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  My heart squeezes. Aches. Fuck, I hate myself, my life, and the shitty goddamn hand Fate has dealt me. But she can't know that.

  Better that she think I'm a cold-hearted asshole.

  I grab her wrists; keep my eyes hard and focused, keep my emotions caged way down deep, chained up where they belong. I force her hands off me. "I know you could have, Lee. I may be an idiot, but I'm not blind. That's just...it's not where I'm at."

  Anger suffuses her features. "Not where you're at?" She slaps my chest, hard enough to leave a red handprint. "What the fuck does that mean? Is that the new asshole way of saying 'it's not you, it's me'?"

  I'm careful to keep cool, to keep my gaze steady, my expression neutral. "Basically, yeah. But it has the additional benefit of being true. I'm doing this for you, Leanne. Carlos is better for you than I am for more reasons than I care to go into. Please believe me when I tell you I'm doing you a favor."

  She's disgusted, now. "God, you're full of bullshit lines, aren't you?"

  "Pretty much."

  She blinks back tears. "Any other lines you want to feed me?"

  I think for a moment. "You're gonna make some guy really happy. I just wish that guy could be me."

  A nod. "That one is nice and traditional. Any more?"

  "I think that's it."

  She takes a deep breath and I'm asshole enough to enjoy the way her breasts swell. "You're unbelievable." She turns away, takes a few steps across the room to the doorway leading to the rear deck. But then she stops. "You know, I really thought there was more to you than the rich adrenaline-junkie playboy. I really did. I hoped there was. Guess I was wrong."

  "Guess you were."

  I let her get off the boat and onto the pier before I stop her. "Lee?" She turns back, and fucking dammit if there isn't still a glimmer of hope in those brown eyes. "You know what sucks?"

  "That I always seem to fall for the asshole?"

  "Well, yeah, that too. But no."

  "Then what?"

  "They weren't just lines. Every single word was true."

  She shakes her head, rolls her eyes, huffs, turns on a heel and flounces away. "Yeah, sure. I fucking bet they were."

  No point arguing. I let her go, and once she's gone I throw myself onto the couch running along the outside of the stern deck. I crack open a brand new bottle of Lagavulin, and work on blacking out.

  I'm not man enough to face the ghosts of all the things I regret.

  *

  Two weeks later

  All the wisdom I've gathered in the two weeks I've been kicking it in the islands around Cape Horn tells me it's a fool's errand to try this passage, no matter which route I take--there's the Straits of Magellan itself between the mainland and Tierra del Fuego, or Beagle Channel between Tierra del Fuego and Isla Navarino, as well as numerous other routes between the Wollaston Islands and Hermite Island. The problem is--as those in the know tell me--all of them are dangerous. They're all narrow, fraught with wicked, unpredictable winds, strong currents, and are dotted with icebergs and outcroppings of rock. The Drake Passage is the safest, being the widest, though the most southerly, but it's still no cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination.

  So, of course I pick the hardest: Beagle Channel. I hire experienced sailors to crew for me--there will be no eye candy on this trip.

  We bomb it, hard and fast. The water is jade green, choppy, tossing us up and down and side to side. It's fucking cold as balls, and the wind whips and howls nonstop, cutting like a knife, driving us to dangerous speeds, even without trimming the sails too tight. Mountains rise on every side, snow-capped and cloud-crowned. Despite the danger, it is thrillingly beautiful.

  I let the sails belly in the driving wind, haul them taut, ignoring the wise advice of my crew to slow down. We tip as we tack, the wind nearly pushing us over--it's only a rush if it's dangerous. I only feel alive if I'm encroaching on death, if I'm toeing the bleeding edge of insanity.

  *

  Santiago, Chile

  A month and a half later

  After the harrowing trip around Cape Horn I take a while to rest up and to get the Vagabond checked out and re-stocked. The crew I hired for the passage takes their leave of me in Santiago with hefty bonuses all around, considering the risks I took with our lives on that passage. I take on a month's worth of food and water and spend a bunch of money on new fenders and lines and such, although, all things considered, the boat is in great shape.

