I never had a choice.
At two in the morning, I’d stepped on board the Phantom, hoping to find that reliable magic where problems were halved and worries were muted but this time…nothing.
The rocking of the tide didn’t calm me, the tang of salt didn’t soothe me, and the open-skied horizon mocked me because there was no such thing as freedom.
It was a sadistic joke; utter make-believe to think I had the freedom to love a woman and remain living in a world where I hadn’t resolved my past transgressions.
I had to put things right before I deserved anything more.
As the engines kicked in and my home sliced through the harbour out to sea, I did my best to ignore the paralyzing pain of leaving Pim behind.
My family had to come first. I owed them too big a debt to forget that. Even though all I wanted to do was find the woman who’d stolen my heart and get on my knees before her.
To tell her I might never be able to have a normal relationship, but I needed her. I wanted to be selfish and keep her even though I knew she didn’t belong to me.
My arms were empty without her, my heart useless, my honour nothing more than scum.
That was yesterday.
This new day was just as painful.
“Morning, sir.” Jolfer smiled, not knowing the torment I lived with as I marched onto the bridge.
I nodded but didn’t greet him back.
I’d come for one thing only. To check he’d changed course from England to America.
Glancing at the instruments and the large nautical map pinned down with heavy magnetics on the centre table, I inhaled deep, doing my best to shed the debilitating guilt at leaving Pim behind.
Jolfer stroked the old-fashioned marine schematic he preferred. He hadn’t evolved to computer screens and technology plotted directions. He preferred his sextant, tidal currents, and other seafaring tricks to get from point A to B.
If I was honest, I preferred his way, too. It was a nod to our past as men on the sea. Besides, if the Phantom ever lost power or we were stranded on a lifeboat with no Siri to tell us which direction to sail, he could look at the stars and find our way home.
Then again, so could I.
Before I met Pimlico, I spent most of my time on the bridge. It was my favourite place apart from playing cello on the deck or swimming in the sea.
Now I hated everything and everybody as each wave roll and engine purr took me farther away from her.
“All set?” I swallowed my mouthful of disgust.
She’d left to protect me.
I was leaving to protect my family.
We were both doing things for other people when all I wanted was to be with her.
Goddammit, what am I doing?
I couldn’t leave her behind. I couldn’t be so damn cruel.
You don’t have a choice.
You have to go.
Jolfer grinned. “New course is all plotted. I was about to open her up now that we’re far enough away from Monaco and her shallows.”
I cleared my throat around the ball lodged there. “Fine.”
Turning to his second-in-command, Jolfer said, “Let her free, Martin.”
“Roger, cap.” Martin pressed a button, relayed orders to crew on the stern via the intercom, and turned a heavy key.
The whirring of motors grew louder as the colossal blades of the propellers turned from chewing the water to downright devouring it.
Painted with shame, I left the bridge and barely made it to the balustrade before I curled my fists and shot profanities at the sky.
There, in the far away distance was Monaco, growing smaller by the second.
Soon there would be no more mountains oppressing me, no more car fumes suffocating me, no more population surrounding me.
Soon Monaco would just be a bad memory left in my wake.
Pimlico would continue living without me.
I would continue living without her.
Our love was over before it ever began.
Chapter Four
______________________________
Pimlico
“SO YOU’RE THE thief, huh?”
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
I tried to obey my frantic commands, but my eyes had a mind of their own. Trading dirty concrete, I followed the baby blue shoes to navy slacks to cream chequered shirt with the Ralph Lauren polo pony logo on the breast pocket.
My gaze stopped there.
It didn’t want to study the pretty rich white boy with sandy blond hair and a matching goatee. It didn’t want to have yet another pain-deliverer staring in my nightmares once this was all over.
But I couldn’t stop myself from cataloguing him, just as I’d catalogued so many others.
I noted his languid pose—relaxed and eager to begin.
I registered his sneer—stuck-up and confident.
I tabulated his manicured appearance—endless money and ego.
It seemed wealth had the power to rot certain people into unscrupulous citizens.
He hummed with boredom and malice. He grinned with self-righteousness and resentment. He was the younger version of Alrik.
A sob dug talons into my throat, making me choke. I lowered my head again, allowing brown tangled hair to screen me as I remained bowed on my knees on the painful dirt beneath.