Losing Francesca (27 page)

And when it came down to it, I failed my final exam. Because I used the wrong passport to enter the US and then I got caught and I panicked. And this is it. It's been settled. I will marry Nic and become Romanian because I cannot be counted on to keep myself safe.

I guess I can be Romanian if they want me to. I'm not Fijian either, yet they call me Filia here and I have no problem with that, so what do I care what nationality my papers say I am? I'm sure I'll get a new passport out of this little deal. A new name too. I wonder what it will be this time? We've used up almost all the F names imaginable. Maybe they'll move on to G?

I sigh. My life is not simple, that's for sure.

Nic is someone I love dearly. He's rescued me from a lot of touchy situations and even one almost deadly one. He's been a friend to me almost my whole life. We've done lots of fun things together, we've traveled all over the world, we've joked and confided in each other, and did all the things that good friends do over the course of many years.

But Mrs. Mason sounds so much better. Mrs. Brody Mason. Faina Mason. Fiona Mason. Fiona Sullivan Mason.

My heart hurts again. I look behind me at the house as I sit on the beach. I am near the water and the tide is making its way forward, so every now and then a salty wave of foam slips in underneath me and slides me around. No one is watching at the house, so I scoot back a little farther up the beach and dig the phone out of my bag.

I turn it on and look at the picture and the hurt in my heart becomes a deep, all-encompassing ache.

I turn the phone off and stick it back in my bag, then take out the nameplates and rub them together. I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around myself, still rubbing the nameplates in my hand.

And I sit this way, alone, until the sun is starting to set. It goes from a bright white yellow, to gold, to orange to almost red.

It's beautiful. And my skin stays perpetually misted from the crashing waves and allows the warm sea breeze to cool me.

I live in paradise.

Nic comes up behind me, slides his tanned legs along either side of my hips, and pulls me into his chest.

"Your father is watching," he says in perfect American English.

I stare up at him, then look back at the house to find my father. "Are you allowed to speak English to me?"

"That job is over now, so yes. Besides, your Romanian accent was perfected years ago."

"I was a job?"

He sighs. "You know it was my job, don't do this."

I sit quietly as he drags a fingertip up and down my arm. He's right, I always knew I was his job. I just never thought it extended to marriage.

"I love you, Faina."

"I know," I whisper.

"I will be good to you."

"I know that too," I whisper again.

He leans down and presses his face into my neck. "Did that boy touch you?"

I shake my head now as the tears start to build.

His fingertips gently tilt my chin so I am forced to look at him. Then he swipes a tear away. "Did he touch you?"

"Just a kiss," I admit.

"That's all?"

I nod.

He releases a long breath. "I would've understood, of course, but I'm so glad."

I'm not
, is all I can think. I'm not glad at all. "I will never love you, Nic. Not the way you want."

"You will," he says softly. "Eventually. Because I'll be good to you and I know you love me in another way already. So you will. And I can be patient."

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small black velvet box. "I picked it out. And I paid for it too, so don't think I plan on taking care of you with your dad's money."

I take the box and look up at him solemnly. "I never thought that."

He smiles. "Open it."

The diamond is perfect. It catches all the dying light of the setting sun. It's so large it's like fire in the approaching night.

"Will you marry me, Faina?" he asks as the perfect Fijian day turns into the perfect Fijian evening.

Do I have a choice?
I ask myself. And all I hear in my head is Brody's voice,
Of course you have a choice! Just tell him no!

But I did say no, and it did not matter.

So I say yes instead. "Yes, I'll marry you, Nic."

He takes the ring out of the box, holds up my left hand, and slips it on. Then he leans over my shoulder and brings my hand to his lips. "I will make you happy again."

"I hope so," I reply honestly. "I really do."

Chapter Forty - Faina

Last night after my engagement I actually
was
happy. Nic and I walked up to the house together holding hands, and Sophia cried, and my dad hugged me and clapped Nic on the back, calling him
son
. We drank some champagne and my dad scheduled the helicopter to take us to Nadi on the big Fijian island of Viti Levu today for shopping and a special dinner with all our local friends.

It wasn't until I went back to my room alone that the ache came back.

And this morning it's not any better.

It has been six weeks since I left the Sullivans. Since I left Brody. I look at his picture every single day. I stare at it at night, and I had to steal an old phone charger from Nic's office a few weeks ago so I can continue to look at us.

I imagine what I'd be doing right now if I was back there. I check the date on the phone and let out an ironic snort.

It's Fiona's birthday.

I should've had all this time between that day of the horse show and now to get to know Brody better. To relish in Sean's overprotective brotherly ways. To talk horses with Frank, and muck stalls with Aimee, and go shopping with Angela, and pound on the floor when the twins made too much noise at night, and maybe even take lessons on Sweetness in Lindsey's arena every morning.

There should've been all those family breakfasts, and all those family dinners, and all those perfect nights on the beach with Brody. There should've been a trip to that island he talked about, and that amusement park rollercoaster he wanted to ride, and fishing at night in his boat. There should've been dirt bike rides, and meeting his older brother Renn, and maybe even camping, and dinners out, and swimming, and kissing, and sex.

There should've been all those things between that day and this one.

We should be so tired from smiling right now, our cheeks should hurt. I should be asking him to pinch me to make sure this is real and make that stupid smile stop, give my cheeks a break.

