Page 48 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
She watched him pace the deck, once, twice, before he paused to lean on his clenched fists, anguished eyes boring into her. The matching white linen pants and shirt highlighted his bronzed vitality and with his shirt unbuttoned, his stunning physique was unmissable. But it was his visibly haggard demeanour that commanded her attention.
‘Here’s the absolutely deplorable rub. He had a chance to redeem himself. He could’ve come up with the ransom.’ His jaw clenched in recollection. ‘It would’ve meant the business possibly going under and them having to start over. But it wasn’t impossible. Yet, he refused.’
‘No...’ The word shivered from her lips.
Jario’s smile was completely devoid of humour. ‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘My father begged him on his knees to sell the company. It would’ve been cents on the dollar, but it would’ve been enough to bargain with the kidnappers. When he wouldn’t relent, he asked him to take just me. To return me to my mother. Your father claimed it would be quicker if he left first then arranged for us to be released. Even then, I knew they were empty promises. I spent my fifteenth birthday in chains in a cave, two weeks after your father left.’
Willow’s hand flew to her lips, for the first time, feeling true disgust for the father she’d loved despite all his flaws. Despite the tainted legacy of his name and what he’d done, shame she now knew would remain forever.
She wanted to ask how he’d managed to get free but anger, sorrow and horror blocked her throat.
But Jario, now he’d opened the floodgates, couldn’t stop telling his harrowing ordeal. ‘Every day my father pleaded for my life, offered up whatever he could. My mother tried to sell our house but the economy was in the toilet and the pennies she was offered were laughed at by our kidnappers.’ He swallowed thickly and somehow, she knew the worst was yet to come. ‘In the end, my father decided we had to escape.’
Dread made her frame shudder. Their breakfast had long gone cold, the view blurring in the face of his heartrending recounting.
‘He was shot trying to smuggle me onto a food truck in the kidnappers’ compound.’ The words were delivered in a ravaged croak, barely audible.
Willow couldn’t remember rounding the table, ignoring his stiff form to throw her arms around him in inadequate commiseration. He didn’t flinch away from her, because she strongly suspected he didn’t register her insufficient gesture. But she held on, desperate to reassure him, and her, that he’d made it through. That he was alive. Because despite everything he’d been through, the idea that she would’ve never met him, that the profound impact of him was something she would’ve been denied, felt criminal.
‘Do you know what it feels like to watch your parent die in front of you?’ His voice bled pure desolation, unfathomable anguish. Her heart bled right along with it. ‘That kind of grief and rage, it swallows you whole, and it never lets go. Never.’ His bunched fist slammed against his breastbone, his exhales rippling through the morning air. ‘It changes you here.’ He pressed harder. ‘From one moment to the next, you see your life altered forever. And knowing it didn’t have to happen...’
‘Jario... I’m so sorry you had to go through that. God, I’m...’ She shook her head, knowing her words were insufficient but trying anyway because the thought of him dwelling in that desolate landscape, the way he clearly had been for years, utterly demolished her. ‘Tell me what I can do.’
He grasped her shoulders, shadows dancing in his eyes. ‘You can start by refusing to fall on your sword for that coward.’
Her throat closed tighter as tears prickled her eyes, her heart clenching despite the wrenching decision she’d made for herself. ‘You...don’t need to worry about that. I’m at a crossroads where my father is concerned.’
Surprise jolted him, then his hard expression returned. ‘The problem with crossroads is that you can turn back. I prefer burnt bridges.’
Willow wasn’t sure which one cut deeper. She could only stand there, dragging tiny bursts of air into her stunned insides. ‘That’s a decision for me to make, Jario. Not you.’
Censure and disappointment etched deeper into his face. ‘Then we have nothing more to say on the subject, do we?’
Anguish squeezed her chest as she watched him stride off the deck. The gentle breeze felt like ice pellets against her skin. She barely remembered drifting over to the railing, gripping it hard and staring at the water churning in the vessel’s wake.
Several times she tried to swallow and make sense of everything Jario had said. How could her father have done that? When the pressure of it grew too much, she hurried to her cabin. She’d texted Addie and left a few voice mails for her father since she left home, but she hadn’t spoken directly to him.
It felt imperative now that she did even if, as she suspected, he would still be in the same state she’d left him in. Or worse.
A minute into listening to the ringing, she knew he wasn’t going to answer. Her fingers tightened on the phone as she waited for the voice mail.
‘Hi...it’s me...’
She stopped and shook her head. There was no easing into this. Nor did she truly want to. What he’d done, what he’d put Jario and his family through...
Willow squeezed her eyes as tears threatened to spill free. ‘I know what happened in Colombia when you were kidnapped. What happened with Jario Tagarro and his father. How you...got yourself free and...’ She swiped a shaky hand across her wet cheek. ‘How could you do that?’ she whispered. ‘I can’t...do this anymore. This is your last chance, Dad. If you want a relationship with me, then...’
Maybe it’s not too late to fix this.
‘Call me. We need to talk about this.
She hung up, the weight of her father’s sins bearing down on her shoulders. Only to open her eyes moments later to a different landscape.
Red, white and green set against the backdrop of a green landscape and the large cruise ship and smaller boats that made up one side of Benoa Harbour.
They’d arrived in Bali.
An hour after most of the crew had disembarked for their much-needed day off, Willow was pacing her room. Since she was now a guest instead of crew, she was free to come and go as she pleased.