47

Angel stopped swimming. That’s right. Logan had made his damning accusations, his pronouncement of how things would be, and she’d slunk back into the sea with a broken heart and a big ol’ pity party.

What happened to her backbone? She used to have one. Angel grabbed the hair that was floating around her like sargassum in a hurricane, perfectly mirroring her mood, and draped it over her breasts and tied it in the

back like a Human halter top, but not.

She did used to have a backbone. And she wanted it back.

“Hey, Ang.” Mariana dove into a somersault and headed back Angel’s way. “Let’s not go back to Atlantis just yet. A group of my friends are vacationing in the South Pacific right now. Let’s join them. A girls’ week-end. Or two. Relax, sun ourselves on a deserted beach, drink some fermented pineapple, have a grand ol’ time. We’ll just pretend this didn’t happen.”

“Really? And what are you going to tell Rod when he wonders what took you so long to bring me back?”

Mariana went for