* Willem *

Kimsha's beach bar was one of the islands' hottest spots. I held Amelia's hand as we waited at the crowded bar for our drinks.

The music was loud and the people cheery. The air smelled like sea salt and hard liquor. It was a perfect summer evening and it felt great being out with Amelia like this. I wanted to show her off to the world and simultaneously keep her to myself.

She looked radiant in her colorful maxi dress with a plunging neckline. She'd changed her hair while I was busy talking to my father. It was straight now, parted in the middle, and the gray streak falling at the side of her face was alluring as fuck.

The bartender handed two cold beers and two large plastic cups to me. I poured Amelia's beer into one of the cups and handed it to her. She smiled sweetly and then thanked me with a soft kiss on my cheek.

"What was that for?" I asked, basking in the warmth her kiss sent coursing through my body like hot lava, awakening my hunger for her once more.

"I just felt like doing that," she replied, taking a small sip of her beer, peering at me above the rim of the cup before lowering it.

I leaned forward, cupping her chin, and brought her lips to mine. I swiped my tongue across her bottom lip, tasting the flavor of tequila when she kissed me back.

"And I felt like doing this," I whispered against her mouth before pulling back.

Her dreamy eyes met mine I hoped our future children inherited the kindness I saw in them. Her mouth curved into a small smile before scanning the crowd.

Right, my girl wasn't used to public displays of affection. Neither was I, but I prayed she was open to it.

I was a hands-on kind of guy. And if my woman was anywhere within touching distance, I was going to touch her and kiss her. Fuck her too if the area was secluded enough.

"Do you want to stay here or go down by the beach?" I asked. The sky was clear, the air fresh, the water calm and blue like one of Bradley's old crayons.

She looked out over the crowd and balcony to the sand down below. "Beach is fine by me. More room to breathe."

The sun took its last breath before dipping into oblivion. A few couples were on the beach laughing and giggling while strolling. I guided Amelia down the wooden steps, my hand pressed into her lower back.

I didn't know how to put into words the way I felt about her being here after all the years I spent alone longing for companionship.

I hated her father so much for keeping us apart, but I kept that information bottled up inside out of respect for her. She knew her father had committed a despicable act and she didn't need me to hammer it home any further.

A wisp of wind caught her hair and the scent of coconut lingered in the air as I sat down behind her on the sand, my knees folded on either side of her.

She pulled her hair over her right shoulder, twisting it to stop the wind from getting at it. I kissed the sexy curve of her shoulder and then her neck. Her brown skin looked lovely in the last rays of the sun right before it got dark.

A small moan escaped her pouty mouth and I wanted to spread her open on the sand and have my way with her. After that I would take her into the ocean and make love to her all over again, the seawater serving as a lubricant between our hot bodies.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked softly.

I grinned as I looked out to the horizon where several boats and catamarans were floating. "Making love to you in the ocean," I said, my voice deep and dark with desire.

She touched the back of my hand, her delicate fingers tracing the veins there. "Is that one of your sexual fantasies? You wrote about it in the first letter you sent to me."

"It is. That and getting you pregnant." I brought her hand to my lips, kissing the center of her upturned palm.

She placed her drink in the sand and turned around in my arms to look at my face. "Let's do it."

"Which one?" God, I would love to put a baby inside of her. Watching our baby grow inside of her day by day, month by month, would be such an honor.

She laughed. "Sex in the ocean. The baby will have to wait."

"Do you want to know why I wanted a divorce at the start of all this?" I asked, taking a lock of her gray strands between my fingers, loving how soft her hair was as it glided between my fingers.

"Tell me."

"I was tired of waiting around. I turned thirty and something clicked in my head. I wanted children and a wife I could touch and kiss and talk to. And I would never be able to give myself fully to another woman while married to you."

I also wanted to tell her that she would never have to question my loyalty as long as we were married, but I knew that what happened between Jessie and I had taken some of that trust away.

"Thank you for being honest," she said. "I never apologized for what my father did. Keeping us apart like that. I'll never fully understand his motives. I just know it was wrong."

