Page 9 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain

T HE GUY MANNING THE SNORKEL SHACK IS STRAIGHT OUT OF A Q UIKSILVER surfing catalog. He’s all bronzed skin and windswept dark brown hair, and he looks like he’s about to lock the doors of the shed behind him.

“Sorry I’m late! Is there still room on the excursion?”

He returns my smile. “No worries. We were about to pull anchor, but Dani called down to let me know you were coming. I’m Mason, and I’ll be taking you out.”

“Dinner and dancing?” I say, but Mason just wrinkles his brow, clearly not picking up on my dumb joke. “Sorry, never mind. Um, so do I need equipment of some kind?”

I accept an armful of flippers and goggles from Mason and make my way toward the boat, a small, sleek catamaran bobbing in the low surf.

Mason hops onto the boat deck after me, and I whip off the silk dress and roll it into a ball in my bag, then put on the gear and take the bench seat next to two older men holding hands.

Across from us is a mom with her two teenage daughters.

I smile at them, wondering what it’s like to actually get along with your mom at that age.

I have a good relationship with my parents now, but as a teen, I was a nightmare, a square peg in a round hole.

I couldn’t do anything right in their eyes, and we all knew it.

Maybe if I’d had a sister, like these girls, it would have been better.

Someone to throw them off the scent of disaster.

Piling my snorkeling gear in front of me, I give the family a friendly wave, trying to put myself back into vacation mode. Who knows, maybe we’ll spot some dolphins on this excursion.

“Okay, folks! Who’s ready to see some amazing sea life?” There’s a cheer from the other five or so people on board. Mason bends to untie the ropes that are keeping us tethered to the dock.

“I know I am!” a woman’s voice—throaty, but in a sexy way, not a three-packs-a-day way—calls out.

I whip around to see Genevieve, now dressed in a chic white one-piece with tasteful cutouts.

A lot more snorkel-appropriate than my current get-up.

Beside her, Jamie stands there on the catamaran, looking completely at ease with a childhood’s worth of sailing lessons, bobbing easily with the waves like he owns the freakin’ ocean.

That is, until he sees me. Jamie’s mouth drops open as he stares.

They must have been on the bow of the boat when I came on board, hidden by the central mast. Jamie closes his mouth, then opens it again, like he wants to say something but has no idea what.

I’d make a crack about him looking like one of the fish we’re about to see, but I feel like I’m having a slow-motion heart attack.

There’s a roar and a lurch as Mason ignites the engine.

Jamie looks back toward the dock, but we’re already sailing into deeper waters, rapidly moving away from the shore, away from the dock, and, apparently, away from all hope of me escaping Jamie and Genevieve on this trip.

“Hold on tight, folks.”

Mason pulls back on the throttle, and we cruise through the glistening aqua water.

Genevieve motions toward the only available seats. The ones directly across from me. She and Jamie sit down, and Genevieve, who either still has no idea who I am or is the most well-adjusted woman on the planet, shoots me a genuine smile.

The crashing of the waves is loud in my ears, and I move to cross my legs without remembering that I have flippers on both my feet. I manage to knock over my bag and send my sunscreen, phone, wallet, discarded sandals, crumpled-up dress, and e-reader spilling out onto the deck. Oh god.

I lean forward to try to stuff everything back into my tote bag, but I’m once again tripped up by my own flippers. My knee hits the deck with a sharp crack that has me wincing.

Jamie bends over to help, and I jerk back before our hands can touch. “Thanks,” I say. It comes out more breathlessly than I mean it to as I scramble back to my seat, clutching my tote bag to my chest.

Just think about dolphins, think about dolphins.

The boat is moving with speed now, the coastline streaming past, a blur of lush greens and swaying palms. I grip the side of the boat with one hand while my other crushes my hat to my head to keep it from flying overboard.

Mason points out a narrow spit of land sticking out into the ocean. “Just on the other side of that headland is a little cove. That’s where we’re headed,” he calls out over the rushing wind.

My stomach lurches, and not just because the boat is now bobbing over ocean waves as Mason drives us farther out to sea.

Jamie is back in his seat beside Genevieve, and I chance another look at them.

They look good together. Like tall, all-American, sun-kissed Ralph Lauren models.

Her dark hair is cut in a bob that I could never pull off.

And what exactly are they doing having a “business meeting” on a snorkel boat?

Either Genevieve has a sixth sense and can tell I’m thinking about her, or I haven’t been subtle enough with my glances, because she looks up at me and smiles. “Did your boyfriend not want to go snorkeling?”

Jamie’s back straightens, and his hand curls into a fist, but his eyes never leave the horizon.

“Oh.” I wince and start digging through my bag to give myself a minute to think. “He got held up with some work stuff,” I say casually as my hand closes around a bottle of sunscreen.

I chance a glance at Jamie, and he seems to have relaxed a bit. “Work stuff?” he asks. The first words he’s said to me since I got on the boat.

“Yes, work stuff.” I make myself as busy as possible rubbing sunblock onto my legs, even though this is now a very thick second coating.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I had to drag this one away from his spreadsheets.” Genevieve rests a hand on Jamie’s arm, and the casual intimacy of it punches through my chest like a harpoon. “So, what does your boyfriend do?”

I freeze, my mind drawing a complete blank. What would be an impressive job for a fake boyfriend to have?

“He’s, well… a, um, an, ah…” I let my eyes drift around the boat, frantically looking for inspiration. All I can think is boat, fish, betrayal, maybe dolphins? “A marine biologist!”

