Chapter Twenty-Nine

Perfect. The word was so cliché, so overused, but as Olivia leaned back into Jarrah’s embrace, it was the only thing she could come up with to describe the last four weeks. The sunrise she’d dreaded sliced through the horizon and crept just that little bit higher with every wave washing onto the beach. The sun’s rays slowly banished the moonlight that’d illuminated the most unforgettable night of her life and warmed the salt and sand encrusted skin the gentle dawn breeze had chilled. Her next sunrise would be seven thousand miles away. And she’d have to endure it without the man who’d changed everything. She drew the thick ocean air into her lungs and forced herself to smile despite the nagging ache in her chest.

He tightened his embrace and kissed the top of her head as if he’d heard the argument her heart was having with her brain. They hadn’t spoken since he’d answered her teasing question by showing her just how sick and tired he’d gotten of her. Then again, what the hell do you say after something like that? What they’d shared beneath the stars with the ocean lapping around them hadn’t been two friends with benefits sharing a vacation fling. It hadn’t even been two lovers saying good-bye with one final hell of a bang. Everything she’d secretly hoped for and dreaded all at the same time had lurked in his eyes as he’d cradled her face in his hands and undeniably made love to her.

She’d wanted to scream for joy and slap the shit out of him all at the same time. He was meant to be the practical partner in their contract. He should’ve been the responsible one. The one to keep things from getting out of hand and to ensure no one broke the terms of their agreement. Yet, no matter how hard she tried blaming him for the emotions twisting her inside out, she’d been driving when they’d skidded off the road and crashed into crazy town. Instead of flipping him onto his back and giving him one last fucking that’d ruin him for all other women, she’d wrapped her arms and legs around his body and surrendered to him.

The selfish part of her wanted to cling to him and ride him all the way back into the desert. But love, true love, the type of love that led to real-world happily ever afters, didn’t happen in four weeks. And it sure as hell couldn’t survive two career-focused workaholics living in opposite hemispheres while they attempted to make the impossible work.

Olivia stiffened as memories of Abi and Ryder’s fairy-tale love affair joined the chaos in her head. As if taunting her from five hundred miles away, Abi jabbed a finger at her, shook her head, and called her a chicken-shit little bitch for giving up so easily. Which was freaking easy for her sister to say.

Unlike Abi and Ryder, Olivia and the man sitting silently behind her and pretending not to read her thoughts had careers and lives waiting for them back in the real world. And neither of them battled a life-threatening disease that could kill them in the blink of an eye. She and Jarrah had the ultimate luxury of time. Time to figure out if what they shared was real. And time to comprehend just what the hell to do about it if it was.

She could almost hear Jarrah ordering himself to relax as he slowly exhaled and continued caressing circles of fire over her shoulders with his fingertips. Abi once again barged through her thoughts. Only this time her sister simply crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her.

So she and Jarrah sometimes knew what the other thought. So their eyes locked whenever one of them entered a room. So their hands automatically found each other whenever they were in reach. So she felt his heart beating inside her own chest as they sat naked in the sand watching their last sunrise together. So she’d sensed the tension rippling through his body even before his fingers stilled on her shoulders and his arms tightened around her. So what? Did that mean she had to give up her career and move her life across an ocean on the off chance whatever they felt for each other would survive the real world?

She didn’t have to search far to find evidence of just how far apart fairy tales and reality were. With every minute shift of her bodyweight, the sand wedged between her butt cheeks worked its way into places Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster never had to deal with in From Here to Eternity’s famous make-out scene. Clenching her ass to remind herself of just how gritty and uncomfortable real life was, she slowly turned and froze as the nagging ache in her chest sank its talons into her heart and tore it apart.

…

Jarrah sat bolt upright and swallowed despite his mouth being as dry as the sand wedged up his arse. He’d spent the last two hours staring into the predawn gloom coming to terms with the truth and figuring out what the hell he was doing about it. But as he tumbled into the glistening eyes of the woman he loved, he couldn’t think of a fucking thing to say.

She reached out a trembling hand only to hesitate and slowly lower it as if what he’d contracted was contagious. “I-I want you to know…I mean…what…”

The Coral Sea’s relentless countdown drowned her whispered words. He fought the urge to tackle her and forced himself to breathe. He needed to pull his shit together and think because there was no way they were ending here.

Her gaze fell to his chest. “What I feel for you…it’s…it’s the closest I’ve come to falling…”

Jarrah’s brain rebooted as his heart shuddered back to life and pumped blood through frigid limbs. With each hesitant pause and ragged breath she took, the tiny flicker of hope lingering in his empty gut burst into flames.

“I mean…I care for you…more than I could have ever thought possible.” She shrugged and dropped her gaze still farther, until she stared at the hands clenched in her lap. “Maybe if we had more time together we could…”

Say something, you fucking idiot. Tell her this isn’t the end. Make her understand this is just the beginning.

Even as he rummaged for a miracle through the dozens of unworkable scenarios choking his brain, he could only come up with lies and clichéd bullshit. There was no way in hell he was lying to her, and she was way too damned smart for bullshit. His mouth opened before he’d even figured out what to say. She silenced him with a gentle kiss to his forehead.

When she eased away, the tears that had pooled in her eyes shimmered in the ever-brightening dawn as they trickled down her cheeks. “You are the most unforgettable man I have ever met.” Her lips curved into a haunting smile that tore open his chest. “But I have to leave. If I don’t get on that plane today, I’m terrified I never will.”

Then stay. The words screeched inside his head as panic battled logic for control of his mind. He’d made his fortune negotiating solutions to impossible problems. And when it came to the most important deal of his life he’d fucked up completely. “This doesn’t have to end. We can…”

The waves washing around their feet and the breeze caressing their sand-encrusted skin consumed his words as he stared into her glistening eyes. And what, dickhead? What the fuck could we do? Exchange texts and emails, Skype each other every night, swap naked photos and heavy breathing to quell the madness that had caused them to clear out the chemist’s stock of condoms. How the fuck were they going to maintain a long-distance relationship when keeping a normal one going while they both worked eighty-hour weeks was going to be impossible enough. And how long would it take for the torture of not touching each other to pollute whatever this was until the magical four weeks they’d just shared became a nightmare. A month, six months, a year? Shit, his inbox was so overloaded it would take some Dreamtime magic for him to even make it back home for next year’s muster. And God only knew what she faced back in L.A. He was clueless about the medical game, yet he was pretty freaking sure it didn’t hand out prestigious jobs in fancy hospitals without demanding its pound of flesh.

Her hand shook as she slowly cupped his cheek and brushed her thumb across his still lips. “I seem to have contracted a serious case of Jarrah Mereki Harper. Any legal advice?”

He launched to his knees and captured her shoulders. Everything he desired, everything he craved, everything he needed shimmered in her eyes. All he had to do was convince her that love conquered distance, demanding careers, and driven personalities, and that a gifted princess and her selfish arsehole of a Prince Charming could live happily ever after. A decade of peddling bullshit had prepared him for this very moment. He could win her heart. All he’d have to do was confess what he felt for her and use it to coerce her into sacrificing the dream she’d worked her entire life to earn.