And I should've lost Faina, not Fiona.

Because no matter what anyone says, I feel like a fake girl. Living a fake life, in a fake world, with fake parents, and a fake fiancée.

That life with Frank was not a dream, this one is.

But regardless, it's this dream life I live in, so I need to come to terms with it. I need to put this stuff behind me and just think ahead for now. I can't walk around in this half dazed state forever. And it's been weeks. It's over, I'm here now. I promised myself to someone else, I have a wedding to plan, and a family to think about.

I wander out of my room, past the other hallways that lead to each of the other bedroom wings, and into the main house, but it's barely six AM, so the entire place is quiet. I want to upload the photo of Brody and me to my blog and tell people goodbye. I want to tell him goodbye the way I should've when I left. Maybe he'll read it and he'll understand and be able to let me go, not waste his life looking for me like he did his childhood. I'm not going to update the blog after today anyway—this is it for me because my well-traveled feet need a rest. I need a rest. I'm tired of being other people, I just want to be me now. And maybe I'll never get to actually be Faina Saburov, but I need to be
someone
.

I cross the open living room, step down the stairs that lead to the courtyard, and walk past the pool to Nic's little house. I let myself in and find him snoring peacefully in his bed. I sit down next to him and whisper in his ear. "Nic?"

He turns, immediately awake. "What's wrong?" he asks, sitting up.

"Nothing, I just want to know if I can use your computer. I want to go online and close some accounts."

"What accounts?" he asks, groggy and irritated with my sudden revelation.

"Rule-breaking ones," I answer back. "So you better let me do it, or I'll tell my dad you never even knew I had them."

He grabs me and pulls me back onto the bed with him, still half asleep. "You're bad, Faina. You could've been hurt with those accounts."

"Consider it my rebellious phase. Can I use it? Or not?"

"No," he says as I pout. "Mine has all sorts of stuff on it you can't see. But you can use my internet code. It's impaler1476, no caps."

"That's so lame. It screams,
I am Romanian and I have no imagination.
"

I laugh and squirm as he pokes me in the ribs and then he nuzzles into my neck and whispers softly in my ear. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I say back. I've decided to say it every time he says it to me, because I said yes to his question last night, and maybe I could've said no, and maybe not. It doesn't matter, because I
did
say yes. And I refuse to hurt him, so if he tells me he loves me, I will say it back. And maybe I don't really love him like that right now, but I think he's right. I will probably learn to love him in that way over time. I kiss him on the cheek. "Now go back to sleep."

I wiggle free and skip back to the main living area, sneak my laptop out of my dad's office, then take it to my room and access the internet with Nic's password.

I log into Facebook first and I have twenty-seven messages. All telling me happy birthday. Because apparently I posted that it was my birthday today.

What the hell?

All the update says is,
It's my birthday!
Send me good wishes!
With a pink heart and a yellow smiley face.

I never wrote that.

I delete the account before Nic or my father find out it was compromised and then log into my blog.

I have twenty-two comments waiting for approval. Since I hardly ever log in, I only allow automatic comments for one day after my last post.

When I check the front-end the top post is titled
Happy Birthday To Me
, dated yesterday, and it has thirty-three comments. But that's not the part that stuns me. It's the picture at the top of the post that makes me forget to breathe.

A family of feet and one white hoof.

My hand goes to my mouth as I gasp.

A family of feet and one white hoof.

Oh, God. I slam the laptop closed and stand. Pace, really. I pace the room, then go outside and pace my patio. I walk down to the beach, and then walk back, sit on the bed, and open it up again.

They're still there.

A family of feet and one white hoof.

There's a plain white card in the middle of the circle of shoes—shoes, because there are no bare feet in the barn. The sign has a picture of a heart with a crack in it and it says,
Happy Birthday, we miss you
.

Like the Facebook account there are a ton of messages from all my blog followers and online friends, but the first message is the only one I'm interested in.

The comment came from someone named Sweetness who has a profile picture of my horse. It says,
Turn your phone on, 8/15, 1600 local, Bula Cafe
.

I know the Bula Cafe well. When Sophia and I shop in Nadi we stop there a lot to get sandwiches and tea. In fact, we've been there twice since I came back from America.

Someone is watching me. My pulse thumps through my head with thoughts of Brody.

I click the Sweetness name link and I'm taken to a G+ profile. The header is the picture of Brody and me in the moonlight. I type
OK
in the share box, then log off my blog and Gmail account, clear my cache, history, and cookies, and close the computer down.

What did I just do?

I can barely breathe. My heart is hammering inside my chest. What if my dad finds out? Is Brody here? In Fiji? Is this a trick? What if it's someone who wants to hurt me? What if Nic finds out? Will I actually go?
Can
I actually go? How can I slip away?

We have reservations at Salvatore's, which is not far from where Sophia and I shop. Bula is in downtown, near the market. I can ask Sophia to take me shopping at the market, then slip away and go to the cafe, and turn on my phone…

What am I thinking?

This might be a trap.

But what if it's not, Fiona?

I try and breathe slow and deep, to calm my heart, to stop the pounding in my ears. It's not a trick, that picture had the white hoof in it. It's them.

What did I just agree to do?

I'm not really sure yet, but I'm doing it. I don't care if it's a trap, there is no way I can ignore this message.