A waiter from the hotel comes around to offer us drinks, and I nudge Amelia. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Hmm, a cocktail, you pick,” she turns her head to glance at me.
“We’ll take a cosmopolitan and a beer,” I say, returning to my book.
“Is it any good?” she asks suddenly.
“What?” I look at her, confused.
“The book,” she says.
I smile. “It’s quite creepy, actually. Not an author I’ve read before, but if the plot keeps developing like this, I might read her other books.”
Amelia smiles. “How does it feel to actually relax?” she props herself up on her forearms.
I run a free hand over my stubble. “I don’t know. Is this relaxing?”
“Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about work!”
“I’m always thinking about work. If you want something done right, you do it yourself,” I say, looking back at my book.
She lies back down. Her face turned toward me. “Yes, but a break doesn’t hurt.”
I nod. “Except there’s going to be a pile of shit for me to fix when I get back.” I give her a grin. “But nothing I can’t handle.”
“Well,” she declares, grinning back at me, “there’s nothing you can do about it now, so there’s no point worrying about it. You should just unwind and relax.”
The waiter arrives with our drinks, and I take my beer. Amelia sits up and takes her cocktail, sipping on it.
I turn my attention back to the book, and Amelia reclines against the backrest and looks out over the ocean as she drinks.
“I should have brought a book, too,” she muses, and I wonder if she’s talking to me again. “Tell me about yours.”
I snort. “It’s about a haunted underground mansion and a film crew that goes to prove it isn’t haunted. So far, they’re getting slaughtered like lambs.” I look over at her. “I can lend it to you while I have a nap.”
Amelia shakes her head. “I’m more of a romantic comedy fan. I didn’t realize you were into horror.”
It dawns on me that the tension between my shoulders is dissipating. I feel like I’m finally relaxing. “I was when I was a kid. I loved horror books and horror movies. It was an escape from the family for me.”
“You seem to love your family, though,” she comments.
“I do,” I say seriously. “My family is my everything, and I take it very seriously. They have given me everything in life, and I would be nowhere without them.”
She falls silent for a moment, sipping on her cocktail some more.
I sip on my beer, feeling slightly awkward. “This is nice,” I say, “that we can talk without trying to kill each other.”
“It doesn’t change how I feel,” she says quietly. “I’ve been sold like a possession. That’s all this is. I just want to have a pleasant holiday.”
I nod. “That’s fine. I can work with that.”
“Nothing is going to change,” she says again, and for a moment, I believe she is trying to convince herself of that.
My heart tears a little. There’s a piece of me buried deep inside that wants to say that I still care deeply about her, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I can’t place her in harm's way.
I sigh and watch as she gets up. “And now?” I ask.
“I’m going into the water to cool off a bit,” she says, tossing her sarong onto the lounger. “Be back soon.”