Chapter 52

Cassandraie ought to have been exhausted after a full afternoon of racing down the waterslide and splashing in the freshwater pool, but as twilight draped its violet shadows across the resort, she still brimmed with unspent energy. Each inch of her skin tingled with the pure exhilaration of play, and Thomas—content to let her chase delight wherever she found it—remained a silent sentinel in the sunken seat beside the pool. He watched her twirl beneath the spray of the slide’s final plunge, her laughter bursting like silver bells into the humid air. When at last he rose and stepped into the cool water to join her, Cassandraie’s shriek of surprise rang through the gathering dusk, and the two of them spent long moments of unbridled joy darting between each other, the afternoon unfolding into an eventful celebration of their newfound marriage. In that pool, she forgot the very purpose of their trip; it was as though Thomas’s devotion to her happiness had gently erased the notion that th