“What?Why?”
He doesn’t answer. His eyes are on my bare chest, scanning my naked body up and down. The expression on his face is full of such acute torture, I feel my heart skip a beat; he’s in physical pain, not being able to touchme.
“Beck…” I whisper. “If this is about my age… I’ll be eighteen in a few days. The Fourth of July. Frankly, I don’t think it should matter how damn old Iam—”
“It’s not your age.” His voice is so tight, I could pluck his words from the air and snap them intwo.
“Thenwhat?”
He stares at me across the bank, tension emanating from his skin like steam off the water. There’s an unreadable expression on his face, but I know him well enough to recognize the pain brimming over in his eyes. “There’s something I need to tellyou.”
“You can tell meanything.”
His fists clench and unclench rhythmically at hissides.
“Beck…” I take two steps toward him, certain if I can just put my arms around him again, this — whatever it is — will all be cleared up. Certain there’s nothing in the world that can keep us apart, now that we’ve finally smashed the wall between us into dust. “Beck, please, whatever this is about… we’ll fixit.”
He cuts me off before I can take a third step. His words are the sharpest blades, cutting the world out from beneath my feet until everything I thought I knew shifts to somethingunrecognizable.
“I’mmarried.”
* * *
Married.
Married.
I can’t stop saying it. Can’t stop thinking it. Can’t stop feeling it twisting around inside my stomach like a poisonous snake, its venom spreading a little farther through my system with each passingmoment.
Married. Married.Married.
I murmur it under my breath like a curse, until it loses all meaning. I can feel his eyes on me as I pace back and forth, dress whipping around my legs, feet creating divots in the sand with each furious stride. I’m angry at him for not telling me, angrier at myself for not figuring it outsooner.
And heartbroken beyond belief that I’ve fallen in love with a man who wasn’t free toclaim.
Were theresigns?
Did I miss themsomehow?
I rack my brain for any indications he gave me that he was someone’s husband, but come up short. I’m certain he never mentioned any woman, even in passing. Not a mom or a sister or even a distant female cousin. I would’veremembered.
Then, of course, there’s the small fact that he doesn’t wear a wedding band. The only time the subject of marriage ever arose was the day he overheard me talking to Ian about the perfect life. I’d said maybe a passionless existence with the perfect husband, house, and kids would be preferable to life on a deserted island… and he’d snapped something back atme.
What was it hesaid?
I wouldn’t put my money on that,princess.
“Violet—”
“Shut up.” I cut him off, throwing out a hand to silence him. I don’t want to hear his explanations. I don’t even want to look at him. The only thing I truly want to do is hurl a coconut straight at hishead.
“If you’d just letme—”
“SHUT.UP.”
He fallssilent.
I pace some more, trying to sort out my emotions. It’s hard to focus on anything with his eyes tracking my every step. I feel them like a physical weight, skating across my skin in a featherlight caress. It was difficult enough to ignore him before today. After our ten — or was it twenty? — minute make-out session, earlier, I fear I’ll never be able to focus on a damn thing again. The memory of his mouth is inked permanently on my brain. I can’t expunge him. He’s embedded deep under my skin, an irreversibletattoo.