In the morning I awake to find Aeron already showered and getting dressed. I had hoped he would still be in bed with me. I had hoped he would want to make love. Suddenly shy of my nakedness, I pull the sheet up to cover myself.
I offer him a tremulous smile.
He does not return it. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”
I blush. “I didn’t find the right moment to mention it.”
“I would have liked to have known that.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sighs. “Sometimes I think you like secrets and games. Was last night a game?
I give him a hurt look. I have never done anything to make him believe this. “Of course not!”
“Really?” he says looking doubtful. “How did you get onto the island anyway?”
I glance away. “A friend helped me out.”
“What friend?”
“Just a friend. Nobody you know.”
When I look up at him, his jaw is clenched. “Erm… Did you have any plans for today?”
“I’m going to be busy,” he says shortly.
I fiddle with the sheet. “I hoped maybe we could take a walk along the beach and… talk?”
“No,” he says, almost harshly. He comes to stand beside the bed and look down at me, his face stiff and unreadable. “This was just sex, right? So let’s keep it that way.”
“I thought—“
“Don’t,” he says. “You can stay on the island until the end of the week with your boyfriend if you want. But this won’t happen again.”
“He’s not my boyfriend! I only came here with him to see you.”
“I guess you’re an expert now at getting what you want from men,” he says coldly.
“No,” I cry out, “It’s not like that!”
He shrugs as if he doesn’t care. “Whatever. See you around.”
And then he leaves me alone, clicking the door shut with an awful finality.
In a daze I shower and dress. I sneak back to my room, hoping no one will see me in what is clearly an evening dress. The walk of shame is every bit as awful as I could have imagined. I keep my head down, not wanting to see anyone, afraid they’ll see my humiliation and heartbreak.
My mind is in too much turmoil to go down to the breakfast buffet. I can’t bear to see anyone. By midday my head is aching, and I am famished. The schedule for the week shows that today’s lunch is a barbecue near the beach, but I have no courage or heart to go down to eat.
A knock on my door makes me leap out of bed, my heart pounding. Has Aeron changed his mind? I straighten my hair quickly, before opening the door.
It is not him.
I try to hide my disappointment from the girl waiting expectantly outside my door. It is one of Robb’s friends. Her name is Lynnae.
“We’re heading down to the beach,” she says cheerfully. “Are you coming?”
“I’m not hungry,” I say, but a loud treacherous growl emerges from my stomach.
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. And anyway, you’re making Robb look bad.”
“Look bad?”
“Well duh, after yesterday?”
At my blank look, she rolls her eyes.
“In the water?” she says. “Anyone would think Robb tried to drown you or something by the way Tyler acted.”
Despite my protests, she tucks her arm through mine, practically dragging me with her.
Lunch is being served at a canopied structure beside the beach. Little tables are arranged prettily around beneath the shade of the canopy, but some people are eating picnic-style on blankets on the sand. Robb and his friends are sprawled out on several blankets. To my relief there is no sign of Aeron or Tyler anywhere.
Robb is oddly courteous and keeps his distance. Lynnae sits next to me and, with an impish grin, she grills me about Tyler. It soon becomes clear that more than a few of them saw me with him in the water. They seem to think there was nothing unusual in our public display of intimacy, which helps me feel only slightly less mortified.
“So, you already knew Tyler then?” Lynnae asks. “You’re a dark horse. Did he tell you anything about the plans?”
“What plans?”
“The big plan they’re keeping hush-hush, duh! The reason why we are all here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sighs, as if disappointed in me. “Are you going to see him again?”
“Tyler?”
“Who else?” Her eyes narrow.
I shrug, and avoid giving an answer. Aeron and Tyler had always been so guarded about their privacy, and now I can see why.
“You lucky thing. He is so hot. And Aeron is so dreamy!” She raises an eyebrow at me. “I hear they sometimes share their girls…”
I shoot her a startled look.
She giggles. “You humans. So easily scandalized. Maybe they’ll want to share you too. You’d better be careful though. Cilla doesn’t like to share.”
“Who?”
“Cilla. Tyler’s girlfriend.”
“What?” My voice comes out faint.
She looks satisfied with my reaction. “So you are interested in him. You want to be careful. I heard she did something pretty nasty to the last girl he dated.”
“Tyler has a girlfriend?” I murmur stupidly, my brain still trying to catch up. My eyes flit around the beach. “Is she here?”
“She’s always here. Look over there.” She jerks her head towards the far end of the canopied structure, where a group of people are dining at a large table. They are being served attentively by numerous servants.
A stunning willowy, blond girl is sitting at the center of the table. It is the girl who taunted me on the beach yesterday. My fists clench at the memory.
She can’t be Tyler’s girlfriend. She can’t.
Tyler is not there. Cilla is talking to a very handsome dark-haired man in his mid-thirties. Something about him reminds me of Aeron.
“Who is that man?”
“Geoffre Balthazar,” Lynnae says, rolling her eyes at my ignorance. “Our alpha.”
“But he’s so young.”
“Totally hot, isn’t he?” she says proudly. “He’s older than he looks.”
Stupid of me not to have guessed he is the alpha. The attention of every person at his table is on him.
Watching Tyler’s beautiful girlfriend confidently talk to the alpha, Aeron’s uncle, makes me feel horribly insignificant. She is the sort of girl that Aeron is no doubt supposed to take for his mate. And I am a nobody intruding into their lives.
As if sensing my gaze, both of them suddenly look directly at me. The alpha’s eyes are clear blue – so like Aeron’s. As I look into them, an icy shiver runs through me, and I quickly look away.
