Page 61 of Nothing Breaks Like A Heart

"I thought I was going to die, too. The yacht was so far away, and I was alone in the middle of the ocean. But when I looked up at the sky, I saw my mom. She kept talking to me. She kept telling me to fight."

"I'm glad her spirit was with you."

"Me, too. I don't know if I could have held on without her there encouraging me."

"I never should have left you alone at the table. I had no idea you were feeling that bad. You should have said something before I went up to the bridge."

"I wasn't feeling that bad then. It got worse and worse. I felt like I was going to throw up, so I went downstairs to find a restroom."

"Why didn't you use the one off the main salon? Why go downstairs?"

"Allison told me the nearest restroom was downstairs."

His gaze darkened. "Allison told you to go downstairs? Why were you talking to her?"

"Because she came and sat next to me after you left the table."

He frowned. "What did she say to you?"

"I don't know. I still feel disoriented, Andrew." I did remember some of my conversation with Allison, but I didn't want to get into it until I had more time to think about what she'd said. And I was also so damned tired. "Can we talk about it later?"

"Of course."

"I need to close my eyes for a minute." As I shut out his handsome face, I wanted to believe that Andrew was the man I'd fallen in love with, the best man I'd ever met. I didn't want to think about all the doubts, the lies of omission, the extra phone, Ethan's warning words, or Allison's calculating smile.

But as I tried to rest, I kept hearing voices in my head, and there was a smell.Perfume. Had Allison been downstairs, too?Or had she been behind me on the swim platform? "Oh, my God," I murmured as my eyes flew open.

"What?" he asked. "Did you remember something, Lauren?"

I looked into his blue eyes, wanting to tell him everything, but then I remembered his secret phone, the message from someone named Al, the way Allison had implied there was so much about Andrew I didn't know.

I licked my lips. I had to answer his question. I had to tell him something. "There was someone behind me on the swim platform, and I think I smelled perfume, maybe the same kind of perfume that Allison wears. Then I felt a hard shove." I shuddered with the memory of flying off the platform and into the freezing water. "I didn't fall in the water, Andrew. Someone pushed me. And I think I know who it was."

He met my gaze and shook his head. "Allison wouldn't do that."

"Maybe you don't know her as well as you think you do."

"She wouldn't try to hurt you, Lauren. She wouldn't do that to you or to me." He paused. "Are you sure you didn't fall? You said you were woozy and out of it. How do you even know if you actually smelled anything?"

He wasn't completely wrong. I had felt disoriented and confused.

"Is it possible you stumbled and fell in?" he asked. "That seems a more likely scenario than someone pushing you into the sea during an elegant lunch cruise."

The way he said it made my doubts seem far less believable, and I could see he wanted to believe that the medication had made me fall into the water. I kind of wanted to believe that, too. Because the idea of someone deliberately trying to hurt me was terrifying.

But when I closed my eyes, I could feel the push from behind, and I knew with a terrible certainty that there was no way I had just fallen into the ocean.

ChapterFifteen

When we arrived back on the island, the resort’s private car was waiting to take Andrew and me directly to the island medical center, which was a modest, one-story building nestled near the edge of town. Andrew helped me inside because I was still a bit unstable on my feet.

Inside, the waiting room was bright but clinical, with chairs arranged neatly along pale- yellow walls adorned with posters about sun safety and hydration. The facility was clearly designed for minor emergencies and routine care.

There was no one waiting, so after checking in with the receptionist, a nurse took me into a nearby exam room. The doctor arrived a few moments later—a woman in her forties with kind eyes and a reassuring smile, who introduced herself as Dr. Gordon. She gave me a thorough checkup as well as IV fluids to combat any dehydration, warm blankets to raise my body temperature, and then told me I’d be monitored for the next two hours to ensure I didn’t develop secondary symptoms like hypothermia-related shock or fluid in my lungs.

At my look of concern, she quickly assured me it was unlikely any more problems would occur, but she wanted to be careful.

After she left, Andrew sat down in a chair next to the bed and took my hand in his. "Well, this is not the honeymoon I thought we'd have," he said lightly. "But we'll have quite a story to tell our kids and grandkids one day."

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