Unknown Number: Somos Ernesto y yo.
Unknown Number: Lo cuidé de niño. Soy una pariente. No puedo contactarlo. Pero Isla está en peligro.
Unknown Number: Eres el duque que la amaba, ¿verdad?
The picture is of me and Ernesto. I cared for him as a child. I can’t contact him, but Isla is in danger. Aren’t you the duke who used to love her?
My hands grew clammy despite the fact that this really wasn’t my fucking problem and hadn’t been for years. Because, yes, mystery texter, I did love her. I loved her way fucking more than she deserved given what she did to me.
Malachi Sterling: Sí, pero ¿qué se supone que debo hacer al respecto?
What am I supposed to do about this?
Unknown Number: Dile. No puedo. Ella esta en peligro.
Tell him. I can’t. She’s in danger.
Malachi Sterling: ¿Qué tipo de peligro? ¿Cuál es la amenaza?
What kind of danger? What is the threat?
There was no reply after that, so I attempted to call the number despite it registering as unknown in the message thread.
I huffed and sprang off the bed, pacing in circles around the suite, my stomach curdling and sweat beading on my forehead, and this wasn’t my fucking problem. Why the fuck did I even care, let alone care this much?
I already knew why. And I already knew what I was going to have to do.
I tossed the phone on the bed long enough to pull on a pair of trousers, then went out to the balcony to make a call even though I knew it was the middle of the night where he was. He picked up after about three rings.
“I don’t know who you are,” Ernesto grumbled through a sleep-rasped voice, “but this better be important, or I will trace your phone number, locate you, and send someone to kick your ass and break your phone.”
Well, the ability to trace a phone number and locate someone was exactly what I needed right then, sooo…
“Ernesto. This is Malachi Sterling.”
It was honestly shocking that he didn’t drop the phone or hang up immediately.
It took all of twenty minutes to discuss the situation with him, and then I hung up and slipped back inside the suite. Elena was perched on the edge of the bed, lathering her long, curvy legs with lotion.
I slipped my hands in my pockets. “My dear.”
She inclined her chin upward as she glanced at me. “Yes?”
“I’m afraid I have to leave you now.”
Her eyes shifted. “Leave me now as in this resort, or as in this courtship?”
“Both,” I said matter-of-factly.
Elena hesitated as she pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, turning her attention back to her legs and the lotion. “In that case…” She rubbed her shin a few more times before crossing her legs and leaning back to rest her palms behind her as she smiled coyly up at me. “Do me the courtesy of covering the rest of my stay this weekend?”
Elena was cool as fuck. I did like her. She would’ve made a fine wife and a perfect duchess.
But after only twenty minutes of conversation with Ernesto, learning the background of the mystery texter he was able to decipher from the information I offered, and the arrangement of a meeting the following day, I already knew I wasn’t going to marry her.
I was going to marry Isla. Just like I always intended to, except now the reason was the polar opposite of what I’d always believed.
I offered Elena a warm, appreciative smile. “Absolutely.”
MALACHI
Present
SHE IS STILL.
Still sleeping. Still pallid. Still trembling slightly, even in her slumber. But mostly, she’s just motionless, flat on her back in bed, dressed in a fresh nightgown, tucked under the sheet and blanket, her long, full, black eyelashes matted wet with tears, even in her sleep.
It’s somehow worse this time. And I don’t know why.
Maybe it was because she was totally unconscious for a good thirty minutes. Maybe it’s because I likely caused it by dragging her down the hall and down the stairs. Maybe it’s because, despite being married, we are definitively not in this together this time. Maybe it’s because there’s no hope for anything good in the aftermath this time.
Maybe it’s because of all of those things.
I don’t know anything except that I’m sitting here next to her bed, angry and broken and wishing that none of this was the way it is.
She’s still sleeping, but I’m still here, shattered and with a fucking lump in my throat, because none of it had to be this way, and I just want to be twenty years old again.
I want to be a kid again because few things hurt as much as a situation like this, and I just want my Isla back, because when everything in the world was wrong, she was always right. We were always right, and okay, and happy as long as we were together.
I miss her.
She’s lying right there only inches from where I’m sitting, and yet, she’s not really there. She’s not the person I loved for my entire life. And I haven’t felt this alone since I ran off to New Zealand for a year.
She’s still sleeping, she can’t see or hear me, and nobody else is in here, anyway, and so I simply let go.
Sitting on the edge of a chair, I lean forward, shoulders hunching, and as my forehead makes contact with the bed next to her hip, I let go. Just like on the shore of that lake in Milton Sound, albeit silently, I let go.
Tears soak the bed linens. My breath draws in and out raggedly. My throat becomes raw. And I once again grieve the loss of so many things that were such an innate part of my heart and soul that without them, I feel like I’ve lost both. The loss of everything she and I had is what turned me into this heartless, soulless monster, and the loss of this now feels like it will simply kill me.
“Isla, why…?” Quiet words drain from my lips, but it doesn’t matter because she can’t hear me anyway. “Why did you have to do this? How could you do this to me? What happened to you? None of it had to be this way. What more could you possibly have wanted or needed? I don’t understand you.”
Even above my own intensifying, rare release of my emotions, I can hear her quiet, steady breathing, and I am suddenly so angry that I could grab one of the pillows and smother her to death. But I don’t do that because the hate I have for this woman is merely my love turned inside out. Even though it shows itself as hate, I know the root of all of it is that I’ve never loved anything in the world as much as I loved her. And that never went away. Something like that doesn’t go away. It only causes you to suffer while it remains.
So, I don’t smother her. I don’t fucking strangle her in her sleep. I lift my face only long enough to rest my cheek on her flat abdomen. Flat because the second baby didn’t survive either. The third death of something she and I created together. Two unborn babies, and one lifetime of love and joy that never materialized. None of them meant to be.
“Why, Isla? How could you do this to me? How could you… how could you… how could you…?”
My words string together amidst a series of hitched, ragged breaths for so long that I lose track of time, until I feel a delicate, gentle hand stroking the back of my head, accompanied by a quiet, labored voice.
“I’m sorry, Malachi.” Fingers combing through my hair. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about this and everything. I never wanted to hurt you. I wish I could tell you why, but I just don’t know. And I’m just so sorry.”