Page 39 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain

T HANKFULLY, AND BY SOME MIRACLE, S EB IS ALREADY BLINKING AWAKE by the time the helicopter sets down on the tennis courts at the hotel.

I watch in a daze as a medic patches up the cut on the back of his head before they load him onto a stretcher to transfer him to a local hospital on the island to monitor his concussion.

I automatically go to climb in the ambulance with him, but Seb waves me away, saying he’ll be fine.

I try to insist—he shouldn’t go alone, but they tell me I can’t get in the ambulance with him if I’m not a relative or spouse.

“Relax, Sybil. The docs will take care of me,” Seb says.

“Besides, they’re probably going to put me in one of those ridiculous hospital johnnies…

” He winces, and I’m not sure if it’s from actual, physical pain, or just the idea of being forced into sad hospital garb.

“You stay here, and spare me my dignity, okay?”

He weakly smiles at me as they close the van door and I’m reminded of many times when things got tough during our relationship and Seb had refused to let me in.

Like when his grandfather died, and he wouldn’t talk about it, instead going silent on me for two weeks.

He’s so much like me , I realize. He only wants people around for the good times, the fun Seb.

But you can’t build a relationship that way. We certainly failed to.

I feel Jamie gently pulling me back, muttering reassurances I can barely hear.

The rain is still pounding down, and I haven’t slept—the trash-can punch from the party last night, the fight, the champagne, the surprising conversation with Seb and seeing him injured like that—it’s taken out almost all of my energy, and I feel myself starting to sway.

Jamie is there, steadying me. I feel his chest against my back, his arms holding me up, and that’s when I realize I’m crying. I don’t even know when the tears started falling, but I’m shaking, a full-body tremble that’s part from cold and part from complete emotional overwhelm.

“Come on, Sybs,” he says softly. “We need to get you warmed up.”

He steers me back toward the hotel, through the lobby, and into the elevator bank. When it arrives, we step into the elevator together, him still supporting my body with one arm.

“Hey, Sybil, can you look at me,” he asks, wiping a tear from my cheeks with his thumb. “Are you injured? Should we get you to the hospital too?” His face is contorted with concern.

“No, no,” I manage to get out, “It’s not that, I’m okay, it’s just—” my voice chokes off with another sob.

“I know.” Jamie rubs my back. The soothing motion grounds me, so calming and so familiar, reminding me of all the times in our past when Jamie has helped me through a panic episode.

“Shh,” he whispers, “It’s okay. It was a lot, getting trapped out there in the storm, then the helicopter.

It’s scary, but you’re safe now, Sybil. You’re safe,” he says, placing a gentle kiss on top of my head.

By the time the elevator reaches my floor, my body-shaking sobs have subsided.

I’m still feeling fragile, but beneath it I can feel the faintest flicker of strength.

We walk down the hall, and Jamie helps when I fumble with my key card.

When we get inside the room, I turn, my back against the closed door, and finally look up at him, straight into his eyes.

I don’t know if I’ve ever let someone really look at me like this, up close, while I’m broken down with tears.

It’s scary to be so exposed, but I don’t look away.

Inside me, the flicker of strength grows.

“Jamie,” I tell him, my voice wavering. “You were right. When you said I was lying, holding back from you. I was. I still am,” I say.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he says, wiping more tears from my face with his fingers. “You don’t have to tell me anything right now. Just take your time and make sure you’re feeling better. It’s okay, Sybil. It’s okay. I love you.”

I glance up at him, startled, and the look on his face is just as surprised. It’s clear he didn’t mean to say it, it just slipped out.

“I—I—” I almost tell him I love him too. But instead, other words flow out of me. Words that desperately needed to find their way out, find their way to a safe place. Find their way to him.

J AMIE LISTENS, WRAPPING HIS arms around me in a huge hug, holding me steady, crying along with me through some of the details.

He knew already about my PCOS and what happened with Liam, but never realized the extent to which it still had been hanging over me—which, to be fair, I clearly didn’t realize either. And of course, he had no idea that I was pregnant in the weeks leading up to our wedding.

I tell him how I chased down Gwendolyn Green in Vegas, and how she helped me realize that what I really needed in that moment was medical attention.

I tell him how my frazzled brain latched onto that idea with a perverse, single-minded focus—deciding, against all logic, that the best thing for me to do would be to fly home to Dallas to see my regular OB.

I knew everyone was waiting for me back in Malibu, but how could I walk down the aisle before I knew if I was actually going to be okay?

No one was there when I arrived home to my parents’ house that Thursday night, of course.

They were all at the ranch, wondering where the hell I’d gone.

So I didn’t even bother to go into the house; I went straight to the old tree house in our backyard and climbed up to the little fort, collapsed beneath my now-crumbling alien photographs and homemade space mobiles, curled into a ball, and fell asleep.

I wrap up my story, accounting for every minute of my disappearance that wedding weekend, then take a deep breath and wait for Jamie’s response.

I’ve been so worried that he’d feel guilty for choosing to cancel our wedding after hearing this—or worse, that he’d be furious and hurt that I hadn’t let him in. Or devastated with a sense of loss over what could have been, grieving the unborn child in the cold accusing way Liam had.

Instead, I can feel a different emotion wafting off him. Incredulity, and… sorrow. For me.

“Sybil,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m so sorry.” He’s quiet for a minute, then he adds, “I just can’t imagine how you felt, and it kills me that you thought you had to keep it all in, deal with it yourself.”

