Page 32 of Beach Reads
“So what are you in for?” I wince at my awkward question, but Janice hoots with laughter.
“This ain’t prison. You make it sound so bad. No, I’m here because…” She trails off, her smile fading. When she speaks again, her voice is so quiet, I nearly miss it. “I’m here for my husband. He passed last year.”
Janice sighs and peers out at the pool. I wait for her to keep talking, heartsick. I’ve never had someone close to me like that,never had my own special person, but if Ididand then I lost them…
“I’m gonna swim,” she says suddenly, slapping her bare thighs. “It’s too hot to natter.”
“Sure.” I figure she’s had enough, but when Janice weaves past my lounger a minute later, a pink towel gripped in one hand, she grins down at me. “You coming in? Happy topics only, mind.”
…Alright. There’s a bikini back in my villa, and I’ve got nothing better to do until the doctor’s back and ready to admit that I’m right. Maybe I can float around and plan my revenge, picturing the look on my father’s face when it leaks to the public that he locked up his own daughter. Freaking maniac.
Those are happy thoughts, right?
“I’ll just be a minute.”
“No rush,” Janice calls as I leap to my feet, my flip flops slapping across the paving stones. There’s no straight path away from the pool: it’s a warren of sun loungers, and I feel like a lab rat bumping around a maze. “Take your time, hon. Not like I’m going anywhere.”
* * *
A shadow falls across my bare stomach a few hours later, and that’s how I know he’s here: the shivers. Sure enough, when I crack one eye open, Dr Whitaker stares down at me from the poolside, his expression unreadable. I shield my face as I squint up at him.
“I borrowed this float from Janice,” I say. “Borrowed. Not stole.”
I know what those notes say about me, but none of it is true. I’m not a thief, or a liar, or any of those other things. I’m just agirl with a secret passport and a desperate need to control her own life.
Dr Whitaker’s frown deepens. A breeze whispers through the courtyard as he squats at the poolside, his elbows resting on his knees. He’s sograceful, so lithe with every movement, his white coat pooling around his bent legs. Like a bronze-haired lion who went to medical school.
“I called your previous doctor.” I tear my gaze away from his thighs. “His receptionist told me he’s out of office. He won’t be available for comment for several months.”
My smile tastes bitter. “Weird, right?”
“Yes, it’s highly unusual. I could call your father—”
“No!” I wince and lower my voice. Janice is swimming laps, her blonde curls piled on her head like a poodle, but Iknowshe’s eavesdropping. If she doesn’t concentrate, she’ll swim right into the side of the pool. “Don’t call him. He’s the one who sent me here.”
It’s crazy, I know, and I’m sure it sounds exactly like all the other paranoid delusions the doctor must hear every day. But those chocolate brown eyes are steady on me. He hasn’t shut me down yet, and as this man waits for me to speak, a seed of hope takes root in my chest.
“Did you take away my phone?”
He shakes his head slowly.
“My purse?”
Dr Whitaker rubs his jaw. “So let me get this straight. Your father took your phone and purse away, and sent you here with false records and strict instructions to medicate. Your father, Peter Lennox. The governor.”
I bite down on my lip so hard I taste blood.
Because Iknowhow it sounds, and I was such an idiot yesterday, stomping around and sniping at this man. I have given him zero reason to trust me. No reason at all.
But I nod anyway. Nearby, Janice bounces off the pool wall and says, “Oof.”
“Why would he do that?”
Because I made a tiny break for freedom. Showed the slightest interest in having my own life.
“Does it matter?” I rasp. When I suck in a deep breath, it smells of chlorine and citrus. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need to be here, Dr Whitaker, I swear.”
And maybe I’m long overdue for a break; maybe I’ve been unlucky for too long, and the universe owes me something good. Because the handsome doctor sighs and nods, and the seed of hope inside me sprouts a tiny green shoot.
