“It means employing more women on their own terms.” She had thought a lot about this question, too. “Women have a harder time reentering the workforce and staying in it. Bigger means we serve more people.”
“Which means you can’t do all the parts by yourself indefinitely.”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “Now you really sound like Jillian. But yes, it’s true.”
“And which part do you most want to hold onto?”
“I want to be in charge.” She gave him a pointed look. “Obviously.”
Byron laughed. “Of course you do. And I’m sure you’re good at it.”
The compliment felt good. Really good.
“Sounds like you need an angel investor,” he said thoughtfully.
“Someone who gives money but doesn’t want any say in the company? Those don’t grow on trees. At least not the kinds of trees in San Francisco.”
He shrugged. “You never know when someone might like it when you’re in charge.” He said it so casually that she almost believed the innuendo was unintentional. Almost.
“Is that so?” she deadpanned.
Byron’s face broke into a grin. “Absolutely.”
The path narrowed as they passed the last of the faint lights that came from the guest cabins, then it forked in front of them. To the left was the beach where they had met that first morning, and the sign that pointed to the right read The Hilltop Restaurant in elegant script. Just a bit farther in the direction of the restaurant was a narrow drive that split from the main path, the one with the No Guests, Please sign on the gate. This was probably the high-class equivalent of barbed wire and attack dogs.
Was this the road to Byron’s house? If so, she was dying to see it. What kind of house would this deceptively easygoing man build for himself? She glanced over at him in a way she hoped would prompt a response, but he didn’t give any indication that there was something noteworthy on the driveway up ahead. If it was indeed a path to his house, he had just made it perfectly clear in that understated way of his that seeing it was off-limits. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to come right out and ask.
The path headed up a gentle incline, and the farther they walked, the more she could see. On the right side, the incline continued, so whatever was down that gated path was still out of sight, but to their left, the surfing beach was coming into view. In the glow of the waves stretched out in perfect lines, coming around the point. She slowed, watching the waves from above, and Byron stopped next to her, close, silently watching with her.
Around the next curve, the lights from the restaurant came into sight. But after another couple steps, a cool gust of wind hit them. Byron slowed to a stop and turned to her. But as he opened his mouth to speak, she caught a hint of that determined “Leader of an Important Company” look on his face.
“The storm. It’s coming in, and it’s going to be a big one.”
* * *
“Tonight?”
Byron unclenched his jaw. “Probably tomorrow.”
“Does that mean you won’t be able to fly out?”
He waved off her comment. “I’m thinking about the waves.”
Waves built as a storm approached, and they could last even after it passed. The kinds of waves surfers dreamed about. The kinds of waves that also threw surfers onto the sharp coral of the reef, sending them to the hospital. Every year it happened, usually to a skilled surfer who wasn’t familiar with the area. Someone good enough, confident enough, to take a chance. Byron’s stomach clenched as the excitement lit up Jessie’s face. She was going to surf in this, and he wouldn’t be here to make sure she was all right.
Byron sorted through angles for how to approach this subject, rejecting each one. He already knew she wasn’t going to like his warning, no matter how he said it. So he blew out a breath and said it anyway. “Most of the reef breaks around here are dangerous in big surf. They can’t hold the size of the waves.”
Her smile faded, and she crossed her arms. “Thank you for that Surfing 101 tutorial.”
A surge of lust ran through him as she glared at him. Not helpful.
“You know what I’m saying,” he said. She lifted an eyebrow, silently daring him to say it. “Maybe you want to take it easy the next few days.”
“I can handle myself, Byron.” If fire could shoot from a person’s eyes, she would’ve just done it. He was trying to put a lid on all the ill-timed thoughts running through his mind right now as she fixed her glare on him.
“I know you can...” His voice trailed off.
“But?”
But...he would feel better if he was there, too. Why? Tomoko knew the breaks well, and she wouldn’t take Jessie anywhere they couldn’t handle. But there were so many unpredictable things that could happen, too.
He shouldn’t be getting involved. This was exactly the kind of situation Sheila had warned him about—his tendency to get very fascinated when the right woman came along. They had only met yesterday morning...which seemed really far away right now. His worries were just on overdrive because who the hell would want to leave surfing and sex with this amazing woman?
After a few more tense moments, she shrugged. “I’m not really in the mood to take it easy this week.” She flashed him a cool smile. “Are we done with that subject?”
Rein it in, buddy.
“Fine. Yes.”
Then she smiled a real smile again. “Good. Because I’m hungry.”
Jessie reached for his hand and laced her fingers with his. Her hand was soft and warm, and a bit of the tension in his shoulders eased. This was probably her way of mending that connection between them, and after a deep breath, Byron decided it was a good one.
