Zeta studied her, remaining silent.
Bria’s lips curled in a soft smile. “Just in case you were wondering what it’s like to look at that sky every night.”
Zeta looked up at the stars.
Bria cupped the side of her head with a gentle hand and kissed her cheek. “Miss you, sorella,” she whispered. “The miles between us makes my heart hurt.”
And then Bria and Owen went back inside, returning to their marriage celebration and leaving Zeta alone to think about everything.
Everything.AndMick Blackthorne.
She hugged her elbows, the softness of Mick’s T-shirt a taunting caress against her arms and breasts.
The tiny pinpoints in the sky twinkled back at her. Offered no answers.
She missed Bria and Elisa. Every day, her soul seemed to ache with a gnawing emptiness.
Being here with them, laughing with them, hanging out with them, existing with them… It had filled that emptiness. But the emptiness had still been there waiting, a nibbling hollowness reminding her that as soon as she got on the plane to fly home, she’d be away from them again.
At some point tonight, that niggling, nibbling sense of separation had faded. Completely. At some point, she hadn’t thought about a life without her sisters.
But at what point?
When had that hollowness disappeared?
When Mick found you on the beach. When he took you in his arms and promised it was all going to be okay. That he was going to make everything okay.
“Dio,” she whispered, scrunching her eyes shut and shaking her head. “I really have fallen in love with the son of a bitch.”
And now the son of a bitch was inside at the bar. Tryingto clear his head about something, Owen had said. Probably regretting every second they’d spent together.
Her stomach rolled.
She ground her teeth, glaring up at the different stars.
Well, screw that. She wasn’t going to let him just brush off what they’d shared. He might be an arrogant jerk, but she was a stubborn Yank, and she wasn’t going to let him just…justghosther.
Besides, her bridesmaid dress and her phone were still in his cabin. She had to get those back. He could just take her to his cabin, listen to her lay out what was going to happen going forward with their relationship, if that was the word for whatever they were about to begin. And itwasa beginning.
Maybe he could come to the US sometimes, and maybe she could come back to Australia often? And—
She stiffened. Blinked.
Was she really thinking this?
This was insanity. Only a few hours ago, she was in tears about Mandla and thinking she should rush home, and now here she was seriously thinking about some kind of future with a guy who, only a few days ago, she thought was the most annoying, irritating, arrogant bastardo. A guy whose feelings for her she was completely clueless about.
“Dio, I’m screwed,” she groaned, rubbing her hands over her face.
A cool breeze flowed around her, bringing with it the sweet smell of rain and moist earth and eucalyptus. Like the stars, it was so different to back home.
Dropping her hands, she looked up at those stars again.
First things first, she needed to go find Mick. She needed her phone, and it was in his cabin, still in the pocket of her bridesmaid’s dress.
She needed to find out how Elisa was doing. Then she needed to check in with her team about Mandla. Then she’d turn her full attention to the problem that was Mick Blackthorne.
Hopefully, her subconscious would have a solution by then.