An odd sense of realization dawned a moment before her gaze went higher, to the man’s face. Her heart slammed in her chest. And as she dared to look at his face, her eyes bulged in stupefied horror, and the liquid she’d just sipped went down the wrong way.
No! her mind screamed. No. It can’t be possible. There’s no way that could be him!
She coughed, almost violently, trying to clear her windpipe. With the commotion she was making, she knew she was drawing attention to herself.
Which was exactly what she didn’t want, especially if the man she thought she’d just seen was actually not a figment of her imagination.
Perhaps the Fijian heat was getting to her. Obviously, that couldn’t be him.
She turned back to the bar, where Manueli looked at her in alarm. “Are you okay?”
Melanie waved a hand to dismiss his concern. She slapped her chest, hoping to relieve the endless hacking. And as the coughing finally began to subside, she was certain now that the man she’d seen had simply been a look-alike. He had to be. Everyone had them, after all.
For God’s sake, she was in Fiji, not strolling along Wall Street.
Surreptitiously, she glanced to her right once more. And there he was, still standing at the perimeter of the island bar as if frozen to the spot, staring in her direction.
And then she knew.
She saw, at the moment, that he knew, too. The question in his eyes morphed into complete surprise.
Clearly, he had just spent the last few seconds trying to determine if she was truly who she’d appeared to be, just as she had done where he was concerned. And now, there was no longer any doubt.
God help her, it was Lawrence.
The man she should have married nine months ago. The man she had left standing at the altar.
* * *
Lawrence looked in the direction of the coughing woman at the bar, and at first thought that he had to be hallucinating. He was halfway across the world, on one of Fiji’s beautiful islands, a far cry from New York City. He had come here expressly to forget the very woman he feared his eyes now rested on.
She glimpsed in his direction once again, and then he was absolutely certain. The deer-in-the-headlights look on her face made it clear that he wasn’t dreaming. That indeed, Melanie Watts was here in the same bar at the same resort he was staying at.
Of all the islands that made up Fiji, Melanie was actually at the very same one where he was.
Melanie quickly jerked her gaze away from his and shot to her feet, and the purse that was on her lap went flying, spilling the contents onto the sand. Then her hand swung to the side as if in fright, and she knocked over the drink that was on the bar in front of her.
The bartender reacted quickly, grabbing up the glass. Melanie dropped to the ground to collect her strewn items.
Lawrence watched her, intrigued and mortified.
Melanie looked terror stricken. She kept glancing at him as she picked up the contents of her purse, as if she expected him to charge over to her.
And there was no doubt that a part of him wanted to do exactly that. Go over to her and demand the answers to the questions she hadn’t given him after standing him up at the altar. But the other part of him—the part filled with too much pride to belittle himself after she’d made it clear she didn’t care about him—kept him rooted to the spot.
Melanie finished hurriedly putting the items into her purse, not even dusting off the sand first, then threw another nervous glance in his direction, as though she feared he was approaching her at that very second. And that was what got to Lawrence. The idea that she was afraid of him. Even when she had broken his heart, she hadn’t needed to fear him. All he had wanted were answers, and even though she hadn’t given them to him, he hadn’t lost his mind and hounded her. He had simply let her be.
He watched as Melanie rebuffed a hotel worker’s help in getting to her feet. She quickly stood, then turned in the opposite direction from the path where he was standing, and hustled out of the bar area toward the beach.
And that’s when he made the impromptu decision to follow her. He had initially come to the bar to pick up a couple beers for him and his buddy, Shemar, but that would have to wait.
Nine months had passed and, yes, his relationship with Melanie was over. But still, he had to know.
She looked over her shoulder once more as she tried to flee, and her eyes widened when she realized he was coming after her. The reaction irked him. She had known him—known his heart—yet she had let every insecurity come between them and prevent them from getting married. Now, she was looking at him as though she thought he would rush her and throttle her.
Lawrence picked up his pace, jogging. Nearing the water now, Melanie suddenly stopped. She wanted to get away from him, but she wasn’t about to dive into the ocean to make her escape by swimming. Not the Melanie he knew, anyway.
She quickly scanned the area to the left. Endless beach. Then the right. Same thing. He caught up to her in time to hear her whimper.
She took a step to her left, but Lawrence put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Hey,” he said softly. “You’re seriously not even going to say hi to me?”
Turning, Melanie looked up at him, and he could see the trepidation in her eyes.
“For God’s sake, Mel. Why are you looking at me like I’m some sort of crazy stalker? If there’s one thing you knew about me, it was that you didn’t have to be afraid of me. Yet the look on your face would make a person think you’re scared I’ll hurt you.”
To emphasize his point, he looked toward a couple a short distance away. Indeed, both the man and the woman were staring in their direction, clearly a little too curious about Lawrence’s interaction with Melanie.
“Oh,” Melanie said, following his line of sight to the couple in question.
“Yeah,” Lawrence said, unable to hide his irritation. “After everything, I figure the very least you can do is say hello when you see me, not run scared. I don’t deserve to be treated like I’m the one who hurt you.”
There. He’d gotten that off his chest. Because if anyone should be running scared, it was him. Melanie was the one who had trampled all over his heart.
He sure as heck hoped that she hadn’t avoided him because of an unfounded fear that he would become some sort of nutcase. She owed him a conversation, an explanation, and that was all he had wanted. If she’d been able to tell him that she didn’t love him and didn’t want to marry him, as much as it would have hurt, he would have wished her well and moved on.
But she hadn’t told him anything, and that had him stuck emotionally. Unable to truly move on.
“I—I—I’m sorry,” Melanie stuttered. “It’s just—I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I’m here for Richelle’s wedding,” she explained.
“Ah. So Richelle’s getting married again?” Lawrence processed the information. He remembered all too well that it was Richelle’s own failed engagement that had led to Melanie’s doubts about whether or not any marriage could be successful. That and the fact that her father had never been able to stay faithful to her mother.
“Not again,” Melanie clarified. “This will be her first marriage. Since her wedding to Vern last year didn’t actually happen.”
“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” Lawrence couldn’t help saying. When Melanie’s lips tightened, he asked, “She getting married to Roy? The football player?”