He speaks the words with such gentleness, I feel a relief I haven’t known in a long time. The relief of a veil being lifted, of being seen and understood.

“Just know that you’re safe now. And you’re not alone.” Jamie sits me down at the desk chair and then goes into the bathroom and turns the shower on. He delivers me into the bathroom.

“You should get in there and warm up. Your body has been through a lot, and you’re still shaking,” he says quietly. “I can come back a little later to make sure you’re okay,” he adds, about to shut the door and leave me to my privacy, but I glance over my shoulder.

“Stay?” It’s all I can manage, but he nods, then gently closes the bathroom door.

T HE WARMTH OF THE shower begins to seep through my skin, and my teeth finally stop their rattling.

My tears are gentler now, mixing with the shower water.

Tears of humiliation at the stupidity of racing off in a storm, and of sadness for Seb, injured and alone in the hospital.

But mostly, they are tears of relief. I turn off the water, wrap myself in a towel, and dry the foggy mirror enough to see if my eyes are puffy.

I put on a little lotion and brush my wet hair, my arms feeling heavy—but a good tired. A cozy, cared-for kind of tired.

I crack open the bathroom door, letting out a cloud of steam.

“Hey,” I say softly into the room.

Jamie is sitting at the desk by the window, in the dim glow of a small desk lamp, reading some of the moon and fertility articles I’d printed out to read by the pool.

Beyond the parted curtains of the balcony doors, I can see the storm still raging outside, hard rain pummeling down onto the patio tiles, palm trees swaying in the gray.

I look at the clock. It’s barely past six a.m., but I feel like I’ve been awake for three straight days.

“Hi,” he says, looking up. For all his competence on the helicopter, he looks unsure of himself now. “Here.” He comes up to me and wraps a fluffy hotel robe around me.

“Thank you,” I say, hoping I don’t cry again—to see the care with which Jamie is handling first the crisis of rescuing us, and then everything I told him.

“Sybil, I—”

I hold my breath, waiting for him to say more.

But all he says is, “You’re welcome.”

He stands up and starts to walk toward the door to the hall, and I panic and grab his arm softly. Immediately he stops and turns back to me.

“So um, are you moonlighting as a member of the coast guard these days?” I ask, trying to seem more casual than I feel.

He rubs the back of his neck. “I made them take me with them.”

“Made them?”

“There may have been some shouting.” He cracks a small grin at himself. “I told Ash that you guys had taken an ATV out, and she got the rescue team on it right away.”

“I’m sorry you guys had to go through all that trouble.”

Jamie shrugs, like it’s nothing. Like saving my life is just something he does. And then it hits me. I poured my heart out to him earlier, confessed everything, but there was one thing I somehow forgot to say.

“I’m so sorry, Jamie,” I blurt out. “For… for everything. ”

Jamie hitches a breath, then swallows, but he doesn’t say anything.

So I continue. I know there’s more I need to say, to fully take accountability for what happened between us.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t ready, that I was scared, that I couldn’t open up about what I was going through.

I wanted to be perfect for you. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been like this.

I’ve always tried so hard to be sparkly and special and at the same time be exactly what my partner wants, and I was doing that with you, too, but I didn’t realize it.

I should have just been me. The real me. ”

“You were the real you, Sybil,” he says quietly. “You know I didn’t fall in love with you just for your sparkles and sunshine, right?”

I stare at him. Because no. I truly did not know that.

“I loved every part of you. I loved that I got to be the one you came home to, the one who saw you without all the party jokes and the charm that everyone loves. I got to be the one you truly let your hair down with, the one to rub your sore feet and see your bad moods and try to cheer you up. I wanted to be that person.”

I catch a sob as it rises in my throat. “And I ruined everything. Both then and now—”

Jamie interrupts before I can finish. “That’s not true.

” His focus is totally on me. His words are low, but they ring through my body like church bells.

He gives his head a little shake, like he’s laughing at himself, or me, I’m not sure which.

“I hated myself the minute I let you drive off into the night. I was pissed you lied about Seb being your boyfriend, but—”

“I know. It was so stupid. I was just embarrassed. And jealous of you and Genevieve. But it was so petty and immature—”

“No,” Jamie interrupts, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“I mean, yes, it was, kind of.” One side of his mouth quirks up into an affectionate grin.

“But that’s not why I was so mad. I was mad because I’d been killing myself all day, ever since Sebastian got here, holding myself back from you because of him.

Because I thought you were happy with someone else. ”

Holding myself back from you. The words send a shiver of electricity through me. My mouth has gone dry, and I have to lick my lips before I can continue. Jamie’s eyes follow the path of my tongue.

I’m frozen in place as he looks at me, almost pleadingly. I can see the apology, and the hurt, and the longing, all clearly etched on his handsome face. The smell of him surrounds me. The damp of his shirt clings to his shoulders and biceps and to the muscles along his back.

“I should go and let you sleep,” he says, and starts to pull his hand away.

“Don’t go,” I whisper.

For a moment, it’s silent between us, everything concentrated in the place where his fingers are touching my shoulder through the robe. I feel them twitch, and he pushes some of my still-wet hair away from my neck.

“Are you sure?”

A shiver runs through my entire body and I can barely speak, so I simply nod.

“Come here,” he says, pulling me close. Then he lifts me gently, carrying me to the bed, and lying down beside me, covering us both with the duvet. I roll onto my side, and he spoons me, putting his arms gently around me. Wrapped in the safety of him, the smell of him, I feel like I’m finally home.

I begin to relax to the quiet beating of his heart, and eventually, we both drift off to sleep.