Kai drawled, his casual tone at odds with his dirty words.
Heat crawled over my cheeks and tugged at my stomach. “You have quite a high opinion of your skills.”
“It’s the inevitable outcome of sustained, raving feedback, I’m afraid.”
I wrinkled my nose and bumped my hip against his as we reached a rocky outcropping toward the end of the beach. “Egomaniac.”
Kai laughed. “I’ve been called worse.” He stopped at the largest rock. “We’re here.”
I stared dubiously at the weathered limestone formation. This was what he wanted to show me? It looked like every other beach rock. “Oh. It’s so, um, jagged.”
“Not the rock, love,” he said, his voice dry. “This.”
It was then that I noticed the carvings—the letters C+M etched on the side facing away from the ocean, inside a heart. It was the type of sweet, cheesy declaration one would expect to find in a high school bathroom, not a private island in the Caribbean.
“I found it a few years ago,” Kai said. “That was when my family bought the island. I don’t know who C and M are since they don’t match the initials of the island’s previous owners, but I like to think they’re living happily together somewhere.”
I brushed my fingers over the rough-hewn rock face. For some reason, the simple, heartfelt carvings made my heart twist. “Kai Young, a secret romantic. Who would’ve thought?”
“It’s the dinosaur erotica you gifted me for Christmas. It’s opened my eyes to a whole new world of romance.”
“Shut up.” I laughed, then paused. “Did you really read it?”
A grin stole over his lips. “You’ll never know.”
He still hadn’t said anything about my manuscript. At this point, I’d rather he forget all about it. If he thought it sucked, I didn’t want to know.
“I don’t know how old the carvings are, but they’ve lasted at least half a decade,” Kai said, his face sobering with contemplation. “They should’ve eroded by now. Whoever C and M are, they’ve left their mark.”
Like Kai, I hoped the mysterious couple was sipping mai tais and strolling the beach together somewhere in the world. Even if they weren’t, the carvings were an unexpected monument to the love they once had. Proof that, no matter what happened, there’d been a time and place where they loved each other so much they immortalized it in stone.
Kai reached into his pocket and pulled out a chisel.
“What are you doing?” I asked, semi-alarmed. Where did he even find a chisel?
“Thinking we should give our anonymous friends some company.” He held out the tool. “Shall we?”
My heart thumped. After a moment’s hesitation, I took the chisel and gingerly pressed the tip against the rock. Moisture had softened the limestone, making it easier to manipulate.
Kai and I took turns carving until clear letters took shape. We didn’t have to discuss the message; we already knew.
K + I, inside a heart.
It was hands down the cheesiest thing I’d ever done, but that didn’t stop a wonderful, aching pressure from pressing against my rib cage.
The etching wasn’t a ring. It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t even a love declaration in the normal sense of the word. Yet somehow, the fact that we’d made our mark on the world together meant more to me than any of those things.
It was small, but it was ours, and it was perfect.
Kai’s hand found mine. Our fingers interlaced, and the pressure ballooned until I thought I might burst.
“I’m liking secret romantic Kai more and more,” I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat. I attempted a lighthearted tone. “If this is the result of dino erotica, expect more Wilma Pebbles in your future.”
“Good. I’ve already finished translating the first into Latin.”
My eyes snapped to his laughing ones. “Are you ser—”
He cut me off with a kiss, and the rest of my words melted beneath the insistent heat of his mouth.
The holidays in New York. The sanctuary of a hidden room. An island nestled in the heart of the Caribbean.
Magical pockets of time and space that belonged only to us.
And as the sun died brilliantly on the horizon, and the shades of our kiss transformed into the cool blues of dusk, I found myself wishing I could stay in this particular moment, with this particular man, forever.
CHAPTER 28
Isabella
The rest of our weekend passed in a lovely haze of work and play. I took Kai’s writer’s block suggestions and actually implemented them instead of reading them over and over like the benefits would somehow transfer through osmosis.
I quickly found out meditating wasn’t for me, but the creative play suggestion helped. So did the orgasm one, much to his （and my） satisfaction.
By the time we returned to New York, I’d written twenty-five thousand words and debated Alessandra’s job offer to death. In the end, I accepted.
Kai was right. I needed to have more faith in myself. Plus, she was offering a great salary, and I had zero motivation to trawl through job search sites.
Once I accepted, things moved quickly. Three days after my return, I started my first day of work as Alessandra’s business assistant （actual business name pending）。 Kai was in California again for DigiStream talks, but I woke up to an oh so encouraging voice note from him that morning.
Remember, you read a full page of Austen while getting spanked. If you can do that, you can do anything.
He had a point, but that didn’t stop nerves from buffeting my stomach as I followed Alessandra through her apartment.
The Davenports lived in a sprawling modern penthouse in Hudson Yards, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows, a floating glass spiral staircase, and a private terrace with a plunge pool and fire pit. It was absurdly large for two people, and it brimmed with so many priceless items I was afraid of touching anything lest I accidentally break a two-million-dollar Fabergé egg.
“What type of business are you interested in starting?” I asked.
I probably should’ve confirmed before I accepted the job, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I’d had other priorities in Turks and Caicos. Namely, food, writing, and copious amounts of sex.
“You’ll see,” Alessandra said with a mysterious smile. She was possibly the prettiest person I’d ever met, but an air of melancholy tempered her beauty.
“It’s not meth, is it?” My New Year’s Breaking Bad marathon with Kai flashed through my head.
Her laugh chimed like silver bells in the wind. “Sadly, chemistry has never been my strong suit.”
She opened the door at the end of the hall. “No, it’s something a little more, um, creative.”
The first thing I noticed when I stepped inside was the smell. Lush and fragrant, it instantly transported me back to the climes of the Caribbean. The second was the array of colorful bouquets lining the table and windowsill. Finally, my eyes were drawn to the far wall, where a gallery of pressed flowers hung in elegant wooden frames.
“Oh, wow,” I breathed. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I hadn’t expected this.
“It’s a silly hobby,” Alessandra said, her cheeks reddening. “I’m not curing cancer or anything, but it’s fun, and it helps me pass the time while my husband is working.”