Panic built beneath his breastbone, especially when Zach didn’t say anything.
“I did apply,” he finally said. “I used my own money for the application.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” Owen said in his most political voice, the one he used on patrons at the hotel who were angry about something. “I would’ve paid for it.”
“I know that, Dad.” Zach speared his younger brother with another look, but Owen was glad Cooper had said something.
“What’s at UCLA?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Zach said. “It’s just different. It’s….”
“Not here.” Owen knew what Zach wanted, and he probably wouldn’t find it in Hawaii, no matter how much he wanted him to.
He’d felt the pull to leave Getaway Bay before, and he had. Just a hop, skip, and jump over to another island was all. He’d sold a lot of real estate in Maui and had come back to Getaway Bay when Linda was pregnant with Zach.
“It’s not that, Dad.”
“I know what it is.” Owen took another bite and smiled at his son, though he felt the sadness taking root at the back of his heart.
“What are you planning to study?” he asked, glad his voice didn’t hitch. He’d had so much practice concealing how he really felt, first with his wealthy real estate clients, then with almost everyone he dealt with at Sweet Breeze, and now with Gina.
The last thought surprised him. He didn’t want to hide how he felt about her, and maybe now that he’d kissed her—albeit just a peck—and held her hand….
That wasn’t hand holding, he told himself, and he knew it. She wasn’t in her right mind, and he wondered if she was if she’d tell him about her foster families or let him caress her face and flirt with her about taking her home and putting her to bed.
“Basketball tomorrow at four,” he said, maybe a touch too brightly. “Right, Coop?”
His younger son grinned at him. “Right, Dad. And I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“He’s starting at guard,” Zach said, and Cooper yelled, “Hey! You jerk.”
“You told my news about UCLA.”
Cooper tossed a piece of lettuce at Zach, and Owen held up one hand.
“Guys, come on.”
“Only because you’ve been too chicken to talk to Dad about it for months.” Cooper glared, his face bright red. “You had no right to tell him.”
Zach shrugged like it was no big deal, but Owen knew the fury was there, simply simmering below the surface. Zach might look more like Linda, but he had Owen’s personality, his ability to take things and stuff them way down deep until they were like a cancer, eating at him. Then he’d explode.
“It’s fine, Coop,” he said, keeping one eye on Zach and one on Cooper. “Starting guard, huh? That’s amazing. What happened to Bryce?”
“Nothing,” Cooper said, settling back to normal though he didn’t put anything else in his mouth. “I just beat him for the spot this game. Coach wants to see how it goes.”
Pride welled within Owen, and he grinned at his sons. “Great news. Can you be there, Zach, or do you have to work?”
He looked at Owen and then Cooper. “I’ll be there.”
Since that was his way of apologizing, Owen didn’t press the issue and they finished dinner.
“I’m going to go check on Gina,” he said once the leftover pizza pockets had been wrapped in foil and put in the fridge.
“Who is she again?” Zach asked.
“She’s doing the closets at the hotel,” Owen said. “She fell on the job today and hit her head.” He omitted the part where he’d acted like the one with a traumatic brain injury and had kissed her while she was down. “And Joyce said she shouldn’t be alone.”
“So she’s a co-worker.”
“Kind of.” Owen studied his son. “What if she wasn’t?”
Zach blinked, clearly not expecting this conversation. “I don’t know.”
Owen didn’t either, so he just tossed the washcloth back in sink and said, “I’ll be in my office after I see how she’s doing. If you’ve got homework, get it done.”
He left the boys in the kitchen and went back to the front of the house, where the guest bedroom sat across the hall from the office, a bathroom between them. He’d installed a door there too, almost making a little suite for himself since Zach often brought friends over and their electric guitars were loud.
No light shone under the crack in the door, but he knew Gina didn’t have anything for her stay here. He hadn’t had female articles of clothing in the house for a decade. What was her plan? Sleep in her clothes? Finger-brush her teeth?
He knocked, the proper gentleman in him not allowing such meager living when the modern necessities were five minutes away. “Gina?”
She didn’t answer, and he tried the doorknob to find it unlocked. “Gina? It’s Owen. Can I come in?”
“Yeah.” Her voice sounded tinny and far away, and Owen wondered if when Joyce said she shouldn’t be alone, she meant it literally.
Owen entered the room, the only light coming from the hallway behind him. His eyes took precious moments to adjust, and then he found Gina sitting up in bed, the comforter tucked around her legs.
“Do you need me to run and grab you a toothbrush or something?” he asked, pausing several feet from her.
Their eyes met, and Owen felt that invisible charge, that strong tether, form between them again, pulling against his resolve to keep his distance.
“A toothbrush would be nice.” She smiled, but it didn’t contain nearly the wattage it usually did.
“And you eat bananas for breakfast,” he said. “I remember that. Pajamas?”
She shook her head. “I can sleep in my clothes.”
“I can grab something at the drugstore,” he said, the very idea of sleeping in jeans repulsive to him. “Even a big T-shirt or something.” He did not allow his mind to travel down any forbidden paths.
“If you want to.”
“How’s your head?”
“It hurts.”
