Chapter 10
The warm leather barely moved under the force of Aleki’s punch. He threw another, harder, as though the boxing bag would somehow have weakened its defenses in the last half hour of constant attack. A flurry followed, thick and fast, combinations from his childhood lessons that were as much a part of his DNA as his hair or eyes. The bag swayed gently, mocking him, as though his fists were of no more consequence than an island breeze. He caught it mid-bob, leaning his forehead against the smooth surface, his breath sawing out of him in ragged exhalations only partially related to exercise.
“Is this a private party, or can anyone join?”
Even through emotional and physical exhaustion, Stella’s voice burrowed inside him, a soft candlelight glow. It smoothed the rusty edges of his fear, stroking back and forth until the tension that bunched his shoulders loosened its violent grip.
“I don’t think this is the kind of party you’re used to, fafine aulelei.”
“Ridiculous,” she scoffed gently, her voice gaining strength as she moved closer. “Any party is my kind of party. If I’d known this was coming I would have set up refreshments in the corner.” A light touch drifted down his naked back, settling at the base of his spine. “Are you okay?”
Exhaling heavily, he shook his head. His fingers tightened on the bag as though it could protect him from the questions that were coming.
“Okay. Do what you have to do. I’ll be over here if you need me.”
That’s it?
He raised his head from the bag, watching as she settled on a mat at the far side of his weights room. She leaned back against the mirrored wall, crossing her legs and pulling a book out of the bag slung across her chest. Gone was the sweet sundress she’d worn to the interview, swapped for a silky white top with delicate shoulder straps and a swishy black skirt.
“You don’t want to know what she was talking about?” He forced the words out past the knot of fear in his throat. He’d never voluntarily spoken to anyone about Manu’s accident. Never.
Stella placed the book in her lap and looked up. Across the room he could almost believe she didn’t feel the tendrils of desperation reaching out from him, begging her to say no, to tell him he never had to think about it again.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I want to know, because it hurt you. It’s still hurting you, and I’m not okay with that. But I’m not going to pry, Aleki. Whatever it is, it’s clearly not something you want to delve into. If you’re ready to tell me one day, you will. For now, I’m just going to sit here and read so you’re not alone while it eats you up.”
With each word, the golden light in his chest expanded a little further, pushing back the black abyss of dread until it shrank back down to its regular mango-sized lump under his ribs.
She deserves to know, the voice in his head declared with some authority. It will affect her too, in the long run.
Fuck off, the eminently more sensible part of his brain responded. Still, the kernel was there and he rolled it over in his brain, looking at it from different angles, trying to ignore the screaming warning that she’d leave him if she knew.
Gritting his teeth, he stared at her while he unwrapped his knuckles. She flicked a page in her book, then a second, likely aware of his scrutiny but ignoring it.
“Okay.” His voice sounded like five miles of gravel road, but Stella lit up at his surly acceptance. “Let’s go.”
He pulled on a black tee and headed towards the door. The slap of her flat sandals followed and he knew without looking that she was grinning all the way down the hallway and out the back door as he headed towards the garage.
He caught a glimpse of that sunshine smile as she swung into the truck cab next to him and he gunned the ignition. The nondescript black pickup blended in on the island roads and had the four wheel drive he needed.
Stella stayed silent as they wove their way inland, the truck creeping higher in the hills with every mile. Finally, Aleki pulled off the road and hopped out to open an ordinary looking farm gate on the side of the road. He drove the vehicle through, then threw the parking brake on as he got out to shut the gate again. When he returned to the cab, she was eyeing him suspiciously.
“Is this where I need to lie about my martial arts training again?”
Aleki huffed a small laugh through the tightness in his throat.
“Not at all.” Putting the truck in gear, he rolled slowly forward, following the beaten farm track as it lazed down into a hidden valley.
“You know how I am about my privacy at the house?”
“I do.” She would have signed waiver upon waiver before arriving in Avali for Mae and Luke’s wedding, and nobody could miss the security measures at the front gate, or the patrols by the cliffside beach access point.
“Well, the house is my oasis. I built to get away from the responsibilities of royal life that haunt me in the city. It’s my place of peace, my paradise.”
“Sure.”
The truck bumped down the bottom of the hill, cruising to a stop on the flat expanse of land that stretched before them. A small lake glittered amongst the native green bush, a rickety wooden platform extending out over the water’s edge. Just being here, Aleki felt the roil of fear and loathing in his stomach recede.
