The Marked Ones (12 page)

‘So?’ he asked Adele, who was still watching the couple. ‘Guests are welcome to date the staff-especially the ones paying what he is a night!’

Adele blinked, then looked back at him. ‘Lincoln that was
Tristan Loveridge.’

Lincoln didn’t get it. ‘Should that mean something to me? He checked in Thursday night.’

‘I didn’t know that!’ Adele looked back down the beach.

‘Well I’ve noticed that he gets room service a lot.’ Lincoln shrugged. ‘What’s the big deal?’

Adele rolled her eyes. ‘Tristan Loveridge, Lincoln. He’s like, famous in the social scene in Sydney.’

‘Ah yes, well you know how
I keep tabs on the Sydney elite.’ He joked.

Adele was watching the couple again. ‘He invented that solar panel thing made out of recycled materials. I met him in April at the
Clean Harbor Ball. He’s filthy rich and a major player.’

This was news to Lincoln. ‘
Filthy rich?’ he repeated. ‘He’s just a kid!’

But Adele shook her head. ‘He’s close to thirty. He just happens to look incredibly good for his age. Your typical greenie- you know. Vegetarian, doesn’t drink or smoke, health nut.....’

Lincoln felt immediately inadequate compared to Captain Planet. But as he turned to Adele to point out that Ivyanne already knew him, he realized that his girlfriend was practically purple. He glanced at the couple, then back at Adele’s narrowed eyes, feeling his heart sink. ‘Adele?’

‘Yeah?’ She didn’t look his way.

Lincoln wet his dry lips. ‘How do you know so much about him?’

Adele stiffened. Her blue eyes blinked slowly, then looked down at her lap. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it her ramrod-straight posture sagging. She then turned to Lincoln. Her cringe said it all.

Lincoln felt his stomach roll. He actually clutched it. ‘Oh...no. Do not say it.’

Adele dropped her eyes again. ‘You’ve had other lovers too, you know.’

Lincoln dropped his head into his hands, gaping at her. ‘You slept with him?’

‘Just once.’ The words were whispered. ‘It was a one night stand.’

‘A one night stand?’ He repeated. ‘In April? As in, the month you called our engagement off?’

Adele uncurled from the hammock and came to him, kneeling between his legs, her expression anguished. ‘Link, don’t flip. It meant
nothing.’

Lincoln breathed into his palms, feeling woozy. He’d been struggling to make his peace with seeing Tristan all over Ivyanne, but knowing the smooth, golden-haired philanderer had managed to nail his girlfriend prior to all of this was too much. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He looked up, feeling cold. ‘Was he
good?’

Adele reeled back. ‘What?’

‘Was he better? Than me?’ He could feel the acid in his tone on his tongue.

‘Lincoln
no. How could it be? There was nothing intimate about it. I barely knew him.’

‘Did you come?’ Lincoln directed the question at her while staring directly into her eyes. She was pale, so the flush of crimson in her cheeks was unmistakable. He felt his heart sink. ‘How
many times Adele?’

She got up and turned away. ‘I am
not discussing this with you. It’s irrelevant.’

Lincoln’s blood boiled with jealousy-driven rage. Adele was harder to please between the sheets then any other woman he’d ever been with. Usually, he saw it as a challenge in the biological sense, and didn’t take it personally. In fact, it had made his successes even sweeter. But now it was glaringly obvious that she’d been satisfied by Tristan in one shot, and that knowledge sliced through him, striking first heart, then lung, then ego.

‘Fine. Not gonna talk? Then neither will I!’ Lincoln got to his feet and attempted to stomp past her. But she reached out and caught his sleeve, yanking him to a halt.

‘You can’t just leave it there!’ She cried. ‘Baby, please-I don’t want you mad again when you’ve just forgiven me. Tell me how to fix it.’

Lincoln turned, scowling down at her as his insecurities from the previous year and her desertion boiled over and scalded him. ‘Why bother? That guy and I are nothing alike. If he’s your type, then what are you after me for? I’ll never be a Sydney power player like him and your parents, Adele. This resort is as good as it gets for me. So if his bank balance and tofu make you wet then-’

‘This resort is
paradise.’ Adele interrupted, pressing herself against him and holding his face. ‘And I want you because I love you! You’re handsome and successful and kind and nothing like the private-schooled bores I grew up with. Girls sleep with guys like Tristan, I’ll admit it. On paper he’s fantastic.’ She brushed her lips against his. ‘But guys like you are the ones we want to marry when we come to our senses. Which I have. Which is why I’ll do anything to fix this.’

