I racked my brains frantically for an answer that wouldn’t give away my indiscretion.
“Yeah, absolutely,” I squeaked. “Just peachy.”
He arched a brow, a faint half-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, which always made my stomach do a strange somersault.
“Peachy, huh? Because your shoulders are tense, your jaw’s tight, and your eyes are staring at the ocean like it just broke your heart.”
I blinked at him. “You’re terrifyingly observant.”
“Gift and curse,” he said dryly. Then his tone softened. “Addy … are you okay?”
I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest. “I guess I am. My sister called.”
He frowned and took a step closer, his presence warming the cool night air around me. “I’m assuming it wasn’t a pleasant conversation?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, not at all. She … She just makes me feel like nothing I do matters. No matter what I’m juggling, it’s never enough for her. I just…” My voice cracked slightly, but I recovered quickly. “I thought maybe she’d actually care this time.”
Sasha didn’t speak immediately. He just studied me with a quiet kind of intensity, which always made me feel simultaneously seen and exposed. Then he reached out and brushed a hand over my shoulder.
“I get it,” he said softly. “But you have people now. You have me.”
I let his words sink in, letting the silence between us stretch, filled only by the soft sound of the waves below. Sasha made me feel like maybe I wasn’t supposed to keep everything to myself, like maybe someone else could see me without judging me.
I hesitated, then asked the question that had been gnawing at me. “So … the call you were on earlier … what was that about?”
He stiffened slightly but didn’t move away. His eyes met mine, steady and unreadable. “You heard that?”
I nodded sheepishly and lifted one shoulder. “Eh, just fragments.”
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “That was my uncle.”
“He’s like your boss, right?”
“Yeah. We were discussing the strategy and timing of …certain things.” His arm snaked around my waist to pull me against his chest. “Don’t worry, though. We’ve got it all under control. You can just sit back, relax and enjoy the weather.”
“I’m not worried.” I shrugged.
Sasha kissed the top of my head. “Good. Now, how do you feel about some cocktails? The chef was talking about mojitos earlier.”
My eyes widened with excitement. “Sounds amazing!”
There was something deeply humbling about realizing you didn’t know how to grocery shop when you technically had access to unlimited money.
We were talking filthy, literally absolutely crazy, mind-boggling amounts of money.
One would think this should make life easier. Let me let you in on a secret — it did not. It merely made things more overwhelming.
The local market was halfway down the hill from the villa, nestled between a pharmacy and a shop selling beach towels aggressively branded with ‘Puerto Rico’ in a glittery font. I’d insisted on going alone.
Well…
Alone, plus a driver plus a man who pretended he was reading a newspaper near the entrance. I left the villa without having to scale the walls, which I counted as a win.
Inside the shop, it smelled of citrus and warm bread and air conditioning trying its best but not really succeeding.
I grabbed a basket and immediately felt more like a normal person again. I’d needed this.
Selecting my own produce was a small task, but it made me feel like there were at least some things I still had control over in my life. I squeezed avocados, evaluated mangoes, and tried not to think about the fact that, two aisles over, there was probably a guard with a gun tucked into his jeans, watching me.