  I haven't climbed a mountain in a while, and Santiago seems to be as good a place as any to put that to rights. So I get kitted out and locate a group heading up into the wild highlands. It starts out as a fairly relaxing day hike out of Cerro Providencia, but quickly gets more challenging as we begin the ascent. I'm no novice at climbing, having summited Everest twice, so this climb is child's play compared to that.

  For me, the climb proves to be too easy, not really providing any thrills, aside from the one time my grip on my ice axe slips and I have to scramble for stability while hanging onto the edge of a cliff using my crampons and a second axe.

  As we hike back to town at the end of the day I know I need more of a challenge. I'm approaching my thirtieth birthday and I want to feel something, a buzz, anything that will give me the adrenaline rush I crave.

  The next day I hitch a ride north to Copiaopao and find a group with a decent guide who are headed up the Ojos del Salado volcano. None of my companions on this climb speak much English, and I only speak a smattering of Spanish--which I don't think these fellas speak, either. I used a translator to make the arrangements, and they made it clear I had to keep up or be left behind; they weren't going to haul my ass up the peak or wait around for me.

  Fine by me. I've never asked for help. I've never accepted a handout in anything, with the single, notable exception of living off dear old Dad's money. I'm pretty goddamned sure I can handle this volcano. Of course, I didn't say that to them. I just agreed, signed the waiver, smiled, and bought a couple rounds.

  As we finally approach the marshalling area I look around...and up. This is what I'm talking about. It's barren land--wind-swept and cold. A true wasteland--no greenery, no vegetation. The highlands are an endless wilderness strewn with rocks and boulders.

  Merely getting close to the base camp area of the volcano was an adventure requiring an experienced, daring driver who provided us with some intense white-knuckle moments. But then we arrive and the mammoth volcano--the second highest peak on the continent--rises like a massive monument to an unknown god. Made principally of volcanic stone and rock, Ojos del Salado reaches into the dizzying blue bowl of the sky.

  We quickly grab our packs and listen to some last-minute instructions delivered in broken English. I'm positioned in the middle of the hiking group, three ahead of me, three behind. The translator is immediately behind me. Everyone is chattering to each other, shouting jokes back and forth, laughing, and scampering up the incline like fucking mountain goats. I don't understand a damn word they're saying, but it doesn't matter. I'm focused on the climb, focused on the sky above, and focused on this massive mountain under me, above me, and all around me. I'm focused on soaking up and storing each moment.

  Remembering each moment.

  Savoring each second.

  Live every minute as if it could be the last, because for me, it very well might be.

  I am so focused on the climb, head down, putting one foot in front of the other, that I almost miss the moment when we summit.

  Which is a fucking joke, of course, because that's the theme of my whole goddamn life: Focus on the journey, don't think about the destination.

  I feel a slap on my shoulder. "Hey. American. Look up."

  I straighten, and look around. "Jesus Christ."

  "Is very something, no?" He's a little younger than me, German, maybe, with shaggy black hair, a sparse beard, burly, wearing expensive gear and lived-in boots.

  I can only nod and soak in the vista of the world spread out around me, a wide end
less expanse of rock and sky. Even at daylight, this high up, the stars are visible in their countless millions. Breathing is hard in the thin air, and my heart is knocking so hard I have to sit down.

  I could cry.

  This is it.

  This is why I live.

  My chest is tight, my heart--the metaphysical one--is full. I'm alive. Today is my thirtieth birthday, and I'm alive. I'm not just alive, but I'm literally on top of the world.

  I could die; my heart is pounding so hard. I'm dizzy.

  Lightheaded.

  My heart is failing.

  I lay back and rest my head on the knife-sharp shale and rock. I stare up at the stars in the indigo sky.

  It's a good time to die.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder. "Climb down now." The same dude, gesturing at the descent.

  I shake my head. "I'll--I'll catch...catch up."

  A weathered South American--Ecuadorean? Chilean? Brazilian? I don't know. He peers down at me, eyes hidden behind mirrored UV goggles, his neck gaiter pulled down. "You sick." It's not a question.