Lincoln stared down at her, trying to assess how genuine her little speech was. It seemed sincere, and it touched him, but he couldn’t help but think that the damage was done. She’d kicked up so much dust in the name of ‘settling’ down that he couldn’t see more than a foot into their future now. And the brilliant glow coming off Ivyanne was beckoning him down a new path. But he couldn’t forge ahead in either direction, with Tristan’s shadow obscuring his vision of both women. ‘Adele I just don’t know if I can forgive all of this…’he began, trying to be honest.

‘Please, try harder to.’ She implored him. ‘What will it take to make you feel better?’

That was a no-brainer. He wanted Loveridge
gone. ‘You’ll do anything?’

She nodded eagerly. ‘Of course!’

He nodded towards Tristan. ‘I want him out of here. I can’t move past the break-up while your past is on my damn doorstep.’

Adele looked perplexed. ‘But you’re the owner’s son Lincoln-if you want him gone-
you’re the one with the power to do it.’ She held her hands up. ‘And I won’t mind. In fact, I’ll applaud you. I don’t want to see him either!’

But Lincoln knew he couldn’t ask Tristan to leave. It would make him look jealous and petty in Ivyanne’s eyes. And she’d be right. Besides, Adele was such a socialite, so accustomed to schmoozing guys like Tristan, that Lincoln would enjoy seeing her push one away and embarrass herself somewhat on his behalf. 
And if Ivyanne happened to witness the scene, well, there was no downside to that.

‘Oh
I can march him out Adele, but I’d much rather that you were the one to make him feel unwelcome.’

She raised a thin brow. ‘And if he stays anyway?’

Lincoln smiled. ‘Then he’ll have unwelcome coming at him from more than one direction. I’ll make damn sure of that.’ His eyes flickered over his girlfriend, and he tried not to scowl at her as he said: ‘Anyway you think about it. In the meantime, I want to sleep for awhile.’

‘Okay. Honey….I love you.’ He could hear the shake in Adele’s voice as her hand ran down his back tentatively. ‘What’s past is past, okay? All of it. I’ll fix what I can but you have to believe that you’re the only man I want now.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ Lincoln shut the door on her and her past, wondering if he had just shut one door to his future.

12.

    ‘Okay our Norfolk house is booked out for another week.’ Ardhi’s mother said, hanging up the phone and going about clearing their lunch dishes off the table. ‘We can go back then if we want to.’

Go back? To Norfolk?
Ardhi’s insides tightened. He was lying on the couch in their beach shack at the Cape, staring up at the stained ceiling morosely, bored and anxious and missing his sister’s cooking for the hundredth time since the start of his summer. No! That’s too far away from here!

‘Nah.’ His father said. ‘I’d rather try somewhere new darling. How about Cairns?’

No no no! Ardhi thought, glaring at the ceiling. He was annoyed at his parents for even suggesting that they leave the area. What if Ivyanne needed him?

‘I don’t know... it gets quite monsoonal this time of year..’ His mother sighed. ‘Hawaii, perhaps? Gosh I don’t know. I’m so used to spending the summer on Bracken now. I feel strange, not visiting them every day.’

‘Out of favor.’ His father agreed.

Ardhi’s face went hot and he wondered if they were looking at
him. The Kayu-Api’s and The Courts had been neighbors since the end of the last decade, when Ardhi’s mother and father had set themselves up with a jewelry shop in Airlie Beach. His mother Eka made exquisite pearl jewels-every piece one of a kind-and that allowed them to maintain a lifestyle- neither Ardhi or his father had to work, so they didn’t. Pintang didn’t have to either, but she chose to because she simply liked the company of humans, which Ardhi didn’t understand.

Usually his family spent the first half of the summer on Norfolk Island, and the second half on the Cape which looked across to Seaview so they could be close to Pintang. That meant spending Christmas and New Years with Ivyanne’s family at their nearby home on Bracken Island-which pleased his mother. As matriarch of the family, she prided herself on having cultivated a close relationship with the queen. In her eyes, it compensated for their family’s slightly tarnished reputation.

However Ardhi didn’t believe that his mother and Vana were as close as Eka liked to tell people. To Ardhi, it had always felt like the queen was tolerating their company instead of embracing it. And that was his mothers fault-sometimes she tried so hard to make a good impression that she embarrassed him.

He was the ‘in’ and he knew that-his friendship with Ivyanne was his mother’s meal ticket to social affluence, but Vana seemed relieved to have the ties temporarily broken. The way the queen had reprimanded him for proposing to Ivyanne and ‘risking’ their friendship had solidified that theory. He was Marked and Ivyanne’s age-why the hell
wouldn’t he step up? And why wasn’t he good enough for her daughter? Because the Wood and Fire families had interbred one hundred years ago? Big whoop. At least his parents had three heirs to show for it! And other things, things Vana wouldn’t find out about until she’d earned Ardhi’s respect.

The phone rang again. ‘Hello? Oh hello darling! Yes! Yes he’s right here!’

