Chapter 129
Dante’s POV
I stepped off the plane and felt the island air wrap around me like it had been waiting. Three months. That was how long I had carried her letters in my pocket next to the auger shell. Three months of cold nights at sea and the sound of her voice in my head every time things got quiet. I did not waste time. I walked the familiar path down to the beach with my bag over my shoulder and my heart beating harder than it had any right to.
She was there.
Laila knelt on her faded blue cloth arranging shells the way she always did. Her dark hair moved with the breeze. The white sundress had that small tear near the hem. She looked up when she felt me watching. For one second she just stared. Then the basket dropped from her hands. Shells scattered across the sand and she
