Noah stared at his phone. Less than three minutes after he’d hung up with Alex, it rang. Noah winced at the noise. Charles’s name lit up the screen, just as he’d known it would. Taking a shaky breath, he turned off the phone. Talking to Charles wasn’t something he could handle yet.
It’s for the best. She can live in the sun.
It was for the best.
She’d expected the day to pass quickly, they were so busy. But it didn’t. The day moved as if coated in molasses. She pointedly ignored the questioning looks her family shot her after Noah’s abrupt departure at the breakfast table. And she shook her head when her sister took her aside and asked her what was going on.
She couldn’t talk about it. If she talked about it, she’d never be able to pull herself together in time for the wedding the next morning.
So, like a zombie, she went through the motions. Helping Cindy with the final touches in the banquet room. Double checking that the food and cake was in order. Making sure the reverend was ready. And then there was the rehearsal.
She met Brent at the aisle’s edge, and avoided his gaze as she took his arm. She couldn’t look at him, he knew her too well. One look at the sadness in her eyes and he would know near enough what had happened. And if she saw the triumph that followed that knowledge, she just might deck him.
“Are you all right?” Brent murmured.
Dammit. She was worse at hiding her expression than she’d feared. “I’m fine,” she said stiffly, keeping her eyes firmly affixed at anything else. Anyone who wasn’t Brent. And her gaze met Kristen’s, where she sat on the groom’s side of the aisle. Her former friend watched them, nervously chewing on the inside of her cheek.
It was then, walking arm in arm with Brent down the aisle that would be so beautifully decorated the next day, it hit her. A flash of a thought was all it was. Would Noah be jealous, seeing her walking with Brent? And she realized he wouldn’t even get the chance to be. She hadn’t seen him since she’d left the cabin that morning. Would he avoid her for the rest of the cruise? He might skip the wedding, but the ship wasn’t that big. And vampires still needed sleep—she’d seen Noah sleep after they’re jaunt on the beach in Cabo.
But after…
There would be no more seeing Noah after this trip ended. No more pestering him until he finally smiled for her. No more glimpses of the intense personality behind the detached mask he usually donned. No more feverish kisses.
She kept an eye out for him, heart twisting every time she caught sight of a tall man with dark hair. But he didn’t appear. Not even at dinner.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Cindy asked her quietly as they sat down for dinner in one of the cruise ship’s restaurants.
“Later,” Alice promised, and Cindy frowned. “I…I can’t talk about it right now, okay?”
Cindy leaned over and gave Alice a half hug and swift kiss on the cheek. “All right. You know where to find me if you need anything.”
They ate in near silence, and Alice barely tasted the food they put in front of her. Noah had lied to her. She shouldn’t feel bad. He was the one who messed it all up, tried to use her.
Her hand ached from how hard she gripped her fork, and she set it down carefully. Then she touched the spot on her neck where he’d bitten her. The marks were gone already. When she’d seen her blemish-free skin in the mirror before dinner, she’d almost cried. It was like every bit of proof they’d been together was disappearing.
Someone touched her shoulder and she looked up, half hoping, half dreading, seeing Noah behind her. But when her eyes met Brent’s, she swallowed down the tears trying to rake their way out of her throat.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” Brent asked.
She shrugged. Why not? A conversation with Brent was just the thing she needed to make this the best day ever.
She glanced around the table as she pushed up from her chair, noticing for the first time that everyone seemed to have donned nice clothing, where she still wore the casual outfit she’d worn all day. She should have felt embarrassed, but she couldn’t summon the energy to care. She’d been avoiding going back to the room.
Not only was Noah missing from the gathering, Kristen was as well. The churning in her stomach kicked up a notch.
Once they’d left the restaurant behind, she stopped. “This is far enough.”
Brent frowned. “There’s this balcony where we can—”
“You’ll say what you have to say here, or you won’t say it at all, Brent.” Thank God. The tremors that Noah had put into her voice were absent now. Her words came out confident and without emotion.
Brent shot a quick glance over his shoulder. “All right.” He stepped forward, a little too close, and she almost took a step back. But she stopped herself. She wouldn’t back down from Brent unless she had to. She might not be able to face Noah yet, but she could damn sure face down Brent.