As they walked into the restaurant, he focused on her soft palm against his. As Jessie followed the hostess to their ocean-view table, he watched the light shimmer on her white hair. She hadn’t done more than slip on a dress to prepare for the dinner, and her hair fell in a mass of waves down her back. He was infatuated with this woman—that was what this feeling was—though it would feel like loss when he said goodbye. Given a little time, a little distance, those feelings would fade. They always did. But right now, she was still in front of him, and he wanted to spend this time storing away every detail.
The hostess either didn’t recognize him or had the good sense not to show it. Byron didn’t care which one it was, but Jessie didn’t miss that detail.
“That woman barely looked at you,” Jessie said after she disappeared.
“You’re a captivating woman,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging up. “I can’t compete.”
She tried to suppress her smile, but the effort wasn’t successful. “I mean I expected the woman to recognize you, acknowledge that you’re...well, the owner.”
He shrugged. “We have a lot of very high-profile guests who come here for privacy. If I walk into the restaurant for a meal, her job is to treat me like I’m any other guest, to follow my cues about the level of interaction I’m looking for.” In this case, he was looking for nothing at all to disturb his time with Jessie. Which meant the hostess had read him perfectly. He sighed. “If she did note who I am, I’ll hear about it from Sheila.”
She blinked, looking a little startled. “Sheila?”
He could hear the wariness in her voice, so he quickly added, “The Kalani’s wishmaker, as she’s called.”
“Oh.” There was a pause, and then Jessie laughed. “I thought you were going to say you had a girlfriend or a wife or something.”
Byron frowned. “After these last two days? Hell no.”
He was surprised to find that the accusation stung. But maybe she had heard the closeness with Sheila in his voice, mistaken it for something else, so he added more of the truth, “She’s also my oldest friend. We have a long history of looking out for each other.”
Jessie raised an eyeb
row. “And that extends to dinners with guests at this place?”
“If they’re beautiful and captivating and I can’t seem to stay away from them? Definitely.”
She stilled, and he was almost sure she had heard all the truths that this sentence held, both his own pull and the depth of the warning Sheila suggested. If he wasn’t leaving for New York tomorrow, putting half the world’s distance between them, he never would have said it. Maybe he shouldn’t have anyway. But now it was out there. Jessie’s mouth was parted, and her eyes were bright, alive, like she had a truth of her own to reveal.
But before she had a chance to speak, the server slipped into their silence, and Byron was almost sure that whatever had been on her mind would be left unsaid.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JESSIE STILL HAD no idea what would have come out of her mouth if the server hadn’t appeared. Her first instinct was to push him away, to get out from under the intensity of his gaze. But when she opened her mouth to make some snappy comment about his flattery, she found that she couldn’t. His statement had felt so real, so honest and raw, and it came from a man who had spent much of their time together trying to please her. For once, the need to protect herself from the influence of a man fell second to the need to protect the man himself.
The impulse was as strong as it was strange, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it or what to say. His concern for her surfing after the storm had been as endearing as it was maddening. Well, if he was so worried, then shouldn’t he just cancel his meetings or whatever he had going on and surf with her. As a fellow workaholic, she had known better than to say that last one aloud. But it made her feel like the wave they’d been riding together had suddenly collided with another, peaking unexpectedly and pushing them off in a new direction, one far less clear.
Since they’d left her cabin, there was an intensity that buzzed between them, and it had surged out on the path then again just a moment ago. What would happen if it spiked again when they were alone? Did she want to know when he was leaving tomorrow?
It was probably best to go back to the way it had been with them before. If they went back to the sexy, easy talk, the game of stringing him along, the building tension, she could think about all those other questions later. Time to steer the conversation back into safer territory.
So she asked him about New York, where he lived now and where he grew up. And as the server placed dishes filled with seafood and pasta in the middle of the table, he asked about San Francisco, her apartment, and how she and her sister had found their way there. It was so easy to talk to him, and she loved the way he answered her dry comments with a sexy curve of his lips instead of the usual frowns she got from men. For once, she wasn’t reining in her sharp tongue in exchange for a sexy vibe. For once, those two elements went together.
“How did you get into surfing?” she asked as the last of their dishes were cleared away. “It’s not the usual hobby for a kid from New York City.”
“My father taught me.” He leaned back in his chair, a hint of a smile on his face. “My parents divorced when I was six, and my father moved back to Hawaii where he was from. I mostly saw him in the summers, and we spent a lot of time at the beach.”
His easygoing grin was back now, the one she had seen so often since they’d met. It was a beautiful smile, really—one that put her at ease. “I try to get out whenever I travel to a place with waves. When I’m out on the water, there’s nothing else on my mind except surfing.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Except those times when a woman tells you off for stealing her wave.”
Byron laughed. “Right. Then I definitely have something else on my mind.”
His eyes flashed with the same heat she had seen in them that day, right after she’d told him off, then again at the poolside encounter that night. Jessie’s thoughts must have shown in her expression, because Byron looked just as amused as he did turned on. She struggled to remember what they were talking about.
“Is that why you built the Kalani in Hawaii? To have a place to surf near your father?”
