I take her by the back of the neck and kiss her lips again. I can’t resist them.

Paul fidgets with his dials and checks his instruments. His Sapphire Beach Resort cap is turned backward. It used to be blue, but it’s now greasy at the edges and sun-bleached at the top. He taps his screen, shifting a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

“Our sharks have arrived,” he says.

The crew goes into action to prepare the cage.

“Yes!” Sarah cheers, baby on her hip.

“Da!” Nico joins her in his little orange life jacket.

Shit. There won’t be another delay. I have to go under.

Mary, now known as Mom, shakes her head and takes the baby. She’s as unhappy about this as I am, but she owes me.

I kept her presence on St. Easy a secret from her children. For the safety of the entire island, Massimo couldn’t know. Sarah loves and trusts her brother, and there was always a chance she’d tell him and even greater odds she’d find a way to risk her life in order to come looking for her mother.

But once I loved and trusted Sarah, I could have told her. It wasn’t fear that she’d blow the secret that kept me from telling my wife. It was Mary begging me not to tell her children how they had been betrayed and abandoned. Remembering the way her face fell apart at the idea kept me from saying anything… because I could see Sarah in that face, and I didn’t want to see it cry like that.

When Sarah was hypothermic, deliriously quoting a children’s book, I almost broke the promise.

When she came to me with Mary’s severance papers, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t even consider revealing where her mother was. Still the hardest thing I ever did, and I’m not even sorry.

“See,” Sarah had said to me. “You had a heart the entire time.”

Sitting inside the cage, gripping the bars, I ready myself to go underwater, because I fucking love this woman. No other reason I’d do this. She’s relaxed, blowing the baby kisses.

She’s going to earn herself a spanking for being so casual about submerging us long enough to drown.

I keep my mind on the spanking to avoid thinking about drowning. But that’s worse. Can’t hide a hard dick under a wetsuit.

“Masks on!” Rylee says. She’s wearing a cleaner version of Paul’s cap over her buzzcut.

We lower the goggles and I see the world through clear plastic.

“Check your tanks,” Rylee says.

I look at the dial and follow the rest of the procedure, putting the regulator in my mouth. A hundred safety precautions in order to have fun. As if living on land isn’t dangerous enough.

Rylee signals to Paul that we’re ready.