“I’ve been a bad sister.” My voice cracks. Walsh shakes her head, but I nod, my lips straining to form words through the tears. “No, I have. I’m so sorry I haven’t been there for you, Walsh. That’s going to change, okay? We’re family, and there’s nothing more important than family. I’m going to do better. I promise.”

Wrapping her arm around me, she leans her head on my shoulder. “You already are.”

25

The final morning of the cruise dawns as stark and heavy as a hangover.

Clouds blanket the sky as we disembark on Bartolomé, the youngest island in the archipelago and nothing more than a lifeless spit of rock. Walsh walks beside me as we climb the 372 wooden stairs leading to the top of the island.

The skin under her eyes is purplish-blue from our late-night heart-to-heart, but there’s a lightness to her that wasn’t there before.

There’s hope.

Too bad any hope for my own love life has extinguished like a bottle rocket. Three flights in front of us, Graeme climbs, his stride sure and even. My heart thunders, and not just from exertion.

“Talk to him,” says Walsh. She wouldn’t let me go to sleep last night until I filled her in on what happened with Graeme, so she’s up to speed.

Pulling up short on a platform, I walk to the edge and grip the wooden railing. Below me, a tumble of red and black volcanic rocks leads to the sea. “It’s over. I pretty much carpet-bombed any chance we had of being together.”

“I have a hard time believing that.”

“Believe it. I’ve been so caught up with this promotion that I completely lost sight of everything else. Maybe I should drop out. Withdraw my name from the running. I need to focus on you right now.”

Walsh grabs me by the forearm and whirls me around to look at her. “Don’t you dare. You’re Henley Fucking Evans. When the going gets tough, you pack that mother with TNT and raze it to the ground. Obstacles? No such thing.”

“I need to be there for you.”

“Hen, I’m not your responsibility. I appreciate you wanting to help me, and honestly right now I’ll take all the help I can get. But you shouldn’t give up everything for me. I won’t let you. First step? Talk to that man. I’ve never seen you so happy as when you’re with him. You practically glow. If you’re in the wrong, apologize. Make it better.”

Walsh is right. I owe Graeme an apology. It’s the right thing to do—even if it doesn’t change a damn thing.