knows. It’s not even as if I can say he’s doing it on purpose because his behavior is wholly genuine.
“Do we have to dress up?” Hugh scrunches his face, unimpressed.
“It will require clothes.”
Both boys are currently shirtless, as they have been since we arrived on the island. Despite my best efforts, they’re also a little pink.
“Smart but casual,” he amends, unconsciously swiping a hand down the flat plains of his stomach, though there’s nothing casual about the way he looks at me.
“Aw, but I want to live in boardshorts,” Archie interjects, making me smile over my lemonade glass. “They’re great. They have pockets with this on a string.” He pulls out the plastic tool attached to the pocket. “Though it’s pretty hard to brush your hair with it.”
“That’s for cleaning wax off your surfboard,” Hugh answer in a superior air.
“Huh.” Archie stares at it for a beat. “Strange. But the best thing about wearing boardshorts every day I’d never have to wear underwear again. Because it’s already built in.”
“You’d always be freezing.” Hugh huffs. “We live in Scotland, remember?”
I drop my hands to my lap, the lemonade turning to cement in my stomach. Will we still live in Scotland after this? I have some many questions. So many whats and ifs but taking them to Niko would feel like making some concession. Almost as though I’d be admitting to myself that this marriage is what I want. But what I don’t want is to move to London. Apart from uprooting the boys at a time they’re only just settling post-divorce, I just don’t want to live there. I love rural Scotland. I love the peace, the greenery, and my heather-covered rolling hills. I love being close to my brother and Holland. London is fun for short breaks but living there fulltime would be—