He checked his watch. “You can take some more painkillers in about an hour, if we start rotating them.”
She nodded, wincing with pain, and his heart twitched in his chest to help her. Help her somehow.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Almost eight-thirty.”
“So I have to stay awake until nine-thirty?”
“I can bring them in to you,” he said. “I rarely sleep more than four or five hours at night.”
Her eyes drifted closed, and she looked absolutely angelic lying there. “That’s not healthy, you know.”
He chuckled, insane fantasies floating around inside his mind. “Probably not. But someone keeps insisting I go running at five-thirty in the morning.” And he’d gladly given up the extra hour of sleep he usually got.
“It’s too hot otherwise,” she said, a smile curving those full lips.
“You should be here in the summer.” He meant it as a joke, but he suddenly didn’t feel jovial. “Will you be here this summer?” He took a step toward her but stalled when she opened her eyes.
“Yeah, of course. The job at Sweet Breeze goes through October. Right?”
“Oh, yeah, right.” But what about after that? What about next summer? He kept those questions silent and fell back a step. “I’ll go grab you what you need.” He turned to leave.
“Owen?”
He spun back toward her. “Yeah?”
“Can I have some chocolate too? Whenever I was really sick, my foster mom at my last house, the one where I graduated from high school, she’d bring me chocolate.” That smile drifted across her face again. “She said it cured everything.”
“What kind?” he asked, wanting to make sure he got this right for her. “Dark? Sea salt? Caramel?”
“Whatever looks good.”
He didn’t like that answer, but he accepted it. He’d noticed over the weeks of his friendship with Gina that she
was not a picky eater. She did not like to make decisions about what to order or make distinctions as to which kind of chocolate was best.
He pulled the door closed behind him, texted the boys that he was going to the store and they could request one treat each, and got behind the wheel of his car.
As he drove through the Hawaiian night, he realized that Gina probably had very few choices in her life growing up. She didn’t get to decide what kind of chocolate her foster mom brought her. She took what was offered or went without.
His heart, usually so full on a night with a full moon such as tonight, with the ocean lapping against the shore, felt like someone had frozen it in liquid nitrogen and then shattered it.
He wanted to do something—be someone good—for Gina. Insane curiosity crawled through him at how she’d gotten to where she was.
He knew she met with the Nine-0 Club, and he knew how meticulously Fisher researched those members. So Gina was definitely a billionaire.
The real question that plagued Owen as he picked out a red toothbrush and a long nightshirt that said “Yeti for bed” on it with a big white creature on the front was: Did she want a boyfriend?
If he offered, would she take him?
Chapter Five
Gina was aware of Owen coming in and out, saying something…she couldn’t remember, and then waking sometime in the middle of the night to the soft, steady breathing of another human being nearby.
She hadn’t had that sound in her bedroom since her freshman year of college. After that, she’d decided she wanted to live on her own, and she’d picked up extra hours on any job she could find to make it happen.
After all, she’s had enough of sleeping two or three or even sometimes four to a bedroom.
Her heart pounded out a syncopated rhythm as she tried to figure out what had happened. Her head hurt so bad tears came to her eyes. She closed them, because the pain lessened when she wasn’t trying to search through the darkness for things she couldn’t see anyway.
The smell of musky cologne and wilderness hit her, and she remembered where she was.
“Owen?”
As if her voice had reached right into his slumber and awakened him, he said, “Yeah? You okay? What do you need?”
His fingers, cool as ice and filled with relief, trailed over her eyebrows.
“My head hurts.”
“You wouldn’t wake up for your last dose. Let me get you a drink.” Owen moved and the door opened, letting in a rectangle of light, which also pierced Gina’s eyes with pain.
She groaned, rolled away from the door, and covered her eyes with her arm.
“Here you go.” Owen touched her elbow and she tried to sit up. She managed to do it without crying out, and she took the pills from him.
“I can take all of these?”
“I called Joyce myself.” Owen supervised while she swallowed the pills and took the glass from her. “Is it okay I’m in here?” he asked. “I was really worried about you.”
Gina shivered despite the warmth flowing through her. “It’s fine.” She didn’t really want to be alone, which was a very strange sensation for her.
“You should be good until morning,” he said, retreating and putting the glass on the nightstand before he settled back into the armchair only half a dozen feet from her.
She slid down the pillows to go back to sleep, but the unconsciousness didn’t claim her the way she hoped it would.
Owen’s breathing didn’t even either, and she finally rolled toward him, the silver light from the moon illuminating his face and making him twice as gorgeous as Gina already thought he was.
“Are you still awake?” she asked, her voice barely reaching her own ears.
“I am.” Only Owen Church would be so formal at four o’clock in the morning.
“Have you already gotten your four hours of sleep?”
He chuckled, and apparently that was her answer, because he didn’t say anything else. Gina enjoyed the silence, glad she didn’t have to fill it.
“It’s nice here,” she said.
“Yeah? How so?”
“I don’t feel any awkwardness.”
Owen’s dark eyes glinted in the soft moonlight. “You’ve had a lot of awkward silences?”
“A fair few, yes,” She closed her eyes. “What about you?”
