Page 66 of Fated

“I’m sorry I ever asked you to do it.”

It was me who told him to pose for the paparazzi every chance he got. Weeks after Dad died, I saw a newspaper article featuring Daniel and his friends on a yacht. The picture was from before Dad’s funeral. It was a piece decrying the sorry state of spoiled youth. The column took up an entire page, and Daniel was standing on the yacht in a pair of shorts and a collared shirt, his watch glinting in the sun. He was credited, “Daniel Abry, of Abry Watch Co.” I thrust the paper at him and said, “This. This is how we save Abry.”

From there on out he made himself the center of attention—premieres, galas, races. Every photograph-worthy event, Daniel was there. The cameras love him, and he loves giving the cameras a view of our watches.

But then Italy happened, and Daniel hasn’t been the same since.

“Don’t be sorry, Fi,” he says, taking in my expression. “I may be your little brother, but I’m an adult. I made my choice.”

“At what cost?”

He smiles then and tugs me close under his arm. “Come on. I like sailing. I like diving in submarines and sending rockets up to space. I like dating beautiful women. It’s no hardship.”

I shrug out from under his arm and round on him. “Don’t you charm me, Daniel Abry. I want you to be happy too. Someone asked me recently, are you even alive if you’re not living?—”

“Hey. I’m alive. I’m living.”

“But you won’t always be,” I say, thinking about McCormick, Amy, and the rest of the people in my dreams. Someday Daniel and I will be just a dream too. We’ll leave behind the people we loved and they’ll only have the memories of us.

“But that’s a long time away,” he says, his voice light.

I wrap my arms around my middle and stare out over the parking lot toward the sloping hills and the mountains shrouded in dusk. The bright yellow field of flax has dimmed to a shadowed bronze.

“Fi?”

I nod. “You’re right. I guess I’m just worried about you.”

“Worry about yourself. I predict that in six months’ time you’re going to be marooned on a tropical island with no phone and no internet. I’ll have won our bet, and you’ll be stuck reading a paperback on the beach. Your worst nightmare.”

I smile at him, wondering how after only a few days my worst nightmare has become my fondest dream. “Right. Well. I’d better get home then. Mila asked for pasta, and Annemarie has prawns and white sauce on the stove.”

“Mmm ...” Daniel’s eyes lose focus as he contemplates Annemarie’s famous pasta. “Maybe I will cancel my date.”

I shove him with a laugh. “Go on. You never know, maybe she’s the one.”

He salutes me then and steps into the parking lot, heading toward the BMW at the north entrance. Before he’s out of earshot, he tosses over his shoulder, “Stop laughing, Fi! You’ll be on that tropical island in no time! And then who’ll be laughing?”

I grin after him.

Who indeed?

24

I fall asleep expectingto wake in McCormick’s arms, snuggled under the piney boughs of the casuarina tree. I imagine the warmth of his chest, his solid heartbeat, and the golden afternoon light filtering through the pine needles as he tells me his story.

Instead I stumble as I land back on the island, tripping over myself on a dark, cold-sanded beach. I catch myself and shake off the disorientation.

My skin is cold and clammy, the air is humid and tropical-wet, and a heavy, thundering weight presses down on me. The beach is pitch-dark. Indigo-black clouds sweep across the sky and hide the crescent moon. Down the sand, the battery-powered light of a half-dozen torches slices the sky. The thin streams of light slice up then down, then out across the black water. Dark figures scan the beach, searching for something—or someone.

They’re shouting—a name—but the roar of the waves drowns their voices. The ocean is choppy and agitated and a wave smacks the sand and then rolls over my calves, slapping me with salty water. I stumble again and someone reaches out and steadies me.

“Are you all right?”

“Ye—”

I stop.

It’s Robert. He grips my forearm, keeping me upright as the wave is yanked back toward the ocean. The salty sea air punches at me as I peer up at him. His fingers are tight and he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me out of the surf.

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