Page 20 of Fated

I’m sure Mila will run in soon, jump on my bed, beg for waffles and chocolate sauce and a trip to the beach with her uncle. It’s a Saturday after all.

Outside the querulous call of a gull cuts through the morning quiet.

If Mila hears that we’ll definitely be headed to the beach.

I frown into my pillow. Usually, the thick stone walls of the chateau dampen any birdcall. Even more, there’s the sound of waves, crashing, rolling. A muffled roar that recedes with a foamy hiss.

That’s not the sound of Geneva’s placid lake.

That’s the sound of an ocean rushing and receding.

My skin prickles, goose bumps rising.

I drag in a breath. The scent of lavender is missing, replaced by a salty, damp-air smell, mixed with ... man?

Definitely man.

My bed always smells like clean laundered sheets, crisp fresh air and lavender. This pillow? This bed? It smells like hot nights, sweat, and naked, salty skin.

My bed is soft, deeply cushioned, with a feather mattress topper. This bed is firm, with worn sheets that feel like an old T-shirt washed too many times.

Outside the gull calls again, joined by the shrill whistling sounds of birds flying over.

And that’s when the hair on the back of my neck rises, my heart kicks around my chest, and I decide I’m not in my bed.

And I’m not in Geneva.

Slowly, I open my eyes and lift the pillow.

Sunlight floods over me, partially blinding me with its brightness. I’ve not seen sun this bright since I was sailing the Greek isles with my dad years ago. It’s the sort of bright, direct light that’s only found reflecting off jewellike seas and white sand beaches.

Sunspots dance in my vision and then clear away, unveiling a bedroom I’ve never seen.

It’s tiny. Barely large enough to fit the bed. There’s perhaps a half-meter of space between the wall and the bed, and I’m fairly certain the door hits the mattress when opened.

The walls are white and scuffed. They reflect the bright light from the room’s window—a three-foot-wide, single-paned window lined by unfinished wood. Its view is a bright cerulean blue sky, no clouds, no trees, nothing to tell me where I am.

There’s a plastic clothesline hanging from the wall at the foot of the bed. Dresses, T-shirts, shorts. It’s loaded with women’s clothing that’s worn and faded. The dresses are beachy, flowy, and remind me of something my mum might wear if she were staying at a beach commune.

On the other half of the plastic clotheslines, there are men’s clothes. Light colored T-shirts, jeans, cargo shorts, a few wrinkled button-down shirts worn at the seams, a pair of khakis.

There isn’t much else in the bedroom. A single bulb with a pull chain hanging from the ceiling. A box fan in the window, spinning slowly, emitting a low hum. A driftwood-framed wedding photograph hanging on the far wall.

It’s of a woman in a mermaid-style wedding dress, short, strawberry-blonde hair, pale skin, pale blue eyes. She grins triumphantly at the camera—a bride at the pinnacle of happiness. She’s standing next to a young man. He’s in a gray suit, tall and solid, with the type of muscled build that would lead people to assume he’s a star footballer. He’s black-haired, brown-eyed, bronze-skinned, square-jawed, and classically handsome in a carefree “I’ll be your summer fling and you’ll never forget me” sort of way.

They’re standing on a long stretch of beach, the white sand glistening, the surf running over the train of the woman’s wedding dress. I’d be surprised if either of them was older than twenty.

The wedding ... it must have taken place at least a decade ago.

Because the man?

That wide-shouldered, square-jawed, dark brown-eyed man?

He’s in bed next to me.

Except he’s not twenty, he’s my age. Early thirties. His face has squared off even more. His jaw is hard, dark morning stubble lining his sun-weathered face. His messy hair dips over his forehead and he regards me with a sleepy smile.

The sun glides over his skin, carving lines across the hard plane of his shoulders and down his chest. There’s a dusting of hair. Tattoos covering his biceps and pectoral muscles, wrapping around his abdomen. What are they of? I don’t know. I don’t look.

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