“A couple.”
“Tell me about one.”
“When I found out my wife was cheating on me,” he said, causing Gina’s eyes to fly open.
Her heart skipped a couple of beats and then settled into its normal pulse. “What?”
“It wasn’t pleasant. The silence or the conversation that followed it.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Almost ten years now.” He pushed his breath out. “She’s somewhere in France, I think. We don’t really keep in touch.”
He didn’t sound too terribly upset, but Gina knew how deep wounds like that cut. Owen didn’t say anything else, and Gina wasn’t sure where to take the conversation next.
She wasn’t particularly good at carrying a conversation to begin with, because in most of the homes where she’d lived, speaking was frowned upon.
She once again wanted to let him in, but she didn’t know how. Gina closed her eyes again, letting the swish of air through the vents lull her toward peace and slumber.
The next time she woke, Owen wasn’t in the room but the sun had come up and painted the furniture and walls in golden light.
Her head ached on a low level, something she worked with on a regular basis.
She ran her fingers through her hair, in dire need of a shower and a hot cup of coffee.
Knowing Owen, even the little that she did, he’d probably have a dozen flavors of creamer—and he’d probably mix them all together.
She put her legs over the edge of the bed and tested her weight on her feet. So far, so good. She made it into the bathroom to find bottles of shampoo and conditioner on the counter, along with a loofa with a tag still on it attached to a bottle of body wash. A stack of towels sat behind them, and Gina ran her fingertips along the edge of the towels, struck by the care Owen took with everything.
With his boys. With the hotel. With simple things like shampoo and painkillers. With her.
Her phone rang in the other room, and she turned away from the perfection of Owen Church to answer it.
“Stacey, hi.” Her voice sounded a bit rusty and crackly along the edges.
“You were hurt at work?”
Of course she’d know. She was married to Owen’s best friend. “I hit my head. I’m feeling ten times better than last night.” Or even a few hours ago.
She noticed a note under the edge of her water glass. It read Take four more of these when you wake up, there are towels in the bathroom, and there’s coffee brewing. –Owen
She spun away from his handwriting—maybe the only negative thing about him, what with those weird slants that were barely readable—expecting to see Owen standing there with a hot cup of the liquid caffeine she needed so badly.
But Owen wasn’t there.
It seemed like all of her senses suddenly came to life, because she definitely smelled the coffee, like a hint of deliciousness on the air.
“Well, I just heard, and I told Fisher I’d find out.”
Gina startled at Stacey’s voice through her phone. “Right. Well, I’m okay. Some doctor of Owen’s said I have to stay down for a week, and she didn’t want me being alone last night.”
“Where are you then?” Stacey sounded concerned and curious, and Gina kicked herself for saying anything.
“Oh, uh, Owen’s.”
“You stayed with Owen?” She practically yelled the question, which hurt Gina’s head considerably.
“Just in his guest room. I was pretty out of it. But I’m feeling much better,” she tacked on quickly. “Really, I am.”
“Well enough to sit on the beach for an hour?”
She remembered enough from last night
to know she didn’t have a car here at Owen’s. He always came to pick her up for their run, so she wasn’t even sure where he lived.
“I don’t have a car here,” she said. “And I’m not even sure where Owen lives.” She went to the doorway that led to the rest of the house, wondering if all the Church men had left.
Nothing moved in the house, and she padded down the hall into the kitchen, which shared space with the dining room and a living room. A computer sat on a coffee table, and the brightly colored sticker told her it wasn’t Owen’s.
Stacey laughed. “Well, I know where Owen lives, and I can come get you.”
“I’m not supposed to do anything too strenuous,” she said.
“It’s lying on the beach,” Stacey said. “I’ll be there around ten-thirty, okay? You can tell us all about you and your fabulous running partner.” She giggled and hung up before Gina could say she wasn’t up for talking.
It didn’t really matter at the Beach Club if she talked or not. So she usually didn’t. Lexie had had enough news for all of them for a while, and Gina enjoyed getting to know the other women. She just didn’t want to say anything about herself.
The coffee maker did indeed have coffee in it, and a sticky note on the top said, Creamers in fridge, though you probably don’t want them. Sugar on the counter.
She poured herself a cup of coffee, using the pearly red mug sitting next to the maker. After adding a couple of spoonfuls of sugar, she sipped, sighing in relief.
Gina took the pills and texted Owen to say You’re the best host I’ve ever stayed with. Thank you for taking good care of me.
He responded immediately with How are you feeling?
So much better. And this coffee is amazing. She glanced around, hoping the bag would be visible, but it wasn’t. His kitchen looked like it had been professionally cleaned, though she knew Zach had made dinner the night before.
Stay as long as you want. Nap. There’s leftover pizza pockets in the fridge. Or I’ll sneak away and bring you lunch.
Gina smiled at his words, and eating lunch with him sounded wonderful. But not in yesterday’s clothes and certainly not in the yeti nightshirt she currently wore.
Stacey’s coming to get me for a beach hour, she texted. Maybe we can eat lunch in your office and I can nap in my own place?
The Billionaire's Boyfriend Page 3