“I guess you could say that’s one of the reasons.” He paused. Was he considering how much more he wanted to say? Then he asked, “What do you love most about surfing?”
“I love that it’s just between me and my board and the wave. My rides depend on me and the ocean, no one else.”
Byron nodded slowly, the way he did when he seemed to be taking in information, thinking about it. Then he flashed her a smile. “Unless some asshole tries to steal your wave.”
“There are plenty of assholes out there,” she said dryly, biting back a smile of her own.
“When did you start?”
“When I was fifteen, my parents took us on a road trip to Pismo Beach. It was the first family vacation in years, my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, lots of firsts. Including surfing.”
It had also been the first time they’d spent together as a family in a long time. She might not have noticed that if the long car ride hadn’t brought her parents’ relationship into painful relief. After years of keeping up appearances, they could barely stand to be near each other anymore. Her parents’ tense silences had been a fog cloud that settled in their household for as long as she remembered, sometimes lifting but always hovering in the distance. But on that vacation, what she had thought was fog transformed into a storm cloud, crashing around everyone. When had it gotten so much worse? So, of course, she and Jillian had spent endless hours in the water, away from it, and the outcome was a newfound love of surfing. Was it a lie of omission to leave these details out of her story, or were they irrelevant?
His parents’ divorce didn’t seem to be a sore spot for him, which Jessie found fascinating. Her parents had stayed together—“for the kids,” they had claimed when things were really bad—but Jessie wasn’t sure they had done her or Jillian or even themselves any favors by sticking it out. Their relationship was still an open wound, raw and vulnerable. Which was why she rarely went back home anymore.
The server slid the bill onto the corner of the table between them. Jessie reached for it, but Byron covered her hand with his before she could pick it up. His hand was so different from hers, bigger, golden brown, with those long, very capable fingers...
“Let me take care of this,” he said softly. “Please.”
Something about those words, let me take care of this, gave her pause. What she heard was let me take care of you. Under most circumstances, that kind of sentiment would have earned a figurative kick in the balls, but this wasn’t most circumstances. She could feel his please run through her body. There was nothing sexual about this moment, and yet she could feel that it was coming from the same place that prompted him to show up at her door that night, ready to serve her. Let me. The same ache was there, leaking out of their bedroom games and into the new intimacy between them.
Jessie hesitated, and in that moment, she let herself want to give him this. What if she let the weight of standing on her own ease, just for a little while? Was that different than surrender? After a deep breath, she pulled the bill from under his and shook her head.
“My invitation, my treat,” she said, forcing some lightness into her voice. She signed the paper and printed her cabin number on the line before she could change her mind.
By the time they walked out of the restaurant, the wind had picked up, and the clouds were moving in, blocking some of the stars. But the wind was still warm, and the night still sparkled above them. The ankle-high, solar-powered stake lights lit the path, and the stars glowed. And for once, the endless loop of chatter in her head quieted.
How long had it been since she walked in the dark at night? Years, if she only counted the times that were intentional. And even when she found herself walking to her car late at night, self-defense courses had taught her to be on guard. What was the opposite of that? It must be the strange feeling of contentment that
was flowing through her as they headed into the night.
Byron hadn’t said a word since they started from the restaurant, and strangely, she hadn’t, either. That was probably some sort of personal record. Jessie sighed and eased back into the silence of their walk along the dusky path. The night was moonless, and the Milky Way arched over them, an echo of her childhood, when the stars were a sign that there was so much more out there than her life in her hometown. The thought had saved her many times.
The road led them out of the forest and past the pathways to other cabins, and she could feel the urge to slow her pace, to slow the ticking clock of their time together.
The pathway to her cabin was lit with soft white lights that filled the front porch with a mystical glow. She opened the door to her cabin and held it for him, but he stayed still. “You want to come in?”
He closed his eyes. His chest lifted, fell. Finally, he shook his head.
She put her hand on her hip. “Is this about the bill? That I didn’t let you pay?”
Byron surprised her with a bark of laughter. “No, it’s not.”
“Is this a ‘it’s better when you wait’ game?”
His smile faded. “No, it’s not that, either.”
The truth was she felt...well, a little hurt that after spending the evening together, he seemed to have lost interest. She had all sorts of ideas about how things might go now that they were alone again, and he was saying good-night?
“You’re just not in the mood?” Her voice was light, and she tried to keep the bite out of her sarcasm. “Or maybe you have to wash your hair tonight?”
God, she really could sound like a bitch sometimes.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
But Byron didn’t look angry at all. Instead, in a move that took her completely by surprise, he wrapped his arms around her and coaxed her to his chest. She stiffened, not quite ready for it, but she didn’t pull away, either. She just let him hold her against him. He had a nice chest, an amazing one, really, broad, full of muscle but not hard. And underneath the faint scent of chlorine from their swim, he smelled like sex, like him. He smelled really, really good.
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