Chapter 548
Chapter 548:
With a thud, I landed on the bed of leaves.
He loomed over me, leaving no space to breathe. His body brushed against mine, his thigh pressing against mine for a fleeting moment.
My lips parted, a question forming, but no sound escaped.
His face hovered above mine, his eyes alight as if the fire within them could burn through the night.
“It’s just the two of us here. Do you really want to fight with me now?” The fire rising within me faltered.
The chill crept across my back, the damp leaves beneath me cold with dew, and I shivered. I refused to admit defeat, though, and bit my lower lip to keep quiet.
Ashton’s hold on my thigh loosened. He rose swiftly, letting me go. His eyes skimmed coolly over my head as he stooped to pick up the branches I had dropped, then turned away, going back to arranging them.
The moment he stood, I yanked the leaf dress higher until it covered me up to my collarbone.
My temper eased, and reason returned. Watching him work, guilt swept over me in place of anger.
“Ashton, do you think we’ll ever get out of here?” His hands stilled for a moment. “I don’t know p>
Ashton never made promises he couldn’t keep. I understood that, yet I had only wanted reassurance. But Ashton was even more rational than I was, rational enough not to grant us even the luxury of dreaming.
I rested my head on my knees. He had told me to sleep, but after everything that had happened, I couldn’t.
If I couldn’t sleep, I might as well keep talking—but not about the cruise, or the tsunami, or Lea.
“Have you ever done survival training before?” I didn’t even know why I asked. Maybe it was the way he cleaned and stripped the branches with such skill, arranging them in a neat pile ready for a fire. It reminded me, not for the first time, how little I actually knew about his past.
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Ashton paused, then gave a slight nod.
I glanced into the darkness around us, the forest on one side and the sea on the other. “I wonder if it’s possible to make a bow and arrows here. It’d be useful for hunting p>
Ashton didn’t answer. He kept working, focused on the branches as though they were more fascinating than the human sitting right beside him. Disappointment pricked at me. My throat felt dry from talking too much. He still didn’t respond, and irritation crept into my voice.
“Ashton, why are you like this? You weren’t this cold to me before. You—” My words broke off when I met his gaze.
“You said it yourself. That was before p>
His words struck me dumb.
Before, we had been husband and wife, even if it was only in a contract marriage. Later, we became lovers, an engaged couple. But now… now we were nothing at all.
I shot him a glare, annoyed, and rolled over to face away from him. I refused to give him another glance.
I was woken by a tickling at my nose. When I opened my eyes, a tiny snail was staring straight at me.
I pushed myself halfway up, careful not to crush it, and gently lifted the snail onto a damp patch of sand. Soon it began to crawl off happily, full of life, and somehow, its energy cheered me as well.