Page 59 of Natural Deception

She stares at me, not blinking, frozen with her gaze nailed to mine. "I don't understand. You forwarded that letter?"

"No. I wrote it. You didn't win a free vacation, because I paid for all of it and made the travel arrangements."

"Why would you do that?" The confusion in her voice and on her face sends a chill rushing through me. "Are you saying you tricked me into coming here?"

"Yes."

"Because...you wanted me back?"

"Yes."

She remains perfectly still, though her lids blink slowly now. Her lips have fallen open. Vanessa sits up, her forehead wrinkled.

"Are you okay?" I ask. "Please say something. Punch me, kick me, spit on me, scream obscenities. But don't just sit there like a statue. I can explain---"

"No." She clambers off me to hop off the bed, but then sits there with her legs dangling. "Tell me why you did this. Tell me everything."

She hates me, doesn't she? But I need to explain right now.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Vanessa

Maybe I've fallen asleep, and this is some kind of nightmare. But no, this is not a dream. Craig just confessed that he tricked me into coming to this island as part of a plot to get me back. I still don't understand any of this, and I'm waiting for him to explain. He brought me to a nudist island because he thought that would convince me to marry him again? That makes no sense.

How do I feel? He won't find that out until after he confesses everything.

Okay, I just told him I love him a few minutes ago, so he knows how I feel. My mind is reeling from this revelation, and I'm not thinking clearly. Besides, I might change my mind about loving him depending on what he says next.

But God, I do love him. Always have, always will.

He sits up, though he doesn't move to perch on the bed's edge beside me. "You want to know exactly what I did. The answer is that I made all the travel reservations, and I chose this resort because it's not like any place we've ever visited before. I needed to get you alone, so we could talk. You had stopped responding to my phone calls and texts."

"That was childish. I'm sorry. But we stopped communicating, and I couldn't think of another way to get your attention." I cover my face with my hands and moan pitifully. Then I turn my body toward him. "It was a stupid idea. But I had convinced myself that the way to solve our problems was to give you a big shock."

"Like moving out."

"And later, ignoring your calls and texts. Neither of us handled the empty-nest period very well."

"No, we didn't. You moved out, and I filed for divorce. What kind of idiots are we?"

I laugh, though it's not a cheerful sound. "The kind who are blind, stubborn, and clueless."

He slides onto the bed's edge beside me. "Do you regret coming to Heirani Motu?"

"No. I've come alive again, even more than I was when we first got married. I feel...reinvigorated."

His expression tightens into a near grimace. "And, ah, how do you feel about me and what I did?"

I take a moment to consider everything that's happened. "I'm not angry. Maybe I should be, but the time I've spent here has helped me look back at the past with a clearer gaze. Our downfall began on the day when Greg left for college. Then a few years later, Nicole went off to college too. And a few years after that, April was gone. We had a lot of changes to deal with, but instead of doing that, we buried our heads in the sand."

"You still haven't told me how you feel, knowing what I did to get your here."

"If you had asked me on the first day, I would have jumped on the next flight back to America. Learning the truth now has changed things." I clasp his hand. "I love you, Craig, and I want to spend the rest of our time here figuring out where we go next."

"How does that process begin?"

"It already has. Let's treat this like a vacation---but one with real communication and total honesty."

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