Summary
Daisy Lewis is experiencing a relentless string of bad luck.
Fortunately, Daisy has her sister’s destination wedding coming up. A week of sand, sea, and sun in the South Pacific as the maid-of-honor is exactly what Daisy needs to forget her upturned life and focus on the positive.
That is until Daisy meets the best man.
If you take tall, dark, and handsome, and add a dash of rugged, a pinch of brooding, and a whole lot of sexy, you’ve got Tai Wakefield. Unfortunately he’s also a major grump, total alpha, and seemingly out to antagonize Daisy at every turn.
As if being part of the wedding party with Tai wasn’t bad enough, Daisy’s bad luck soon resurfaces when she ends up on a cramped sailboat with Tai and the newlyweds.
Which then shipwrecks on a deserted island near Fiji.
Okay, so they aren’t completely alone. There’s an oddball research scientist who has been isolated for far too long, they have rundown bungalows as shelter, stores of water and canned food, plus a feral goat named Wilson.
It’s Lost…without the smoke monster.
But with rescue weeks away, Tai and Daisy realize the only way they’re going to get through this mess is to stop fighting and start working together.
And with their guards down, they get closer.
A lot closer.
Soon, Daisy realizes that the only thing worse than being stuck on a deserted island, is being stuck on a deserted island with a man she hates to love and loves to hate.
A man that can break her heart.
For anyone and everyone who needs an escape right now—I’ve got you.
And for my wonderful parents, Tuuli & Sven, who allowed me to pursue my own escapes for so many years.
One
Daisy
Have you ever tried to stab someone with a butter knife?
Because that’s exactly what I’m about to do.
Granted, my hand is shaking as I hold it, and I could barely cut the tomato for my sandwich moments before, which makes me think that the most damage this piece of cutlery will do is some light bruising, maybe a scratch.
But even so, it’s worth an attempt.
The possible victim?
My boyfriend, Chris, who is standing in front of me totally naked, a pillow jammed in front of his crotch, pure panic on his face.
Behind him, in the recesses of our bedroom, is my friend Michelle.
Wearing a lace peekaboo bra and G-string.
The kind of lingerie set you wouldn’t wear every day, unless you knew you were going to get naked with someone.
In this case, someone’s else’s boyfriend.
Mine.
I should have known something was wrong the moment I came home to make myself some lunch. I had told Chris I was going for a long walk at Golden Gate Park. Usually we would both run it together, but he’d been weird and moody lately, and so I thought I’d go alone. Of course, being me, I got distracted and decided to do some window shopping on Haight, and then I got hungry. I hate eating in restaurants alone, so I came back to fix myself a quick sandwich before heading out again.
I didn’t notice her shoes at the front door, though now I can see them out of my peripheral.
I didn’t think it was odd that the bedroom door had been shut, though now I know why.
I assumed Chris had gone out.
That was until I had just finished making my sandwich and heard a muffled sneeze.
High-pitched and stunted, like someone was trying to hide it.
I grabbed the butter knife and flung open the bedroom door, backing up in horror to the kitchen counter, as I stared at the two of them together.
Oh, they were trying to hide it, hoping that if they didn’t make a noise, I wouldn’t notice.
Jokes on them.
“I can explain,” Chris cries out, stepping closer.
I thrust the butter knife out into the space between us, shaking it violently.
“Stay back, asshole!” My voice is caught between rage-induced hysteria and choking back tears. For the sake of my pride, I hope the tears never fall.
Both of his hands go up like I’m holding him at gunpoint, and the pillow drops to the floor.
I almost laugh. His penis is naturally deflated, and he looks like a sad sack of a human being. Funny how someone can go from being the love of your life to a repulsive enemy in a matter of seconds.
Okay, so maybe Chris wasn’t the love of my life. But he was still the first boyfriend I ever truly loved, the first one that I finally let my guard down for, the first one I potentially, one day, possibly, maybe saw myself marrying.
And this is how all that worked out for me.
With him sleeping with my friend.
Oh, I’m mad at her, too.
Furious.
But the betrayal is different. I can’t say I ever got too close to Michelle. I never let my guard down with her the way I did with Chris. Still, I considered her a good friend since I had worked with her and we often spent lunch hours scarfing oysters on the embarcadero. We used to do hot yoga together on Thursday mornings before work, and we had margaritas on Mondays at this dive bar in the Mission district with the rest of the old work crew. Our conversations were usually superficial, but occasionally I’d complain about Chris (as couples do), and she’d complain about San Francisco’s lackluster dating scene.
Never in a million years did I think she’d try and fix that by turning her sights on him.
“How did this even happen?” I cry out, shaking the knife again.
“Just put the knife down and we’ll talk,” Chris says. He takes a step forward, and as my gaze drops again, he pauses and hastily picks up the pillow. “Look, it was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” I say at the same time Michelle makes a scoffing noise. I point the knife at her. “Something funny, bitch?”
“Yes, a mistake,” Chris says imploringly. I stare into his baby blue eyes, but they’re no longer the eyes of the guy I loved. They’re the eyes of a stranger. One I want to murder with a butter knife.
“Uh huh. A mistake. I see. So she slipped and fell on your dick?” I ask. “Or you slipped and landed in her vagina?”
“It didn’t mean anything!”
Somehow that makes everything worse.
My blood begins to boil.
“You threw away our relationship for some screw that didn’t even mean anything!?”
I make a half-hearted attempt to calm myself but it doesn’t work.
I turn around and pick up the cut tomato I used for my sandwich, holding it in my palm like a baseball, seeds slipping through my fingers.
“He’s lying,” Michelle speaks up, eyes flashing. “He told me he loved me.”
I don’t even think. I launch the tomato and get Chris right between the eyes with a messy plop, the tomato splattering everywhere. The pillow drops to the floor again.
“You asshole!” I yelp.
I whirl around and pick up the top slice of toasted bread and wing at him like a frisbee. It hits him squarely on his junk and he goes down to his knees on the linoleum with an oof. I used to play disc golf on my parents’ apple orchard growing up, and apparently my aim is as good as ever.