Page 20 of Bluebell Promises

Eventually, Sunny answered. Her voice sounded like it was coming from a hundred miles away. “Hey, Ben,” she said. “Are you all right?”

By then, Ben was off the sofa, standing at the window, sweating with panic. “Do you know where she is?” But already as he said it, he knew that Sunny did. Rina wouldn’t have made a move without telling Sunny about it. Maybe Sunny had had to hear about it for months, even years.

“She’s here,” Sunny said under her breath. Maybe she felt she had to tell him.

Ben closed his eyes tightly. “Can I talk to her?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sunny offered. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

Ben felt his heart crack into twelve different pieces. He returned to the sofa and dug his face into the pillow and willed himself not to cry. “Can you tell her that I’ll be awake all night? She can call me any time.”

“I’ll tell her,” Sunny promised. “But Ben? You should get some sleep.”

Ben knew what she meant. You should get some sleep, so that you can get your mind around the fact that your wife is never coming back.

After they hung up, Ben felt his gaze drawn up to the framed photograph of himself and Rina on their wedding day. Those two beautiful and young idiots smiled down at him, happy and self-assured. There was no sense in their faces that they would ever be apart for longer than five minutes. They’d talked about having children of their own. They’d talked about traveling all over the world.

So many years after that—how had it been eight years? —Ben Brooks willed himself not to go to Rina’s social media profile. He turned off the Red Sox game and stumbled up to bed, where he lay in the shadows and considered the scars on his once-broken heart. Lying there, he was reminded of Wren in her bedroom at the Harper house, resting, until Ivy stormed in and demanded to know what was wrong with her. Ben wasn’t sure if he could handle such a suffocating form of love. He was grateful for Landon’s rhythm—watchful and eager to step in if Ben ever asked for help. But mostly, Landon knew that all Ben really needed, most often, was someone to sit with and tell a joke.

11

Three Months Ago

After reading the message from her editor, Max, the message that fired Wren from all future contracts, Wren burst into tears. Angelos woke up right away and wrapped his strong arms around her. He covered her cheek and neck with kisses, murmuring, “Whatever it is, we’ll handle it. Don’t worry yourself!” Wren pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and shook. For years, she’d built up her photography portfolio. She’d built up a relationship with Max. She’d thought this gig would be her meal ticket for another few years, at the very least. Now, all because Max had come to Antiparos to spend time with Wren and Wren alone—whatever that meant—he’d decided to end their contract.

When Angelos found out what the email said, his eyes narrowed, and he got up and paced the end of the bed angrily. “I want to go to his hotel,” he said. “What he’s doing is wrong. He can’t do this to you.”

But Wren knew that Angelos going over to Max’s hotel to “demand answers” would make everything worse. She imagined them getting into some kind of altercation—verbal or otherwise—and Angelos getting arrested. She shivered, got up, and hugged him tighter. “I don’t need Max,” she told both Angelos and herself. “I hated always going where he sent me, anyway. This frees me up for more Greek traveling. Where else should we go?”

Angelos kissed her so beautifully, so emotionally, that Wren grew weak at the knees. Greek sunlight oozed out from behind the curtains, and the day tugged them outside. They got dressed and went to a local breakfast place, where they drank Greek frappés and ate creamy, thick yogurt. Angelos borrowed a map from the owner, and together, Wren and Angelos charted a course from Antiparos through several more islands. Wren had dreams of winding up somewhere in Turkey, where these glistening turquoise waters would take them.

“We will have a long, slow, easy pace,” Angelos promised her, his eyes glowing with love.

Back at the hotel, they packed. It occurred to Wren, vaguely, that Angelos had said he was needed back on Santorini soon, but she decided not to ask. Maybe he’d already cleared a vacation with his parents. Surely other people on Santorini could work at the hotel in his place? Surely Angelos couldn’t do everything his parents wanted him to do forever. Especially not now that he and Wren were going to start their future together.

From Antiparos, they traveled to Hydra, where they ate some of the most divine seafood Wren had ever had and rented a little room near the shore. That first night, at a taverna, they danced and laughed and made friends and drank ouzo. They talked about the places Wren longed to photograph and where she could send her photos now that she wasn’t locked into a contract with Max. She decided not to mention her bank account. It had always been sufficiently stocked for a few weeks, but now that she was looking at a few weeks, if not months, of unemployment, fear rushed through her gut.

Later that night, Wren watched Angelos pull out his phone and immediately pocket it again. She’d seen many, many notifications on the screen. Someone was looking for him. Suddenly, she was frightened. What if Angelos had a girlfriend or even a wife somewhere? Maybe she hadn’t been on Santorini when Wren was, which made their affair easier. Maybe now, Angelos was sneaking off Santorini to have his affair with Wren, only to return to Santorini to take care of his wife and kids. Wren filled her lungs, preparing to ask this venomous question. But before she could, Angelos tugged her back onto the dance floor, and she promptly forgot.

For three days, they traveled like this, filled with unending joy. Angelos hardly ever looked at his phone, and Wren told herself not to be paranoid. She told herself that she was living the greatest love story she’d ever heard. What a marvelous thing!

And then, one morning, she woke up and found Angelos sitting at the edge of the bed. The look on his face made her panic. She curled up in a ball as far away on the mattress from him as she could get, then stammered, “What’s going on?”

Angelos spread his hands out on his thighs.

“Just say it,” Wren ordered.

Angelos sighed. “I have to go back to Santorini.”

Wren swallowed the lump in her throat.

“I told you,” he said. “I have to go back and help out at the hotel. I’ve been trying to blow them off, and they are not happy.”

Wren scrutinized his face, wondering if she could believe him. In the grand scheme of things, they were still basically strangers, weren’t they? Was she being stupid, allowing herself to fall in love with him so quickly?

“We have a few options,” Angelos said. “I have to work for the next five or six days, but I can come find you after that. Or, I mean, you can come back to Santorini with me.”

Wren furrowed her brow. She had the strangest sense that he’d suggested that she come back to Santorini in order to push her off the scent of his “real” life, his wife or girlfriend or whatever. Maybe his kids. She felt sour and unwanted.