“I need to apologize to you.”She managed to not roll her eyes at him. Just barely. “Really? More apologies? You apologized while we danced. You’re sorry. I get it. Let’s move on.” And she’d had enough hollow apologies this week to last her a lifetime.
He winced as if she’d hit him. “No, Alice. You don’t understand. I really am sorry.” His gaze caught hers, and she had to fight again to stand her ground.
“Okay,” she managed. “Apology accepted. Can we all get on with our lives now?”
He took a deep breath. “That’s not all. I—do you think there’s any chance we could start over?”
“What? Like as a couple? No,” she said without hesitation, not even bothering to try to hide the disgust in her voice.
He gaped at her. “No? That’s it? After all we’ve gone through? All the time we loved each other? And you won’t even give it a second of consideration?”
“There is no we, Brent. Not anymore.”
He looked shocked, and she realized that maybe he had a right to be. What would she have said if he’d made the offer a few months before? If he’d seemed so truthful in his apology after she’d caught them, right after her world as she knew it had imploded?
She might have bought it. And that realization hit her with a chill, like he’d tossed ice water on her instead of apologizing so fervently.
Was Noah the difference? Had she traded caring about one jerk for another? No. Her eyes had opened up to the reality of Brent sometime in the last year, but the vampire didn’t spur the change. He just gave her something to compare Brent to. Someone who highlighted exactly how much of an asshole Brent really was, no matter how well he hid it behind his slick exterior.
Someone so unlike Brent that she couldn’t believe she’d ever compared them.
It wasn’t that Brent didn’t care about her—she could see now he genuinely thought he did. Probably as much as he could, which was about a tenth as much as he cared about himself. But Brent was shallow in his affection. Not like Noah.
Noah had made a mistake. But who was she to not even allow him to explain himself? Not a perfect person, that was for sure. Yes, he’d kept something from her. But he should have at least had the chance to explain.
Her heart cried out that she’d made a mistake, and Brent watched her with fascination, hope pushing a half-smile to his face.
He reached out and slid his fingertips down her cheek softly, and then bent his head to kiss her.
“You’re an asshole, Brent,” she said in a rush of breath that stopped his descent. She stepped back then, and relief spread through her body at the distance it created. “You don’t deserve another chance with me, and I used to think you and Kristen deserved each other. Now I’m not so sure—maybe she’s too good for you, too.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re right about that,” a clear voice said from behind her. Alice spun just in time to watch Kristen stalk away. Brent started after her before spinning around, his gaze resting on Alice’s face for a second.
Disgust was the only thing he’d see there. And he must have figured that out, because he frowned, and then turned and yelled for Kristen.
Reliable Brent. Always willing to settle for his second choice when the first fell through. She’d have felt a bit flattered maybe, if she hadn’t known it was the size of her inheritance that made her Brent’s first choice. And maybe some affection he had for her, too. But her bank account had always drawn him more than she had.
Alice took a shaky breath.
Noah had done a shitty thing by not telling her his situation, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could forgive his desire to use her. But, she’d made a mistake too by not giving him the chance to explain. By immediately thinking he was a user like Brent. Not after her family’s money, but after something even more valuable. Her heart.
But what if he wasn’t a user?
Hope surged through her as she walked briskly to her cabin. Maybe Noah wouldn’t have a good explanation, but maybe he would. And just the chance of that being the case made her almost painfully hopeful.
She opened the door to the suite and started at the darkness. Okay, Noah liked it dark, vampire and all. Maybe he hadn’t wandered off to drown his sorrows at the bar or in a game at the casino. She clicked on the light, and something struck her as wrong about the room.
When she stuck her head into the bathroom, it hit her. His stuff was gone. His bags. His fake toiletries from under the sink. All of it, gone. Even the empty shampoo bottle.
Tears burning her eyes, she walked out to the main room. A piece of paper sat folded on her pillow. And something else.
She touched the glass-blown sun softly. It was so pretty. Bright and swirling with a rainbow of colors. Had he bought it for her?
Read the note. She knew she had to, but her hand stilled over it. What if it held mean, nasty words that would forever scar her? What if it said he’d never felt anything for her, that the whole thing had been a farce?
No. Noah wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t that bad of a judge of character, she couldn’t be. And every cell in her body screamed Noah was—despite his omission—a good man.