  I blink. Try to breathe. Chest fucking aches like an elephant is sitting on me. I feel each heartbeat, focus on each one, and count each one. When your heart could give out without warning at any moment, you sort of become attuned to each flutter, each irregularity, and each thumping beat, attuned to the rhythm.

  No shit I shouldn't be climbing mountains. It's the very last thing, literally, the actual last thing I should ever do. But statistically, it's virtually impossible that I'll ever find a match for my heart, and I'm a terrible candidate for a transplant, so I gave up on that idea a long time ago. My only goal in life is to see thirty-one, and to do and see everything I can imagine in the meantime.

  Dad died at thirty-eight.

  Grandpa died at forty-five.

  Great-Grandpa at sixty.

  Me?

  Thirty-one is a pipe dream. Always has been.

  Fuck.

  And now I'm goddamned dying. Here on a mountain. In the middle of nowhere. With a bunch of strangers.

  My meds are all back in Valparaiso, on the boat. There was no fucking way I was hauling around a backpack full of my meds on this trip. Because fuck it. Because I'm an idiot with a death wish.

  I'm basically already dead, living on borrowed time and have been doing so for some time. I don't really have a death wish, not really. I love life. I love each moment my heart continues to beat, but I know that each beat is one less I'll ever have. Each thump of my heart is one less in the countdown to the day I die. To the day my heart ceases to beat. The sky is narrowing above me--tunnel vision. The stars wheel above me, like those time-lapse montages in movies where the mountain is the static image and the sky is pinking and blueing and going black and then gray and pink and bright and the stars spin and stir and wheel and fade and prick and poke and brighten.

  I don't see my life flash before my eyes, which is weird, and unfortunate, because there have been a lot of really fine sets of tits I'd like to see again.

  God, I'm such an asshole. Thinking about tits while dying.

  What? I'm supposed to be all sappy and philosophical about this shit? Fine.

  Women are the greatest part of life. They make it worth living. More than the adrenaline rush, more than the thrill, women are what I live for. And unlike most one-and-done playboys, I fully appreciate every single moment I get with each one. I remember them all.

  Liv. Lisa. Ali. Astrid. Toni. Michaela. Vivian. Mimi. Tanya. Mel. Leanne. Jesus, Leanne; I regret having to send her on. Anya. Heidi. Heidi again, a different one. Another Lisa. Michelle. Jen, four different ones.

  Yeah, there have been a lot of women. But I know all their names. I remember each face vividly.

  I remember where I spent the night--or morning, or afternoon, or weekend, or entire week, or month--with each one.

  Rome. Constantinople. Moscow. Various points and ports by the dozen in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. A hundred places in Indonesia. Hong Kong. Prague. Paris. London.

  God, what a life.

  I've been everywhere. I've seen both the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Polaris. I've walked in the footsteps of Jesus himself, in Israel and Palestine.

  And you know what marks each place I've been? Not the adventure, not the myriad ways I've found to nearly kill myself. Not the skydiving, or free-climbing cliff faces, not the scuba diving and pearl diving and racing motorcycles and drag racing muscle cars and nearly wrecking a borrowed two and a half million-dollar Bugatti in Monaco, or....

  Shit, I can't list all the adventures I've had.

  No, it's none of that.

  It's the women.

  The way their hair would fall across their faces. Watching Leanne undress in the starlight on the deck of my boat, nothing but ocean for hundreds and thousands of miles in each direction. Pale breasts wet as we tumble naked in the warm midnight surf of a deserted Saint John beach. Waking up in the middle of the night on the Argentinian pampas in a tiny little pup tent and making Luisa scream so loud the fucking wolves answered her. Moonlight on auburn hair and blonde and red and purple--god, Viv was a wildcat, hair dyed purple and white for an upcoming college football game--pale skin and tan and golden and brown and every shade in between. Blue eyes and green and gray and brown.

  A good way to die, indeed, reliving the best parts of my life, on top of a mountain.

  Except...the pain fades.

  The dizziness subsides.

  I can breathe again, sort of.

  Maybe I'm not going to die here, after all.

  It takes a few more minutes, but I manage to sit up.