I sighed. "You don't owe me an apology, Amelia. You were a teenager when all of this was happening. I still remember how much influence my parents had on me when I was that age. So I get why you never questioned him about our marriage."

"I never questioned him because he told me that you'd left and that he hadn't heard from you. I spent all those years thinking the worse about you and I couldn't have been more wrong." I heard wistfulness, longing, and regret in her voice, and I didn't want her to feel bad about something she had no control over.

"Hey, it's okay. You're here now. We're together. Let's just make the best of the time we have left together." Intertwining our fingers, I stared into her eyes, appreciating the way she gazed right back into mine. It said a lot about her as a person. About her courage and willingness to look past everything that had happened in the past. "I don't want to bring Jessie back up but I think I was a bit harsh back there in our room."

Her smile was tight, not quite reaching her eyes. "I just need some time. I'll get over it."

"What can I do to regain your trust?" I reached for the wedding band on her finger, twisting it like it was a talisman, praying that the vows we'd spoken all those years ago were enough to see us through this rough patch.

"Just keep being honest with me," she said.

"I can do that. I don't want you to ever think you're not enough for me because you're more than enough. When you're with me I want you to feel like a woman, my woman, the only woman who has unlimited access to me. You deserve to be admired and cherished," I said in a clear voice filled with certainty. "I held on all those years because I always wanted it to be you. You're the woman I want to spend forever with."

She smiled, blinking shyly. "I think I want to spend forever with you too."

In that second, I felt breathless, spellbound by the promise of forever. Too bad, I'd left the ring back in the room. This would have been the perfect moment to propose. The thought of her saying yes for the second time under different circumstances, with her own free will was beyond thrilling.

"I haven't been this happy in a long time, schatje. You being here and accepting me did that. You turn me inside out in a good way." Leaning forward, I kissed her nose and then her mouth. She got on her knees in the sand and kissed me back like she wanted to be loved and cherished and admired.

I did just that.

I cherished the breath on her kiss, proof that this magnificent woman was real and she was mine. I admired her beauty, her mind, and her strength. I loved the way her body melted into mine, her heat sinking into my pores. I loved the way she ignited a fire in me that I'd long thought dead. I love how she came undone for me. Panted for me. Burned for me. I loved that being in her presence felt like coming home.

I loved her.

"You said you wanted to know what I did for my eighteenth birthday... " she said, breaking the kiss, her full lips curving into a smile, eyes twinkling with what I hoped was happiness.

I smiled back at her. "Yes. I see you've been reading more of my letters."

"Yes, your honesty baffles me. And here I was thinking you had all these secrets, but you've been nothing but honest from the start."

"The truth is easier to swallow in bits and pieces. That's why I told you when you first reached that you had to talk to your father." I took a swig of my beer before it got too warm to drink.

She nodded. "I get it now. But to answer your question, I didn't do much on my eighteenth birthday. My best friend from high school surprised me with tickets to Aqua World and we spent the day there."

"Sounds lovely. What happened to her? Or him?" She hadn't mentioned any friends since her arrival and I needed to know who and what she'd be leaving behind to move here with me.

"She. Her name was Samantha. I went away to study and we drifted apart. Haven't seen or spoken to her in years."

"Maybe you should reach out to her. Check in and see how she's doing?"

"Maybe I should." She smiled again and I couldn't get enough. "Do you have a best friend?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"Pieter was my best friend, but Omar and I are pretty cool with each other. I'd like to think that Bradley's my friend as well. I never had a friendship with my father and that's something I always wanted with my son." I paused and then corrected myself. "Nephew for now."

"Brother," she said.

"What?"

She swallowed visibly, her eyes darting to the left and up over my shoulder. I looked behind me and saw nothing weird.

"What is it? I feel like you have something on the tip of your tongue. Is it something about Pieter?"

She licked her lips nervously. "Bradley's surgery is in five days. How do you feel about that?"

