“Yes,” I reply before I can overthink my way out of it.

“Beautiful!”

I’m tempted to reach up and wipe away the powdered sugar on his nose. Instead, I tap the tip of my nose and smile. “You have some sugar on your nose. And a little right there on your lip, too.”

He squints at me. “I put it there for you.”

“What?”

Without warning, he leans forward and plants a soft kiss on my lips. I can smell the coffee and sugar on his breath as his mouth hovers over mine, waiting for me to respond. My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. Daimon’s voice sounds in my mind: When you scream, you scream my name. When you come, you come for me. When you dream, you dream of me.

I reach up and clasp my hand around the back of Nick’s solid neck to pull his lips hard against mine. I need to exorcise Daimon and his haunting voice from my mind.

His lips taste sugary and his tongue is a bit bitter from the coffee. I can only compare him to Daimon, so I must admit to myself that he doesn’t kiss better than Daimon did. But that’s probably because he is the one who taught me how to kiss, so naturally I’m going to believe his way is the right way. Didn’t Daimon also teach me that different is good? Nick doesn’t kiss bad. Just different.

A loud bang startles us both and we quickly turn toward the sound. The outside of the window overlooking the front garden is streaked with something dark.

“What was that?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

He opens the door and I follow him outside to the front yard. We step off the concrete path into the overgrown grass. He squats down in front of the window and sweeps aside a tangle of weeds to expose a dead crow lying on the dry earth.

“It must have flown into the window,” he says, standing up. “Maybe I shouldn’t keep the windows so clean.”

“Or maybe he saw us kissing and he got jealous.”

He laughs but, as soon as I speak these words aloud, I realize this may not be too far from the truth.

Chapter Three

Nick arrives at my cottage to take me to the dinner party just after eight in the evening. One thing I really like about this island is that everyone eats dinner late at night. It’s not uncommon to see the lights on and a family sitting at the table for dinner at ten or eleven p.m. Sometimes later. Though I’m trying to break my habit of existing only in the darkness, I can’t deny the comfort it brings me. The darkness is like my security blanket and, after nineteen years of clinging to it, it’s very difficult to let it go.

I step outside, not bothering to lock the door. This is not Los Angles. No one here locks their front door.

Turning around to face Nick, I’m not surprised to see him eyeballing my dress. I got the dress last night at a tiny boutique near the housewares store. It’s not a high-end boutique. The dresses were displayed just a few feet away from a rack of football (soccer) jerseys. But it’s white and gauzy with skinny spaghetti straps, which will allow me to tan.

A tan will make my white skin discolorations more pronounced, but that’s okay. I’m not just going to accept my condition. I’m going to flaunt it.

Fake it till you make it, right?

“You look like a Greek goddess,” Nick remarks, extending his arm for me to latch on.

I smile, but I don’t lock my arm in his. “Thank you. I’m feeling a little bloated today, so I guess it’s a good thing the dress covers that up.”

He looks a little confused, but I can’t decide if it’s surprise over me feeling bloated or because I didn’t accept his arm. I want to say, Hello! I have a skin condition. I’m not blind. I don’t need a guide.

But that would be supremely rude. Though, I’m sure Daimon would get a good chuckle out of it.

We climb the incline toward the village and away from the harbor below. The streets are quiet and the sun is just barely beginning to set on our right, lighting up the periwinkle sky with an amber glow. I sneak glances to my left every once in a while.

Nick is wearing a light-blue Real Madrid T-shirt that hugs his bulging pecs. He’s quiet as we cross the street and continue up the road that leads up the hillside. I don’t know if he was turned off by my comment about feeling bloated or he’s just thinking, but it’s making me a bit nervous.

A black man in a black hoodie passes by on the opposite side of the narrow road. It’s the same man who passed by the first night Nick came to my door. My stomach flutters with anxiety. Immediately, I begin to have paranoid thoughts that Nick and this guy are working together for some type of law enforcement agency.

But if that were true, I’d already be arrested, wouldn’t I?

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and make a conscious decision to not worry. Turning to Nick, I see he’s already casting a devious sideways smile in my direction.

“What are you smiling at?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“You don’t have to be shy,” I say, nudging him with my shoulder. “Speak your mind.”

He looks me up and down a few times as we continue climbing the incline, then he stops walking and grabs my hand to stop me. “Can I ask you a favor?” I stare into his green eyes for a moment before I nod. “Can you pretend to be my girlfriend tonight?”

“What?”

He scrunches his nose in a shameful expression. “I know it sounds weird, but my family has been very concerned about me since I got divorced last year. That’s why I’m here. I grew tired of them trying to set me up on dates and giving me pep talks. I was just hoping you could … you know, pretend to be my special friend so they’ll stop driving me crazy.”

“Your special friend?” His eyes plead with me not to make this so difficult for him and I begin to feel a little bad for questioning him. “I’m sorry. This is just very strange for me. I’ve never … had a boyfriend. I wouldn’t know how to behave.”

I stare at the Real Madrid logo on the front of his shirt to keep from seeing the look on his face now that he knows I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’m not sure what Daimon was, but he definitely wasn’t a boy and he was much more than a friend. He was my lover and my enemy wrapped in one tasty package.

“Alyssa?” I look up into his eyes and he’s grinning. “You drifted off for a moment. Is everything okay? You don’t have to do this. I just thought there was no harm in asking. I’ll understand if you don’t feel comfortable pretending.”

I smile as I realize that I have nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the one asking me to pretend to be his girlfriend.

I let out a relieved sigh. “Sure. I’ll pretend to be your special friend.”

“Are you making fun of me?” he says, continuing up the hill.

“Yes, I’m making fun of you for saying the words special friend.”

“How should I introduce you? I can call you my novia, which means girlfriend in Spanish. Is that okay?”

I look straight ahead so I don’t have to see the hopeful expression on his face as I contemplate this. I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this island. Is it wise for people to think I have a boyfriend? It might work to my advantage in keeping creepy men away (for their own good.) But there’s always the possibility that I’m being watched. By whom, I don’t know.

Part of me believes there’s no way Daimon could have survived what I did to him. Another part of me knows I made a mistake that night. A mistake that could have everlasting consequences if Daimon isn’t dead.

I shouldn’t care what Daimon would think of me moving on with Nick so soon. But I can’t help but feel an inkling of hope that I may have misunderstood. Maybe he did kill my father in self-defense that night on Hope Street. Maybe my parents did kidnap me.

“Alyssa?”

I look up and realize we’re standing in front of a small white stucco house with bright blue trim and teak shutters. The sun has set a bit more and half the sky is a dusky midnight-blue while the other half is a brilliant pinkish-gold. Why would anyone ever leave a place this beautiful?