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24

The ocean breeze tangles my hair into wild knots as I sit beside Loomis on the hotel balcony, our calm silence comfortable and exhausted. The day’s chaos of camera flashes, autograph hunters, and the constant dance of public scrutiny has settled into something softer now.

Word spread impossibly fast that we were there. On our island, it’s easy to forget the obsession the world currently has with Loomis, but today was a glaring reminder of it. He was protective and careful and watched me with something in his eyes that made my stomach flip in ways I refuse to analyze.

Fen sleeps in the portable crib in his room, his tiny breaths through the monitor a metronome to which my racing thoughts attempt to align. The suite is beautiful, if not a little romantic, and after we walked around Key West a bit more, declaring fuck it and fuck them, we played on the beach and dipped our toes in the Gulf. Fen chased seagulls because I swear the kid loves to torture me with birds. Naturally, Loomis thought it was hysterical. We came back here for dinner and ate in the hotel restaurant toward the very back in a curved booth that mostly hid us from the other patrons.

Vander has been messaging with Loomis on and off for most of the day, and my girls have been blowing up our group chat. They all know Loomis and I have been sleeping together, but I’ve kept things on my hardline stance that none of it is real, and it won’t lead to anything beyond the island.

But there were moments today. Moments when he looked at me differently than he has. I’ve been telling myself it’s for the cameras, for our arrangement, but I’ve caught that same look when it was just us, and it’s confusing me. Or maybe the truth is, I’m not as tough as I pretend I am, and my heart has already melted like ice cream in the Key West sun.

I don’t want this time here to end. I don’t want to go back to Boston and pretend like none of it happened. I don’t want to let go of them, not either of them.

I’m setting myself up for the heartbreak of a lifetime, and I knew it all along and did it anyway. So when the time comes, and we inevitably say goodbye, I’ll do my best to look back on this time with fondness instead of sadness and remember that it’s better to live even if it hurts than to hide.

I curl my bare feet beneath me on the lounge chair, nursing a glass of white wine that sweats against my palm. The sunset spills crimson and gold across the horizon, painting Loomis’s profile in amber light. He looks different today. Maybe getting off the island was what he needed. The slight stubble on his jaw catches the fading light, his brow pinched in serious thought, and his fingers wrapped around a glass of gin he’s barely sipped tap a gentle rhythm.

“Quite a day,” he murmurs with a sigh, his British accent a little thicker than it normally is. “Sorry about all the photographers. I honestly don’t know how they found us so fast and neither does Vander, unless they’ve been parked here for ten days and just happened to see us passing. Seems so odd and a bit too coincidental for my liking.”

It does, and my Fritz spidey-sense can’t help but feel it’s not coincidental. Someone is watching us and knows exactly where we are and what we’re doing. Our family and friends wouldn’t betray us. I don’t even have to question that. They wouldn’t, so that begs the question. Who is? From our quick texts earlier, Vander also agrees something is off. He’s working on it, but whoever is doing this or has been doing this all along is covering their tracks well and isn’t anyone obvious.

I shrug, trying for nonchalance. “It’s part of the package deal, right? Date Britain’s most eligible and confirmed bachelor, expect some paparazzi.”

Except we’re not actually dating. At least, we weren’t supposed to be. The arrangement had seemed so businesslike and sensible two weeks ago. He needed to look good to the world, the studio, and family services, and I needed him to keep me from doing the dumb girl thing and going back to Alden. A mutually beneficial charade that was somewhat carefully orchestrated until we fell into bed together. Plus, I haven’t talked to Alden since shortly after we arrived on the island, and I haven’t had even an inkling to go back to him.

No. Instead, I’ve been actively trying not to fall for the man sitting beside me, who makes it nearly impossible not to. On the flip side of that, his reasons for keeping this thing going are as strong as ever, but I don’t have it in me to resent him for that. It was my idea to bring him here and do this from the start.

I didn’t expect to like the way his eyes smolder and his face softens when he looks at me, and I didn’t expect to feel this fluttering in my belly when he absently pulls me into his chest in the morning to hold me closer. I didn’t think it’d matter all that much how he gets me in ways no one ever has before. And I didn’t expect Fen, this tiny, perfect little boy, to worm his way so fully into my heart alongside his father.

“I think you handled it brilliantly,” Loomis praises, turning to face me, his gray eyes appearing almost silver in the waning light. “Most people would’ve panicked. Or waved and encouraged them.”

“I’ve had practice and training.” Being a Fritz comes with that. I think about my alter ego, Victoria Nightshade, and how I hide so much of myself from the world. “I’m good at pretending to be someone I’m not.”

The words hang between us, weighted with unintended meaning. I’m in a strange, introspective mood, and I can’t seem to hide it.

Loomis studies me, his head tilted slightly.

“Are you? Are you still pretending?” he asks, his voice lower now.

My heart hammers against my ribs, a little surprised by his intensity. “Aren’t we both?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, just takes a thoughtful sip of his gin. The first stars pierce the darkening sky, and somewhere below us, music drifts up from a bar along the beach. A saxophone wails a melancholy tune that feels too fitting for the moment.

“When those photographers surrounded us after lunch, you didn’t hesitate to cover Fen and come up with a plan to get us out of there,” he finally says.

“He’s a little boy who’s already been through so much,” I reply simply. “Anyone would have done the same.”

“No.” Loomis shakes his head firmly. “They wouldn’t have. His own mother certainly wouldn’t have.” He stops, jaw tightening. “At least I don’t think she would have. I don’t know. Maybe she did what she did to protect him. To save him. I like to think that’s why she left him the way she did.”

“I’ve seen enough in my career as a doctor to know that there are good parents and bad parents. Parents who love theirchildren and parents who wish they had never had them. I’ve also seen enough to know that this isn’t black and white. There are a lot of grays mixed in there. Sometimes people are forced to live a life that isn’t always the prettiest and sometimes the hardest decisions become the best. Fen is where he belongs, regardless of her reasons.”

“I just don’t know how I’ll explain it to him. I knew why my father abandoned us and I still can’t make heads or tails of it. How will Fen come to grips with that if we never learn why?”

“If your dad had stayed, do you feel it would have been better for you?” I twist to look at him, watching his expression. “He would have been miserable. Mean. Possibly even abusive, whether physically, verbally, or emotionally. Yes, you had a very hard childhood, but think of how much worse it could have been for all of you.”

I leave it there and turn back to the ocean and the blooming stars.

“Fen will find his way because you’ll be there to help guide him. He’ll be just fine,” I continue, and then smirk. “Even if he’s got your looks.”