Why did she have to go and do that? The thought of Bradley's surgery going wrong was not something I wanted to think about.

I ran my hand over my face in frustration, letting my head hang. I felt useless, almost defeated. I couldn't lose Bradley. I couldn't. "I keep thinking the surgery will make it worse. Spinal surgery is no joke. It can go terribly wrong."

Amelia forced my chin back up. "Bradley's undergone several major surgeries already. He's strong. You have to believe that. And believe in me. I'm good at what I do."

"It's not your surgical abilities I'm worried about," I said, staring back into her serious eyes.

She nodded soberly, letting go of my chin to touch my knees. "There are two problems that need fixing when it comes to Bradley's back. One, the deformity caused by the accident, and two, the excruciating pain he felt before blacking out and going into a coma. The chance of success with the latter is fifty percent, much like flipping a coin."

"This would have never happened if I'd just picked him up from school. The thought of him in so much pain kills me on the inside." I thought back on all the times when Bradley was happy and full of life, skateboarding or rollerblading down the street. He was always an active kid and seeing him in such a vegetative state day after day scared me and made me think of nothing but the worse.

"That's understandable," Amelia said. "No parent wants to see their children in pain. I've had parents who wished the bad stuff on themselves instead, and I get it. But that kind of thinking is not going to help Bradley right now."

"I can't help him no matter what. I'm just sitting here with my hands tied. Pieter would be so disappointed. He would have known what to do." I paused because I didn't want to choke on my emotions. "He was a great brother and he would have been an even better father. He used to take care of me and protect me from my father's wrath, and I couldn't even keep his son safe."

She shook her head as if to deny my words. "You did more than keep him safe. You were there from day one. You raised him, cared for him, provided for him, and loved him. You did what any father would. Shit happens sometimes, out of our control, and through all of that you just have to keep being there for him."

"I am there for him but sometimes it feels like it's not enough."

"It's enough. More than enough," she whispered with conviction.

"Hey, Willem! Buddy, so good to see you here."

I turned around to see Daniel, one of my top employees walking toward us, kicking up sand as he did so, a huge grin on his face. His low-cropped hair had sand in it and his green shirt was opened all the way, revealing his dad bod underneath.

Daniel had taken the week off to prepare for his first child's birth and would be taking paternity leave right after.

I stood up to greet him and he clapped me on my back several times. "I miss being at work, man," he said.

I smiled. "No, you don't. How's the wife?"

"She's fucking great," he slurred. "The baby came last night. It's a boy. Natural birth, no complications."

I patted his shoulder, a little worried that he'd maybe had too much to drink. "Congratulations are in order. That's great news all around. Shouldn't you be at home helping your wife?"

"No, no, she gave me the night off, said I was hovering too much and would drive her crazy. I just want her and my boy to be okay, so yeah, I'm not giving them much room to breathe." Daniel's brown eyes lit up as he spoke. "Come have a drink with me. You and your lady."

I glanced down at Amelia, questioning her decision quietly. She smiled and said, "Sure why not? After all, we did come here to have a good time. And celebrating a birth is a good reason to get drunk on a Thursday night."

"Heck yeah," Daniel said, cheerfully.

I helped Amelia up, shaking my head at her when she mouthed, "Come on, live a little."

"Lead the way, Daniel. And promise me this is going to be your last drink," I said.

"I promise, boss."

Inside, the party was in full swing. We took shots at the bar with Daniel and then Amelia and I took things to the dance floor. Sweat was dripping down the side of my face as she twerked her body on me. Around us, everything and everyone was a blur.

At one point, Amelia excused herself to go to the bathroom. I stopped to take a breather, leaning over the wooden balcony with my drink in my hand, enjoying this moment of heedlessness.

A few seconds later, I felt a pair of feminine hands touching my neck and running down my back. I turned around, expecting my wife.

Blue eyes flashed at me, her smile charming and slow as she placed a manicured hand on my chest.

"I'm tired of playing this game with you, Willem," she said, her American accent still heavy all these years later. "It's time you took me seriously."

😬