Ardhi sat up eagerly and saw his mother cupping the receiver and looking in his direction. ‘Ivyanne?’ he hissed.

But she frowned and shook her head. ‘It’s Pintang.’

Ardhi took the phone. ‘What?’ he asked, still annoyed from her call the previous week.

‘Ardhi hey,’ Pintang’s voice sounded small. She exhaled shakily. ‘Look... about what I said the other day...’

‘Yeah?’ Ardhi asked, darting a look at his parents and seeing them trying their hardest to hide the fact that they were listening. ‘What about it?’

‘I was wrong. You
need to come back and fight for her.’

Ardhi wriggled further up the couch, alarmed. ‘What?
Why?’

‘Tristan’s here.’ Pintang’s voice was low. ‘He checked in on Thursday night.’

Ardhi saw red. In his hand, the phone line crackled, and died.

‘Hey! What happened to the power?’ His mother cried. ‘The T.V just went out.’

Ardhi grimaced and threw the useless phone to the couch as he got to his feet. He knew. He’d caused it. And it was about time people found out how. Starting with the princess.

⁓

The sky was painted with long, slender streaks of pink and mauve and blue which made the calm sea look a warm shade of periwinkle. The islands were tiny grey smudges in the distance, and a thin fog had settled over them, distorting them so Ivyanne couldn’t even tell which was home. The fire, constructed of thick branches of driftwood, was only just catching on, the flames blue and green licking up the kindling, growing larger and more vivid with every passing second. It was a hot day, the kind where the air was so thick with humidity that you could almost clench it in your hands. Instead of adding to that heat, the flames seemed to break it, leeching the moisture out of the air whenever they jumped.

Rain is coming
, she thought idly. She saw a small crab on it’s back and stooped, flicking it over and smiling as it scurried away. ‘Off you go boy.’ She whispered.

It was high tide so the bonfire had been built on the upper edge of the beach, nestled amongst the dunes where the sand was thick and white because it escaped the rolling tide.

There were already a few staff sitting around the fire, two guys she didn’t know were tapping a keg while Remi and her husband Michael snuggled up across from them, writing in the sand and laughing. Ilsa, the fair-skinned brunette from reception was watching the spit rotate, as if entranced by the twirling pig while Marcus, the head lifeguard, was frowning at one of the other boys who had just torn the shrink wrap off his cigarette packet off tossed it thoughtlessly on the sand. Marcus shook his head and bent to retrieve the cellophane, pocketing it.

Ivyanne had known Marcus when she was younger, he’d looked to be in his late twenties then-and easily passed for mid twenties now-so he was probably around sixty. He had been the head lifeguard who had trained Lincoln, and that concept made Ivyanne slightly nervous. Had Lincoln ever confided in his boss about his summer fling? She knew how men liked to brag.

Ivyanne was nursing a beer while she waited nervously for Tristan to arrive. One of the groundskeepers had shoved it into her hands. She hadn’t had any yet, and didn’t plan to. Mermaids cherished their bodies too much to poison it with drink, and as a result, they had no tolerance for it.

But Ivyanne needed to feign drinking. Back when she was younger, and in Lincoln’s company, she’d made her feelings towards alcohol clear. If she wanted to convince Lincoln that she wasn’t her sister, then she needed to act differently then she always had. She’d even borrowed clothes from Pintang that evening, and after laboring over hair and make up for an hour, knew she looked like a shadow of her usual self. She’d straightened her hair and swept it back into a long, sleek ponytail, and was wearing short shorts and a clingy green halter top that emphasized her curves and made her feel downright exposed. It would draw more attention her way, which wasn’t great, but at least Lincoln wouldn’t look at her and see the sweet, chaste reliable girl who’d he’d built his fantasy future around.

Tristan would like the get-up too. Ivyanne was sure of that. She blushed when she realized that she liked that notion. After spending a few hours with him that day, surfing, having a lunch down at Marcus’s yacht club, and then winding down with a mock-tail at the bar, she’d discovered that being in Tristan’s company wasn’t as taxing as she’d dreaded. She liked the way Tristan could make her blush and the way his eyes danced with mischief when he flirted with her. He was fun, he was easy going and his kisses the previous Thursday night had definitely stirred something up deep inside her-but in so many ways, the wonderful things about him seemed like his greatest liabilities.

