Beneath the Amber Moon by Sarnia de la Mare a Mills and Swoon short stor

Beneath the Amber Moon by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA
Marina Vale had precisely three rules for her new seaside life:

1. No high heels before noon.
2. No men named anything.
3. And absolutely no falling in love with anyone who owns a boat.

By Tuesday, she’d broken two of them. By Wednesday, the third was looking dangerously shaky.Marina had returned to her family’s crumbling clifftop manor in Dorset with grand intentions of solitude and home-grown tomatoes. After a spectacularly public London divorce involving a hedge fund, a Hungarian model, and a poorly aimed breadstick, she was determined to become the kind of woman who wore linen without creasing and talked to plants. Instead, she found herself staring far too long at the new dockhand's biceps.Aeron Maddox. With a name like that, he was contractually obliged to be hot. And he was. The kind of hot that made you reconsider feminism, underwear, and your grocery list all at once.She spotted him on her morning walk to the bay—shirt clinging, jeans low, working a coil of rope like he was in a very niche exercise video titled Knots and Thighs.“New?” she asked, casually clutching her water bottle like it might burst into flames.He glanced up. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Smile like he knew what she dreamt about.“Temporary,” he replied, eyes dragging slowly from her sandals to her sunhat. “You?”“Divorced,” she said brightly. “And drying out.”Aeron laughed. A deep, quiet kind of laugh that suggested he didn’t take much seriously—except maybe the way he was currently not taking his eyes off her.Enter: Theo Ellison.Theo was her past dressed in corduroy and good decisions. He’d been her almost-fiancé back when she still thought brunch was a personality. Tall, charming, and entirely too nice, Theo turned up at her door three days later, holding a bouquet of ethically sourced wildflowers and the sort of hopeful expression that made her deeply suspicious.“I heard you were back,” he said, rain dripping from his hair. “I thought… I might come and ruin your peace.”“Oh, thank God,” Marina said. “I was starting to make sourdough.”He kissed her cheek and smelled of bergamot and poor timing.Things escalated, as they tend to do, over a dinner party.Marina had invited them both without thinking. Or rather, without admitting she was thinking. Theo brought wine. Aeron brought a crab. There was jazz. There was risotto. There was tension so thick it could be spooned into ramekins and served with a sprig of regret.When Theo leaned in to whisper something undoubtedly poetic, Aeron raised a brow and cracked a claw.“Everything all right, Marina?” he asked, voice low and infuriatingly amused.She cleared her throat and tried not to explode. “Peachy. Just two old flames and one highly flammable woman.”After dessert, Theo offered to help with the dishes. Aeron stayed behind to dry. Marina, foolishly, stood in the middle like a Regency heroine on a hen night.“I remember the sound you made when I touched your neck,” Aeron murmured, not looking at her. “Wonder if you still do.”She dropped a spoon.From the kitchen, Theo called, “Still like chamomile, Rina? I made a pot.”And that’s when she knew she was absolutely, completely, and spectacularly doomed.Later that week, Marina stood on the cliff path, barefoot and wine-glossed, watching the moon spill amber across the water.Two men. One heart. Zero bloody clue.But for now? She was exactly where she wanted to be. Between chapters. Between kisses. Between one delicious mistake and another.She grinned, tilted her face to the wind, and whispered to no one in particular:“Tomorrow, I’m buying a boat.”The End.