Genevieve lifts her eyebrows. “Wow. That’s… such an interesting vocation.”

I nod vigorously. “Yeah. There’s a species of, ah, squid out here that has him really fascinated.” Good lord. This fictional boyfriend is sounding less and less appealing by the second.

“Oh,” Genevieve says pleasantly, though a slight crease has formed between her brows. “I’m surprised he wouldn’t have wanted to come on the snorkel boat then…”

I want to slap my forehead for my stupidity. Duh, Sybil.

“Oh, well, he—”

“Oh, silly me,” Genevieve says with a sheepish smile, before I can come up with an explanation. “I bet that species hangs out in much deeper waters, right?”

“Exactly!” I’m grateful to Genevieve’s undersea knowledge for saving me from my own dumb lie. Even though it just highlights how brilliant she obviously is. Smart and helpful. Just great.

“Hey, Gen, let’s go talk to Mason,” Jamie says abruptly. “I want to ask him about the parasailing excursion they offer.”

I’m so shocked, I can’t stop the words—or the accusatory tone—from spilling out of my mouth. “ You want to go parasailing?”

“Maybe.” Jamie folds his arms across his chest.

“Since when?”

He shrugs. “A lot can change in a year.” He turns to Genevieve again. “You coming?”

Genevieve darts a glance between the two of us, then smiles a little awkwardly and gets up to follow Jamie, offering me a little wave as she goes.

I stalk over to the edge of the boat (carefully, so as not to trip over the flippers again) and lean my forearms lightly on the wire railing.

My temples are pounding, and there’s a twisting in my gut.

I try to focus my gaze on the horizon to settle my stomach.

I can’t get over the fact that Jamie apparently parasails now.

My eyes drift toward the bow of the boat where Jamie and Genevieve are chatting with Mason.

Jamie has his arm casually slung around Genevieve’s shoulders.

There’s that lurch in my gut again. But it’s not seasickness, I realize.

It’s jealousy .

I sigh and close my eyes. The breeze lifts my hair, and the sun warms my face.

I try to anchor myself in the here and now, like Gwendolyn taught me.

To let the feeling wash over me without letting it consume me.

After a few minutes, I open my eyes and pull out my phone, snapping a few pictures to use on a future post about Flowies’s upcoming line of period-safe swimwear.

See, everything’s fine. You can handle this.

But my moment of Zen is interrupted by a voice, raised over the roar of the motor.

“So not to be weird, but—she’s your ex, right?”

It’s Genevieve. I glance up to see that she and Jamie are sitting on the stairs to the flybridge. From where I’m standing on the deck below them, they can’t see me—but I can hear every word they’re saying.

“Yeah, we were… we were engaged.”

“Oh.”

There’s a pause. The boat begins to slow.

We’ve reached the little cove, surrounded by a crescent-shaped beach.

When we’re less than half a mile offshore, Mason drops the anchor and calls out for everyone to gather around for a lesson on how to use the snorkeling equipment.

Genevieve and Jamie begin to make their way down the stairs.

Without the motor running, I can hear Genevieve clearly when she says softly, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out. She seems nice.”

“Everyone loves Sybil.” Jamie’s voice is flat. “But I dodged a bullet on that one, trust me.”

My stomach drops to my knees.

Their flip-flops thwack down each step, in time with the hammering of my heart.

Shit. I can’t be here. Can’t see the look on Jamie’s face when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. I don’t know if I’m going to cry or scream at him or keel over and die from embarrassment. But I’m not sticking around to find out.

I make my way toward the stern where the group is gathered in a circle watching Mason explain how to use our snorkel for breathing and the best way to swim with the flippers. I get the basics, but I’m barely listening, my body humming with anxious energy.

A memory sparks. It was three days before our wedding, and my nerves were frazzled, but my spirits were high—until I went to drop off welcome bags at the hotel reception area and overheard Amelia, Jamie’s older sister, talking to Jamie in a hushed voice.

They were inside his suite, but the door had been left open.

When I heard my name uttered, I did the obvious, normal thing and ducked to the side of the entrance, trying to hear.

“Are you really sure she’s marriage material?

” Amelia asked her brother. “Can you seriously see this woman as the mother of your children someday?”

I froze on the pathway outside Jamie’s hotel suite, the monogrammed tote bags spilling from my arms as I pressed a hand to my stomach.

As if my small, manicured hand was enough to keep my soft insides safe from the dagger of Amelia’s words.

I lingered long enough to hear Jamie mumble something in reply—it sounded a lot like no , or I don’t know , but I wasn’t quite close enough to make it out over the roaring in my ears.

I’d always known that Jamie’s family weren’t my biggest fans.

It was clear the Kauffmans found me a bit cringeworthy as a match for their brilliant, handsome, successful, highly-accomplished Jamie—how could they not?

Even I thought it!—but I truly hadn’t realized the depth of their disdain, their distrust of his judgment in choosing me.

Now, on the boat deck, Mason starts gesturing out to the shoreline, describing some hiking path that leads from the cove beach back to the resort’s main beach on the other side of the headland, when suddenly from behind me, there’s a familiar scent.

Cardamom and sandalwood carried on the breeze.

I’d recognize the smell of Jamie anywhere, and despite the overwhelming surges of mortification and anger spreading through me, a spark of desire makes its way into my gut.

Maybe there are some things you just can’t shake, no matter how much “evolving” you do.

Okay, that’s it. Gotta go.

Without waiting for the okay from Mason, I swipe my goggles from the seat and jump straight over the side of the boat into the ocean.