their superiors would be expecting in the morning. They needed it to conduct their own preliminary investigations before we could officially take control of the management and consequences of the scuffle.
As I scrolled through the gallery on my phone, my heart lurched in my chest when I was suddenly looking at Jaxon’s face. It was a picture of the picture he’d left on my suitcase. I’d taken it to keep a reminder on me about why I needed to steel my heart whenever I saw him.
Now that I knew he was close by, I also knew it would be more difficult to stick to my resolve. This picture would always remind me of that moment I’d found it, and of how I’d felt when I woke up that morning without him.
Seeing it now unexpectedly made a ripple of pain pass through me. I didn’t know how long it would be until I could look at him without feeling the after effects of him leaving, but I wasn’t there yet.
If only I was able to look into his heart, into his mind, to find the answers I knew I shouldn’t want but couldn’t help thinking about anyway. So many questions. So few answers.
He might’ve given me those answers if I’d just asked, but I wouldn’t trust much that came out of his mouth anyway. Forcing my hovering thumb to move, I flicked past that picture and on to the next one before I realized I wasn’t even in the right folder of my gallery.
After eventually finding the pictures and compiling my report, my thoughts returned to Fiji. It was like simply seeing a photograph of Jaxon had shocked my heart back to life when I’d been trying to keep it as emotionless as possible recently.
I went through the motions of sending the report to all interested parties but my head wasn’t really in the game. It was firmly stuck on the island that had been my own personal paradise for all of one week.
When it felt like I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t talk about it, even just for two minutes, I pulled up Big Mac’s number from my contacts. We’d texted once or twice since I’d gotten back, but we hadn’t actually spoken yet.
I checked the time, did a quick mental calculation, and determined it was early afternoon there. My fingertips drummed on my desk while I waited for him to answer, and my stomach was suddenly riddled with nerves.
Why am I calling this poor man? My issues weren’t his responsibility.
Before I could hang up and tap out a text to let him know I’d dialed the wrong number, I heard his voice coming through the line as clearly as if he was standing right next to me.
“Lindsay!” he said in his booming voice. “This is a surprise. How are you?”
“I’m…”I trailed off before deciding that I’d already bothered him. I might as well be honest. “Not so good actually.”
I proceeded to tell him everything that had happened between me and Jaxon since he’d last seen us, but as always, I got the feeling he already knew about most of it. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “Have you been speaking to Jaxon?”
He chuckled. “The question isn’t if I’ve been speaking to Jaxon. It’s whether you’ve spoken to him.”
“Cryptic.” I shook my head at him even though he couldn’t see me, but by not answering my question, he’d told me what I needed to know. “What did he say to you?”
“Let’s just say I have a feeling it’s not over for you two.”
So he hasn’t spoken to him since the last conversation we had.
I ran my hand through my hair, loosening it from its tie and letting it hang in a sheet over one shoulder. With my eyes pinned to my desk, I let out a soft, shuddering sigh. “It’s over between us, Mac. I made sure of it.”
“We’ll see,” he replied cheerfully before I heard his name being called in the background. “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I have to go. We have a wedding on tonight, and I think someone just burned a sauce I’ve been perfecting for the last seven hours.”
He was gone before I could do much more than say goodbye, and a pang of longing speared me in the gut. I hoped those people who were there right now knew how lucky they were and how much they should cherish each moment they had there. Not only because of the place but also