Page 58 of Filthy Rich Daddies
After I help wash the dishes, we move to the back porch. The air is cooler now. The mangrove inlet reflects gunmetal clouds lit orange at the edges by sunset. Mosquitoes swirl under the porch lamp, and James lights a coil.
The conversation turns lighter, and I’m still unsure if they want the grant money. James appears more open to it than Cindy, and I get the impression she’s in control of these things. But they’re both polite and friendly, and the night is beautiful.
The generator thumps again. The porch light flickers. Rain begins—slow drops the size of quarters that burst on the railings and leave soundless craters in the dust. I think of the pools back at the mansion and how Thalassa avoids them.
For her, water means memory, and memory can drown you.
I drive back to my motel—three rooms deep, rusted key hook, a window unit that coughs cold air. It was the best I could do on such short notice. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
The truth is, I wanted to see Puerto Rico from Thalassa’s viewpoint, not a billionaire’s who can afford anything he wants.
I sit on the bedspread and pull the shell fragment from my breast pocket. The lavender is deeper under the bedside lamp, almost bruise purple. I turn it over. The inside is pearl white, smooth except for a curl of calcium at the hinge.
I imagine handing it to her. Will she smile? Will she cry? Will she be angry at me for what I’ve done?Maybeis the only answer I can conjure.
The ceiling fan blades beat out of balance. I lie back. The shell pools warmth in my palm. When I close my eyes, heat lightning flashes behind the lids. I remember the hurricane I watched on the news, safely inland, while Serena coughed out the last of her breath in a hospital bed. Storms everywhere.
I think love is a thing that rebuilds, if you let it. My mind drifts to the memories of those days with Serena in the hospital. How much I loved her. How falling for Thalassa shouldn’t feel like betrayal, even if it does in small ways. Sleep takes me like an undertow.
I wake before dawn. The air smells of wet dust and coffee drifting from somewhere beyond the parking lot. Dew beads on cars like sweat. I take a rideshare to the airport, watching the sea glitter in early morning light, a thin band of hammered silver.
On the plane, the seat belt buckle clicks. The engine spools. I reach into my pocket and curl my fingers around the shell shard. It feels lighter now, as if hope can affect mass.
The plane lifts. Through the window, Puerto?Rico shrinks to a pattern of green ridges and blue bays. Her home, once upon a time, when she was a princess of the sea. I hope she gets her fairy-tale ending.
23
DEAN
The house isquiet at this hour, save for the gentle hum of the espresso machine winding down in the kitchen and the far-off sound of sprinklers rotating over hedges we planted last spring. I take my coffee out onto the side terrace, away from the pools. The morning air is cooler than usual—crisp, light, a break from the sticky spring buildup we’ve been enduring all week.
From here, I can hear the water, but I can’t see it. That’s intentional.
The lazy river winds around the estate like a silk ribbon—beautiful, indulgent, and impossible to ignore. Two of the pools connect directly to it, and it flows along the perimeter in an artificial loop that was, at one point, supposed to represent luxury.
Now, it just makes Thalassa flinch.
She hasn’t moved in—not officially, anyway—but she’s been here more nights than not. Her things are still in her dorm, but her presence is all over this place. Her mug is in the dishwasher.Her scent is on my pillows. Her laugh lives in the corners of this house.
I find her everywhere.
She has the staff completely smitten, which is saying something. Particularly Mrs. Culpepper, who hasn’t liked a single person we’ve ever dated or hired or even introduced. But Thalassa walks into the kitchen, barefoot and bleary-eyed, and that woman lights up like the sun rose just for her. Last night I caught Culpepper setting aside the good tea set—porcelain, with the gold rim—for Thalassa’s chamomile. She never does that for us.
I think it’s the way she’s so unaware of the effect she has. She doesn’t pretend to belong here. She just fits. Effortless, in that way, people from completely different worlds sometimes are when they come into your orbit and refuse to perform. They simply are who they are, no artifice, no pretense.
God, I think I’m falling for her.
No—I know I am.
It’s too fast, too soon, and maybe that’s part of why I feel so off-balance. I’ve spent my entire life making decisions carefully, deliberately. I move with purpose. But Thalassa? She moves like wind—graceful, wild, unpredictable. One look at her and every plan I’ve ever made takes a different shape. One glance from her and I want something else entirely.
But I still don’t know how she feels about us.
Not just me, but Tic and Colin too.
She stays here. She touches us like we’re hers. She curls against us at night and lets her body soften in our arms. But then she leaves again, disappearing back to campus, back toArabella, back to her world of midterms, student group chats, and microwaved mac and cheese. And when she sees the pools and the lazy river winding through the property, her whole body tenses. She looks away fast, like it hurts. She won’t talk about it. Not yet.
I don’t push. Not because I’m not dying to know, but because she’s already trusted us with so much. I can wait. But the waiting is starting to ache.