My appetite is gone. I hastily get up from the blanket. Muttering an excuse about not feeling well, I hurry back to my room, feeling wretched all the way.
Once I am back in my room my headache feels worse. I lie in my bed to take a nap, hoping it will clear my head and help me think of what to say to Aeron. I have to find him at dinner tonight. The words we said to each other earlier keep going through my head. I can’t bear for him to think so badly of me.
I toss and turn, and when I drop off I dream of Tyler in the water. But it is not me with him, it is Cilla. I awake with my fists clenched. How could he touch me like that when he is seeing somebody else? This thought makes me feel like a hypocrite. Who am I to judge? Haven’t I been obsessing about three men ever since I’ve been here?
This rationale does not make me feel better.
It is still a few hours until dinner. I bathe and apply some make-up carefully. My anger has flicked a switched in my mood. I want to look beautiful tonight. I want Aeron to want me. I admit I want Tyler to be jealous. Cilla will no doubt look stunning, and I have to at least try to compete.
I lay out all of the dresses that Dane bought for me on the bed. I push the memory of how he had touched me in the fitting room out of my mind. I meant nothing to him. I need to focus my energies on Aeron.
I check the guestbook again. Dinner tonight will be formal. The pale pink floor-length ball gown that Dane bought for me would work well. But my eye keeps landing on the shimmering electric-blue mini-dress.
I put on the matching blue panties and the half-cup balcony bra. It fastens at the front with a ribbon. The cups barely cover my nipples, making me feel racy. Good. I need to feel desirable. I need the confidence.
After slipping into the dress, I have an hour to wait. I still don’t know what I am going to say to Aeron. And I am worried about bumping into his uncle. What if Geoffre knows that I had been making out with Tyler in the water? What must he think of me? Certainly he won’t think I am the right sort of girl for Aeron.
My head is whirling and there are already butterflies of anxiety in my stomach. I need to calm myself. I decide a walk would clear my head. My chances of not bumping into anyone should be good, since most people are likely to be at the pre-dinner cocktails. I slip out of my room, and find myself heading towards the exhibition that Tyler had taken me to yesterday.
I find the gallery empty but for a servant, who quietly leaves the moment I arrive. In the middle of the room, a large portrait of Aeron and his uncle draws my attention. In it Aeron is young and looks so carefree. Their identical smiles mesmerize me. The alpha’s arm is flung around Aeron’s shoulders. They look happy.
“You’re in love with my nephew,” says a quiet deep voice right in my ear.
I whirl around, and am shocked to find Aeron’s uncle standing right behind me. I did not hear him arrive.
Up close he is so tall, and the aura of quiet power coming off him overwhelms me. The sight of him makes me flush, and my eyes go wide.
Something about the way he is standing makes it clear that he has been here for some minutes now. The look in his eyes shakes me.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp, hastily backing away as if I had been caught committing a crime.
He reaches out lightning fast to catch my arm.
“No, don’t go,” he says quietly. “I wanted to make your acquaintance.”
His fist is fastened around my wrist like a steel manacle. His grip is too tight. I think for a moment he is going to let go now that I’ve come to a stop, but instead he pulls me nearer.
“You’re hurting me,” I say in a shrill voice, feeling reduced to an animal that has been caught in the grip of a predator.
When I tug, his hold tightens, bruising my flesh. At my gasp of pain, he suddenly lets go.
“My apologies. Sometimes we werewolves forget our own strength.”
I rub my sore wrist, and murmur, “It’s okay,” even though I am still trembling.
“You’re the human who has enticed my nephew and foster son,” he says.
Foster son?
His face is expressionless, but his eyes seemed to note my surprise. They turn to the painting that I had been looking at.
“I took Tyler in when he was orphaned,” he says. “But it would have been tasteless to put him in this portrait. His father killed my brother. Did you know?”
I nod. I am incapable of speaking. The urge to run away from him is so strong it is almost overwhelming. It makes me feel stupid. So he’s an alpha werewolf, but that doesn’t mean I should fear him. I know all this, and yet I want to flee.
“His mother committed suicide afterwards, for she could not bear the shame.”
I give a single cry of shocked pain, and then shut my mouth, not wanting to show emotion in front of this man. I had never known this about Tyler’s mother. Tyler never spoke of his parents.
Geoffre continues. “Love is a strange thing. Tyler’s father murdered Aeron’s. The boys should not love each other and yet they do. Better than two brothers even. It is so difficult to control who loves who, and when, and why.”
His voice is dispassionate. For a moment he is quiet, seeming to give his observation some thought.
Then his icy eyes turn back to me, and I start trembling. I am ashamed of my reaction but I can’t seem to control it. It is like he is seeing right into me, stripping my secrets bare. He picks up my wrist, and squeezes it between his finger and thumb almost experimentally. I try not to flinch.
“Just like a pray animal,” he says, looking mildly disgusted. “I can smell your fear. Did you know that?”
“P-please don’t,” I whisper.
“You’re pretty enough, I suppose. I can almost see why they like you. But it’s laughable when a creature like you seeks power.”
“P-power? I’m not—“
“Do not speak when your betters are speaking to you. We Balthazars have a higher duty of care than a mere human can imagine. Do you understand?”
Suddenly he lets me go.
He says mildly, “I hope the boys told you your place? You may pleasure my nephew, but seek nothing more. I will allow you to stay. But do not give me cause to seek you out again.”
He leaves the gallery as soundlessly as he came. My shaking knees give way, and I fall to the floor.
