“It will bear down on Barbuda, the sister island to Antigua, in the next twenty-four hours,” Dougie says. “It might disassemble a bit with landfall, but if it doesn’t, it will hit the Virgin Islands with its full strength.”

“Um…okay?” Tilda says.

She calls Dunk, gets his voicemail. She checks the time; he must be meditating. He’ll meditate until eight thirty, then he’ll drink four espressos while he prepares Olive’s daily meals. Then they’ll drive to town and he’ll call Tilda to pick them up in the skiff right around nine thirty. Can she just wait until then?

The chyron on the screen beneath Dougie says HURRICANE INGA ON DIRECT PATH FOR VIRGIN ISLANDS.

She calls Dunk again. Voicemail.

Texts him: Call me! Urgent!

Calls him again, even though she realizes it’s pointless. He’s unreachable while he’s meditating.

She calls him at 8:31 sharp.

“What?” He sounds pissed for some reason, maybe because she called during his sacred time. She doesn’t care.

“There’s a hurricane, category four, Inga, bearing down on Barbuda. And then, maybe, us.”

“I’ve been tracking it all night,” Dunk says.

Good, Tilda thinks. She doesn’t want Dunk to accuse her of manufacturing drama, hurricane as monster under the bed. “Is it something we need to worry about?”

“Hell yes,” Dunk says. “I have blokes coming to shutter this place up and I talked to Topher. He’s coming to scoop up Olive and me tomorrow morning.”

Wait…what? “You and Olive? Scoop you up to go where?”

“Back to Houston first, then probably on to Vegas. You know Topher.”

Tilda does not know Topher; she only knows of Topher. He’s Dunk’s friend and bandmate in Wasps of Good Fortune (he’s the bass player), and he’s even wealthier than Dunk. He has his own plane, a G5.

“So you’re leaving the island?” Tilda says. “You’re just…leaving?”

“There’s a hurricane coming, mate. A ballbuster. Maybe a cat five.”

“What about…this place? Lovango? The construction, the work trailer, my cottage, the de-sal plant, the pool? We can’t just leave it.”

“If I were you,” Dunk says, “I’d have Keith and the crew secure what they can over there and then you and your parents should have the caretaker shutter up Peter Bay and hunker down on the bottom floor.”

“My parents,” Tilda says, “are in Dubai.”

“You must have the caretaker’s number? Call him yourself. Be an adult.”

“I am being an adult,” Tilda says. “I’m not worried about my parents’ house. It’s made of stone.”

“Even so, mate. It needs to be shuttered.”

“I’m worried about here. Lovango. The resort we’re building.” She laughs. “I can’t believe you’re leaving with Topher. For Vegas. Do you not care about the resort?”

“I own the land,” Dunk says. “Nothing is going to happen to the land.”

“So now you care only about the land?” Tilda says. “What about the hundreds of thousands of dollars my parents have poured into building this place? That doesn’t interest you, I guess. Unless it gives you a chance to meet one-on-one with a hot woman, then you’re front and center.” She understands in that moment that Dunk “forgot” Olive’s lunch that day on purpose so he could meet alone with Swan.

“You’re acting like a possessive child. If you’re so worried about what you and your parents are building, then protect it, mate. I’m protecting what’s mine, then I’m getting out of Dodge.”

“I’m not going with you, Dunk. I’m staying on Lovango.”

“I didn’t invite you,” Dunk says. “Did I?”

Did he? No, he didn’t. Tilda can’t believe how much she hates him in this moment. She isn’t sure how to respond but she wants to pour gasoline on his heart and set it on fire with her words.

But she isn’t quick enough. Dunk hangs up.

“I’m not your mate!” she says.

Tilda calls her parents and the three of them make a plan. Granger will get their caretaker to shutter the Peter Bay house. Tilda will meet with Keith and they’ll secure Lovango the best they can. There are tens of thousands of dollars of building materials to protect. Tilda will shutter the cottage herself. There are three generators on the island; Tilda will get gas for all of them and stock up on provisions. She needs to go soon; the markets on St. John will be complete pandemonium. Or maybe not. Maybe she’s overreacting.

“You’ll stay at Peter Bay,” Granger says.

“No,” Tilda says. “I’m staying over here.”

“Tilda,” Lauren says.

“The cottage is sturdy, Mom,” Tilda says. “It faces northwest and the storm is coming from the east-southeast. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want you staying by yourself,” Lauren says. “Call a friend. Or ask Keith to stay with you.”

“Keith has a family, Mom. Little kids.”

“Where’s Dunk?” Granger asks. “Will he be there with you?”

“He’s going to Vegas,” Tilda says.

“Vegas!” Lauren cries.

“I don’t know why you started seeing him,” Granger says. “That had disaster written all over it.”

You were the one who sent us away together, Tilda thinks. What did you expect would happen? Though there she goes again, acting like a child, not taking responsibility for her own decisions. She entered the relationship with Dunk of her own free will—and yes, it was a disaster.

“What about Cash?” Lauren says. “Cash is so sweet.”

Cash is sweet. And cool. And superior to Dunk in every way, starting with the fact that Cash would never abandon Tilda on Lovango with a hurricane coming and go to Vegas with his filthy-rich degenerate buddy. But Cash is also very, very angry with Tilda. And can she blame him? A couple months earlier, Tilda reached out to him via text just to see how he was doing, and he’d shut her down, saying, Fine, thanks for asking. Tilda deserved no more than this; she’d been awful to him, so awful that, frankly, she doesn’t like to think about it. She ditched him for Duncan Huntley because…why? Dunk is rich, Dunk has a beautiful boat and an enormous villa with staff and a G-wagon and a lovely dog. Dunk has built and sold companies. Listening to Dunk’s accent gave her a buzz. When they were on vacation together, he wowed her with how generously he tipped and how much he knew about the islands; he seemed like an evolved person who cared about the actual place and the actual people, and he made Tilda want to be more than just a resort tourist. All of Dunk’s weird rituals made Tilda think he was enlightened and interesting. He knew a lot about old punk rock, which wasn’t too surprising because he was in a band, but then one morning at breakfast on St. Lucia, he had identified Brahms, then Mozart, then Schubert coming from the piano player, and Tilda had been gobsmacked by his range.

Fine, he has range, but he’s a jerk—and by jerk, Tilda means a lot of other things she’s too polite to say.