Yes he could hold a decent conversation-but he was so worldly that it left Ivyanne stumped for anything to add. He was beautiful too, but so beautiful that any woman who crossed their path immediately made a spectacle of themselves to garner his attention, and Ivyanne didn’t fancy spending the next three hundred years checking to make sure that his eyes were still focused on her. There was nothing Tristan needed from Ivyanne-not money, sex, companionship, approval, conversation-that he couldn’t get from some other source. So what could she possibly bring to the relationship, that would balance things between them? That would hold his interest and make her feel secure? She imagined keeping someone like Tristan Loveridge in a committed relationship would be akin to wrestling a sea serpent into submission, and Ivyanne didn’t want to be the first Court woman who was overshadowed by her husband. With mermaids, the female half of the species had always held the power. Until she’d gone out and lived her life, built a business of her own and learned how to handle men, she knew she wouldn’t be enough for him.

That was where it was different with Ardhi, Lincoln and Bane. She knew with the click of her fingers, she’d have them in line. And she liked that feeling. As a Siren, she was entitled to it. With Tristan, she felt like a child being led by the hand. A hand she couldn’t trust not to walk her straight into heartbreak.

And a relationship wouldn’t work without trust. It wasn’t like with humans, when they grew old together and parted ways within decades-whoever she chose had to be just as in love with her, just as compatible with her, for at
least two hundred years. Could Tristan be that rock? It seemed so unlikely.

Ardhi could. That, she didn’t doubt. If she could learn to view Tristan romantically, then cultivating intimacy with Ardhi should be a cake walk. He was beautiful enough. So was her problem simply that she’d run instead of trying?

Maybe I should contact him, and arrange to spend some time with him, she mused, biting her lip, and trying not to cringe at the idea of holding her best friend’s hand, or touching her lips to his.

‘Hey everyone.’ Said a listless female voice.

Ivyanne turned and saw Adele stepping down the sand dunes alone, looking as luminescent as a pearl in a long, elegant off-white sundress. The sunset stained the dress, and her palest blonde hair, a dusky pink. A chorus of ‘Hi’s,’ greeted her.

‘Nice dress.’ Ilsa from reception stepped away from the spit and smiled at her friend. ‘Is that the Prada one you got in Melbourne?’

Adele nodded, pushing a chunky gold bangle up her delicate wrist before hugging herself and looking around self-consciously. Was it Ivyanne’s imagination, or did Adele seem...off?

‘It is. Is Link here yet?’

‘He’s not with you?’

‘No.’ Adele glanced over Ilsa’s shoulder, and met Ivyanne’s eye. She frowned slightly, then turned her attention back to her friend. ‘He’s sleeping off his massage in his cabin. I’m sure he’ll be down soon.’

‘Naw, the poor boss had a hard day at the spa.’ The groundskeeper who had given Ivyanne the beer, slung his arm around Adele’s narrow shoulders. ‘You need a real man honey.’

‘Maybe I do, Curtis.’ Adele took the beer from the boy’s hand and took a long drink. She wiped her mouth afterwards. ‘Someone who treats
me to spa days and takes me out on the town afterwards, instead of making me squat alone in the sand and get feasted on by mosquitoes.’

‘Well, my budget won’t stretch to that.’ Curtis ruffled Adele’s hand before walking off. ‘So another keg beer it is for me!’

Ivyanne turned her face away, taken aback. Adele hadn’t come alone-she’d brought an entire pity party with her! What was going on?

‘Are you okay?’ Ilsa asked Adele, her whisper no match for Ivyanne’s supernatural hearing.

‘No. We had a fight, I think. And you won’t believe over what when I tell you later.’ Adele exhaled noisily. ‘I’ve been trying to make up for breaking off the engagement, but it’s like I don’t even exist! Now a bit of my past has come back to haunt me and instead of dealing, he went to sleep.’

‘
What part of your past?’

‘I’ll
show you later.’

Ivyanne stared out at the ocean, her own mood swinging violently, cursing her extraordinary hearing. She didn’t want to know that Adele and Lincoln’s relationship hadn’t improved over the weekend. She didn’t want to feel
slightly gleeful at the the idea of him ending up single. But her accelerating heartbeat betrayed her good intentions. She glanced over at Adele and Ilsa and saw that they were crossing to the other side of the fire, where the majority of the staff stood huddled together.

I should go over there and join them.
She mused, feeling silly all by herself. She’d been talking to Remi and Michael when she’d first arrived, but now they were involved in some intense private conversation on the blanket away from everyone, and she didn’t want to interrupt. In fact, I should befriend Adele. It would make sharing the bungalow, and the bar with her that much easier.

But how could Ivyanne make friends with a human? What would she say? Friendship involved sharing things with the other person, and there was nothing Ivyanne could talk about that wouldn’t reveal confidential information. No wonder girls like Ilsa and Adele treated her with suspicion-she was a closed book. And until she sorted out her personal life, she’d remain shut up within herself, never
really living the human experience she’d come there for.

‘You look way too fine, to be looking so dejected.’ Tristan’s soft Californian drawl swept past Ivyanne’s ear, making her shiver. His hand eased down over her exposed shoulder blade, making her skin heat deliciously.