She can reinvent herself every time she ends up in a new place, and the freedom of that is heady.
But it’s not nearly as heady as this moment, as she makes her way across the pub to Jake Kelly.
He doesn’t recognize her at first. She can tell from the way that his eyes move over her that he’s interested, but it’s in a distracted sort of way, just a man seeing an attractive woman, doing whatever calculus it is men do as they decide if they’re going to pursue or not.
And then …
His eyes widen, and the expression on his face fills Eliza with a sudden rush of triumph.
“Holy shit,” he breathes as she comes close, and she smiles at him, placing a hand on his shoulder and going up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
“Hiya, Jake.”
He sets his beer on the bar behind him so quickly that some of it sloshes over the side, and then his hands are on her waist, his grin genuine as he looks down at her. His teenage lankiness has turned into something more solid, his chest broader, his face sharper. Unfair, really, that he should still be this beautiful, and that she should still feel her face grow hot when he looks at her, that she should immediately feel like a sixteen-year-old again, craving his reflected glow.
“How on earth have I gone over ten years without this face in my life?” he asks, smiling, and just like that, it’s over, she’s done for. Lost again in that easy smile and those blue eyes, and he doesn’t even have to ask her to go home with him.
She just goes.
* * *
HOME IS A BOAT.
It makes her laugh at first when he takes her there. She can’t seem to escape ships these days, but that’s fine by her. She loves the water, and had even taken sailing lessons during her time on the cruise ship. Besides, the Azure Sky is not just any boat.
It’s gorgeous, sleek and luxurious, and she sees Jake’s pride in it as he shows her around.
“Where are you going to take her?” she asks, and he slides his arms around her waist from behind, kissing a spot behind her ear and raising goose bumps.
“Anywhere I fucking please,” he replies, then nods toward a map opened up on the table in the galley.
“Thinking about this one spot. Meroe Island. Supposed to be quite the experience. Ancestor of mine got stranded there back in the 1800s. Poor bugger got eaten, if memory serves.”
“By sharks?” Eliza asks, and Jake presses a gentle bite to the place where her neck meets her shoulder.
“By his mates,” he replies, and she turns in his arms, looping her arms around his neck.
“And you want to go there why?”
That grin again, those dimples. “For the fun of it, darling. And speaking of fun…”
Eliza lets him lead her to the cabin, lay her down on the wide bed, and strip off her dress. It had bothered her for years, the way she still thought about those afternoons in Jake’s bed as a teenager, how no man she’d slept with since had affected her quite the way he had.
She’d chalked it up to first love and adolescent hormones, but on this night, here on the Azure Sky, she learns she was wrong. It’s just—Jake. Whatever sparked between them before is immediately rekindled again, and even though she has friends she knows are waiting on her, she falls asleep in his arms thinking she might never leave.
* * *
HER SECOND NIGHT ON THE boat, she finds the drugs.
Eliza wasn’t snooping, not really. She was looking for a bloody wineglass, the ones they’d used the night before still dirty in the sink because god forbid Jake Kelly wash a glass, and she’s certainly not doing it for him.
She opens a cabinet and sees stacks of something wrapped in plastic, and for a moment, her brain doesn’t quite understand what they are, these solid bricks covered in cling film.
When she realizes what she’s looking at, a strange thing happens inside of her. Her skin feels cold even as rage—a rage stronger than any she’s ever felt—boils up in her stomach.
She’s still squatting there in front of the cabinet when Jake comes out of the cabin, wearing just his boxer briefs and a robe, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“Ah,” he says seeing her, and shrugs. “Family business continues apace.”
He says it cheerfully, with that same grin—and that, in the end, is what dooms him.
For Jake, this is nothing more than A Thing That He Does. A way to make money—extra money, because for all he’s joking, this is not his actual family business. That’s real estate. This is simply a side hustle that allows him to buy fancy boats and never wear a suit unless he wants to.