  At which point I realize my companions did indeed keep their word, having gone back down without me.

  This was a real mountaintop experience, let me tell you.

  Hah, I'm so fucking funny.

  But for real, though. It was.

  But now I've got to haul ass and climb down alone and hopefully not die in the process.

  *

  Beverly Hills, California

  Ten months later

  I didn't die descending Ojos del Salado. I made it down and managed to hitch a ride with one of the last vehicles leaving the area for the day. The weather was changing fast, so I was lucky I got out in time.

  I spent the rest of the following year making my way slowly up the western coast of South America, then along Central America, and finally North America. I'm home in Beverly Hills two months shy of my thirty-first birthday.

  I'm only here because I made Mom a promise that I'd be back home for this one, and I do keep my promises.

  It's boring as fuck.

  I find myself in the "garden", which is a quaint term for the thousand-square-foot courtyard in the middle of the west wing. The space is exploding with greenery and flowers and palm trees and exotic plants of all sorts. There are benches and little wrought iron tables and chairs dotted here and there in cute little still life scenes.

  I hate it.

  But it's where Mom "receives me", like she's some goddamn queen or something.

  "Your mother will receive you in the garden," Javier says.

  Javier is the butler.

  Yes, the butler.

  This is why I live alone on a boat, and why I'm usually thousands of miles away. Mom is so fucking pretentious. Cold and iron-hearted since Dad's death, and I don't know what she was like before that because I was six when he died. I do remember her smiling more and possibly drinking less, but my memory of childhood before Dad died is negligible.

  She runs his companies with a fist of steel and a mind like a bear-trap lined with razors. Nothing escapes her notice, or her ire. For me, she conjures up a thin facade of sympathy, because of my "condition", which is yet another reason I live alone on a boat thousands of miles from this fucking estate.

  I'm sitting here, sipping on some ridiculously expensive scotch--which isn't much better than my beloved Lagavulin, despite costing triple. Waiting. She always makes you wait...because she
can.

  I hear her heels on the flagstones behind me. I stand up, preparing to greet her. I endure her stupid faux-European air cheek kisses--muah--muah. Like it means something. Who does that? Everyone in this goddamn city, that's who.

  "Hello, darling. So good to see you." Muah...muah.

  "Hey, Mom." I endure the kisses, don't return them, instead opting to give her a too-rough man hug, just to piss her off.

  "Not good to see me too, Lachlan?"

  "You know I hate it in Beverly Hills, Mom. Always have, always will. I'm only here because I promised you I'd come back for my thirty-first."

  "Your thirty-first...you know, I have quite a to-do planned. It's going to be marvelous. I've invited pretty much everyone I know, which means it will be rather something."

  I slam the scotch down and attempt, badly, to tamp down my irritation. "Mom. I told you. No fucking parties."

  "I'm your mother. It's your thirty-first birthday. It's important."

  "Only to me. I never expected to make it this far."

  "But you did, despite your best efforts."

  "Yes, I did, despite my best efforts." I pour more scotch, because I made Javier leave the bottle. "Thirty-one isn't an important milestone to anyone but me, so the idea of a big party is just...stupid. And please note the fact that I did say no fucking parties."

  "If it's important to you, Lachlan, it's important to me."

  "Oh, come on. You just want an excuse to have one of your fancy soirees. All your friends, dripping diamonds and stiff with plastic surgery and Botox. No one is even capable of smiling!" I take a deep breath, because it wouldn't do to get so worked up I have to take a pill, certainly not because of the froufrou bullshit denizens of Beverly Hills, California.

  I'm a simple man. Give me a boat, some whisky, and some women. That's all I need. It's all I've ever needed.

  "Lachlan, dear. Let's get back to the basics, shall we? The reason your thirty-first birthday is so important."

  "I wasn't supposed to live this long. I never expected to, and no else did either. Not even you."

  "And I'm happy you have! Thus...a party."

  I sigh. "Which I understand. I really do. But your idea of a party and mine...are rather different."

  Mom makes a sour face. "Yes. Indeed. Your idea of a party is booze and strippers. Mine is slightly more sophisticated."