“The house is my oasis,” Aleki repeated. “But this is my hiding place.” He gestured to the left, and Stella peered past the steering wheel. He could tell when she saw the small wooden structure camouflaged in the trees. Her head tilted to the side, her fresh scent wafting up from her hair and helping ease the last of his doubt.
“And why does the prince of a tropical island need a hiding place?”
A grimace twisted his mouth.
“Come, fafine aulelei. I’ll tell you inside.”
‘Inside’ was something of a misnomer. The fale was built in traditional island style. A rectangular slab of concrete made up the foundation, while rough-hewn logs marched along the edges, supporting the sheets of corrugated iron that made up the roof. There were no walls, and the only furniture within the structure was a low, overstuffed sofa, a small dining table with two chairs and a wooden bedframe and mattress made up with a simple navy quilt. A small refrigerator with an electric kettle on top hummed quietly in one corner and a single light bulb swung gently from the ceiling.
Aleki lowered himself onto the sofa, his body folding into the familiar curves and dips of the broken springs. Stella sat at the other end, her sandalled feet tucked under her as she surveyed the dwelling.
“I built this place four years ago.” His voice pulled her attention to him, and he felt the caress of her green eyes over his face as surely as if she’d reached out and touched him.
“I lived here for six months. Nobody except Lani and Andreas knew where I was. They delivered the generator, the construction materials and the furniture. Andreas bought food out weekly, Lani made sure I had books to read, but for the most part I was completely alone. I fished in the lake, ate the coconuts and bananas that grow around the property, cooked every now and then in the fire pit out the back. Nobody else has ever been here.”
“Why are you showing me this place?” Stella’s question was careful, as if she understood how much of himself he was revealing with this trip.
Sucking the air into his lungs, he continued. “A few months before I came here, I was dating a woman. Beautiful, accomplished, a nice island family. The king was pleased, and I was twenty-four and happy to please him. She and I didn’t have a lot in common, but we enjoyed each other's company. At one point we took a trip to London together, chaperoned by her brother of course. But that’s where the trouble started.”
He fiddled with a loose thread at the hem of his sports shorts. Bright red, it drew the eye like a thin streak of blood against the dark hair of his thigh. The air swelled around him as he focused on running the thread between his fingers, eyes down to avoid Stella’s gaze, which weighed on him as heavily as the memories he sifted through to help her understand.
“We went out one night. Nothing special, a bar, a club. The playboy-prince narrative hadn’t caught hold yet but there were enough foreign press around that we were noticed. She didn’t seem to mind, and I didn’t care either way. She popped off to the bathroom at one stage and her brother and I joked around until she returned. When she got back, she wanted to leave, so we did.”
The images flickered through his brain, bright pulses of light thrumming through the cracks of the box in his mind where he’d relegated all thoughts of that particular night.
“Where did you go?” Stella’s quiet question drew him back to the present.
“We went back to the hotel.” He huffed out a sigh. “I went to my room, and she and her brother went to theirs. It’s not the done thing in Pacific cultures to sleep together before marriage, and although we’d had sex before, we pretended we hadn’t to keep her reputation intact. But that night, she came to me and one thing led to another.” Aleki twisted the thread so tightly around the top of his finger that purple shadowed the skin around his nail.
“It wasn’t the same as usual though. She told me to do things - to say things - that we hadn’t tried before. And I was young and full of hormones, far away from Avali, so I did.”
The sourness of regret lingered at the back of his throat and he swallowed heavily, hoping it would wash away the bitter taste.
“She sold the story the next morning to a tabloid. She’d arranged it in the bathroom at the club. There was an audio recording… Nothing bad by Western standards, but the evidence of us having sex, coupled with some of my language and my position made waves.” He drifted off, snippets of soundbites ringing in his ears mockingly.
“Jesus, what a bitch.” Stella’s breathy murmur was tinged with incredulity.
Aleki shook his head quickly. “No. No, she wasn’t. She left a note. It turned out her nice island family was nothing of the sort. She was the victim of domestic abuse. Her letter explained that she meant to use the money to escape, to start a new life away from her parents and her brother. She was a young, scared woman, raised in horrible circumstances and when she saw the opportunity to escape, she did so. I cannot hold that against her, even if she sacrificed me on the altar of public opinion to do so.”