Page 21 of Bluebell Promises

“You don’t have to do that,” she said to him.

Angelos looked taken aback. “Do what?”

“We don’t have to see each other again. It’s really okay.”

Angelos pulled his hair. “I don’t know what you’re saying. I want to see you. Every day, if possible. You should come back with me. You should…”

But Wren suddenly saw herself as terribly pathetic. The feeling dropped out of nowhere. She saw herself the way Max had seen her on Antiparos, unprofessional and in love with a stranger. Her career was falling apart, and she had no way to stop it, not unless she hustled and built something back immediately.

Angelos came closer and took both her hands in his. “I know guys are good at saying ‘all the right things’ or whatever,” he said. “But I truly believe we’re meant for something, you and me. I’m not making it up. I’m falling in love with you, Wren Harper. Please, don’t slip away from me.”

Wren murmured, “I’m falling in love with you, too.” But she hated herself for admitting it.

Wren watched Angelos pack his things. Twice more, he suggested that she come with him back to Santorini, that they’d sail together and go to the hotel together, that he could probably get her a room in the hotel if she wanted that. “I promise, I will kick a tourist out if I have to,” he joked.

But Wren had no interest in following him around, even if they really were falling in love. She decided to take a breather, to regroup. If he came to find her in five or six days, they could continue. If he didn’t, she’d know that he wasn’t telling the truth about any of it.

Angelos was clearly hurt that Wren didn’t want to walk him to the port. She kissed him in the hotel room, hating how much she loved his smell and the feeling of her body in his arms. And then, he walked out the door and closed it behind him.

Two hours later, Wren boarded a ferry headed for Crete. Crete was the biggest of all the Greek islands—such that it would take six hours to drive from the West Coast to the east. Wren read online that Crete was culturally different from the other Greek islands and that it was slightly less touristy, which felt like a relief after all the chaos of the past few weeks. More than that, Wren thought she could take some photographs of some less trodden areas and maybe sell them to a travel magazine.

While on the ferry to Crete’s port at Chania, Wren’s stomach began to slosh. She got a bottle of bubbly water and tried to keep her wits about her as the massive boat swept across the water. Frequently, she ran to the bathroom, but she never actually threw up.

She wondered if this was more proof of her lovesickness. She wondered if this was her ache at having lost not only her job but Angelos, too.

When the boat reached Chania, Wren checked her phone and saw no messages whatsoever from Angelos. She’d expected him to check in at least once. She’d expected him to send a selfie or two from aboard his sailboat. She tried to harden her heart, but tears spilled from her eyes. By the time she reached her hotel, which she’d booked online while on the ferry, she felt heavy with self-pity and sorrow. She checked in and went immediately to bed.

When she woke up the following morning, there were no text messages or calls from Angelos. Nobody had reached out to her at all, and her stomach felt worse than ever. It felt like her seasickness was going to chase her all over the land. Unable to drink coffee or really eat much of anything from the breakfast bar, she left her hotel, telling herself she could walk it off.

That afternoon, she was finally able to choke down some salad and fish. Her stomach wasn’t as sloshy and strange, and she was feeling in better spirits. So what if Angelos hadn’t called or texted. Now that he was gone, now that he’d shown her what kind of man he really was, she could move on. She could dismiss all her feelings for him (somehow) and focus her attention on what mattered: getting her career back on track.

After lunch, Wren walked around Chania, taking photographs, before catching a bus out of the city and along the coast. For hours, she photographed water, beachgoers, sailboats, and long stretches of beautiful sand. When she returned to her hotel, she was exhausted but regenerated. She spent a few hours editing, then updated her portfolio and spent another hour and a half applying for jobs in travel and photography. It wasn’t till around midnight, when she got up and immediately had to throw up, that she remembered her stomach again. What on earth was going on?

The following morning, she went to the pharmacy to get some anti-nausea medication. While in line to pay, she scanned the products in the aisle beside her. Condoms, sanitary pads. Pregnancy tests. Suddenly, her heart shot into her throat.

What if she were pregnant?

She turned to look at the people in line in front of her. Most of them were Greek women, all ages, from twenty-two to seventy-five. How many of them had taken a pregnancy test before? She guessed many of them had. Wren had always been safe and conscious of her body and her free time. She’d always protected herself. Hadn’t it been the same with Angelos?

Accidents happened, she supposed.

Just to rule it out, she grabbed a pregnancy test, paid for the test and the nausea medication without looking the cashier in the eye, then fled back to the hotel. There, she didn’t hesitate. She tore apart the packaging and took the pregnancy test right away. The instructions told her to wait two minutes before reading the results, so she left the bathroom and paced the hotel room. Everything was going to be all right. Everything was going to go back to normal after this.

It would be too cruel, she felt, for the universe to cause her to fall pregnant right before her beloved Angelos left her forever. For it was increasingly clear he was “ghosting” her. He was gone.

But the universe had other plans for her. The pregnancy test told her a resounding truth: you’re pregnant! She threw it in the trash and told herself not to scream.

She’d never felt so alone in her life. For the first time in ages, there was a tightening in her chest that told her she needed her family more than ever. But she resisted it and told herself to be strong.

12

Present Day

It was the evening of the family party. Wren was still in her bedroom after her escape, bundled up in blankets despite the heat outside, the Frenchie Pierre at her feet. She was pretty sure that Landon and Celia had gone out for the night to celebrate their engagement, but she could still hear Ivy downstairs, alternating between angrily stomping and frantically scrubbing the plates and bowls from their barbecue.

Earlier, when her sisters had followed her upstairs, Wren had been terribly conscious of the open window and the people listening on the veranda downstairs. She hadn’t found the will to explain herself to them. But she knew it was only a matter of time before her pregnancy began to show.

If her calculations were correct, she was a little more than three months along.