Page 149 of Falling Overboard

If time felt sped up on the boat, it seemed to be going in slow motion in regular life. For the next two weeks, I had nothing to keep me busy, especially not compared to my yachting days. Rodney’s “team” had been in touch, and there were all kinds of bureaucratic hoops we had to jump through before we could start renovating. I did research on some construction companies that I could contact when I got the green light, looked up the best ways to import Italian flour, gave my sisters’ apartment an unnecessary but very thorough cleaning that involved Q-tips and toothbrushes.

Which gave me the free time I needed to think about Hunter. I did what Rodney had encouraged me to do, to figure out what was important and what mattered.

My sisters.

My new bakery.

And Hunter.

I had thought that maybe if I didn’t see him every day, my feelings would fade, but if anything, they had only grown stronger. Missing him was a physical pain that I had all the time. Like a giant splinter had become embedded in my skin and every time I moved or breathed I felt it, throbbing and aching. I realized that I had used the nonfraternization rule like a shield. I had justified spending time with Hunter and claimed that I wouldn’t cross the line into something deeper because of that rule. That hadn’t been the reason why, though. It had been my own fears and insecurities that had held me back. The rule had made it so that I could avoid reality.

I knew that because I’d suffered so much loss—my parents, my grandparents—it had made me desperate not to lose anyone else. It was why I had let my sisters take advantage of me for so long. It was easier to hide than it was to be up front and honest. I had told myself that I didn’t need a romantic relationship, didn’t want one, but it wasn’t true. I wanted to be loved and cared for and to do that in return for someone else.

I was just worried that I’d lost my chance.

There was a Hunter-size piece of my life missing.

I had focused so much on my own hurt, on the way that I had felt betrayed, that I didn’t stop to think things through logically. Hunter had been devoted to me for weeks. Both Georgia and Emilie had pursued him and he’d brushed them off. He’d made his intentions with me clear. He had only wanted me, and I had been so caught up with my own issues that I hadn’t been able to see that.

He wouldn’t have cheated on me. I knew that, too. I fully believed that Emilie kissed him and he had told her to stop and that he was going to report her to the captain.

I also hadn’t considered how Hunter might have been hurt by my actions. By me jumping to a terrible conclusion and not believing him. That had been so wrong of me.

Maybe he wouldn’t be able to forgive me. Maybe I had hurt him too badly for us to move past this. That thought terrified me, too.

I talked to the twins about him constantly. They let me work through everything and examine it from every angle, but their conclusions were always the same.

That Hunter and I were in love and I’d been a complete fool to push him away.

Lily said, “You’ve grown a lot and I think Hunter played a part in that. Loving him and being loved by him, it made you change. It gave you a confidence and a strength I haven’t seen before.”

That was also true. My mind still went to extremes and envisioned the worst possible outcome, but it was better than it had been a month ago. I handled things more easily than I had in the past.

Although I didn’t think that I was handling this Hunter thing particularly well.

The more I thought about what had happened with my firing, the worse I felt. While I didn’t regret coming home to check on Lily, I should have flown back to Portofino and talked things out with him.

“What if he’s moved on?” I asked. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I doubt that,” Rose countered.

“He’s not out of your mind,” Lily pointed out.

“Maybe he doesn’t feel about me the way I feel about him.”

“Again, I doubt it,” Rose said. “The fact that he’s giving you the space you asked for? He loves you.”

“You two found something special and you should hold on to it with both hands as tightly as you can. You should call him.”

They were right. Or I desperately wanted them to be right. I did worry that he’d forgotten about me. Georgia texted me here and there but I knew how busy she was. She never said a single word about Hunter. I could have called her and asked if he had replaced me with someone new. The captain would have made her chief stew and brought on a new junior stew. Which meant the new girl would share a cabin with him.

What if he had moved on?

I couldn’t bear for that to be true. Which I also took as a good sign about my true feelings.

I realized that I had made a huge mistake and needed to rectify it. I had to talk to him. I texted and said:

Can we talk?

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