As I walked, I felt my foot scrape against something that definitely wasn’t sand. I stopped, turning around to look at what it was. Daniel was still going; he hadn’t noticed that I’d stopped.
I knelt down on the hot sand, poking at the little white object I could see poking out of it. When I pulled it free, I saw that it was a perfect nautilus shell. I blew on it, gently, sending the particles of sand flying in all directions.
I held it gently in the palm of my hand. Somewhere ahead of me, Daniel was looking back, shading his eyes with his hand.
"You coming?" he called out.
"Yeah, yeah," I replied, jogging over to him. "Look what I found." I extended it to him, still cradled in my palm.
"It’s a shell," he said. "On a beach. Imagine that."
"Don’t be an asshole. I thought you’d like it."
"I do like it," he said, his forehead just slightly creased. "But it’s - it’s a shell."
"All right," I said. "Then I’ll keep it, if you don’t want it."
"Was it for me?" he said, in mild surprise. "Of course I want it. I didn’t - sorry, I didn’t realize. But you might want to consider that I’m pretty sure taking shells off this beach is actually illegal."
I closed my hand around my tiny treasure. "Well, if I get tackled by security, you’ve got my back, right?"
He was smiling. "Always."
CHAPTER TWO
"Horseback riding," Daniel announced, proudly. I raised my arm to shade my eyes from the brutal midday sun. There were, in fact, horses standing a few feet away - a palomino, and a bay. They both stared at me, placidly.
"Have you ever ridden?" he wanted to know.
"Yeah," I said. "Don’t we have to have a…guide or something?" There was absolutely no one else around, and unless he’d impulse-bought the horses, that struck me as a little odd.
"Not if you put down a big enough deposit, it turns out," he said, with a boyish grin. "Should I give you a leg up?"
"Boots," I said. "I’m not riding in flip-flops."
"Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?"
"Did they really not give you boots?" I looked at him skeptically.
"That didn’t strike me as very romantic or spontaneous."
Yeah, well, neither is a shattered fibula. "I really think we should go back there and get some boots," I said, smiling. He was trying so hard, after all.
He rolled his eyes, but he did lead me to the rental hut just up the beach. The horses were lashed to a post, so they certainly weren’t going anywhere - although something about their dispositions made me think they’d stand there motionless until the tide came in, no matter what.
When we were properly outfitted, I walked up to the palomino and tucked my foot into the stirrup, hoisting myself up onto his back. Daniel was already turning the bay around, holding his reins like an expert. "So what’s your story?" I wanted to know. "You didn’t grow up rich, so I know you weren’t going to riding camps as a kid."
"No, that came later on," he said. "There was this girl."
"Oh, of course," I said. "Of course there was."
He cantered up beside me. I tapped the sides of my horse with my heels, and he started to make his way down the beach; Daniel and his bay followed.
"I’m not proud of it," he said. "Although knowing how to ride does come in handy, from time to time."
"I’m not judging you," I said. "I spent two entire winters trying to learn how to snowboard for a guy."
Daniel laughed. "I always thought that must be harder than it looks."
"Well, it is if you’re me," I admitted. "I felt like one of those toy soldiers, you know? Once you fall down, how the hell are you supposed to get back up? You can’t move your legs."
"Well ideally, I suppose you have a strapping young man around to pull you back onto your feet."
"I guess that was the idea. But he just got really, really impatient with me after a while."
"This is much better," said Daniel. "Let the horse do all the work."
Before long, we reached a little copse of trees that marked the end of the private beach. I thought for sure we would have to turn around, but Daniel just kept going, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to follow him. I considered asking if we were allowed to take the horses off of resort property, but I imagined he’d have some answer related to throwing piles of money at everyone, like usual.
"Ever thought about taking it up again?" he said, after a while. "I could get you lessons."
I could get you. I hated it when he phrased things like that. "God, no," I said. "What a nightmare."
We were starting to approach some more populated parts of the beach, and I became acutely aware that people were staring at us. I pushed my sunglasses up on the bridge of my nose and urged my horse on faster.
"What about you?" Daniel called after me, semi-successfully convincing his bay to pick up the pace accordingly. "How did you take up riding?"
"I grew up in horse country," I said, watching a little kid stop building his sandcastle and gape at us, open-mouthed, while we passed. "My best friend had stables." I wanted to keep staring out at the ocean, but the glare of the sun was almost blinding, so I turned away to give my eyes some rest.
Looking back inland, I noticed a young man with a very large camera in his hands. As soon as he spotted me looking at him, he started backing away, dropping the camera to dangle around his neck on a thick strap.
"Hey," I said, reaching out and touching Daniel’s arm. "Look. This is new."
He looked at the photographer, and then back at me.
"What?" he asked. "People taking pictures?"
"No, genius. He was talking pictures of you." I gestured emphatically. "Us."
"Don’t be ridiculous." Daniel frowned. "Look, he’s gone."
"Oh my God. You’re like a child." I shook my head, digging my heels into the palomino’s sides.
"No, you’re paranoid, is what you are," said Daniel, good-naturedly, urging his bay to keep up. "You think paparazzi are following us halfway around the world, now? I’m not exactly a celebrity."
***
We had lunch in the little bistro on the beach, picking over cured meats and cheeses and drinking some brand of mineral water I’d never heard of. I couldn’t stop thinking about the photographer. I’d been floating along, more or less peacefully, since we got here; now I felt abruptly yanked back to reality. And it wasn’t a reality that I had any idea how to handle.
Right about the time Daniel was pondering the dessert menu, I started to feel very watched. I ignored it for as long as I could, but finally I couldn’t shake the sensation of someone’s eyes burning into my back.
I turned around to look.
It was the photographer.
He spun around as soon as he sensed me moving, but I recognized him immediately.
"What’s wrong?" Daniel wanted to know, frowning while he chewed on something.
"It’s the guy," I said, softly. "The photographer."
The photographer who was, in a moment, standing directly next to our table.
"I’m so sorry," he said. "I don’t mean to bother you. You’re on vacation. But I think your wife is starting to think I’m some kind of crazy stalker."
"I don’t think that," I said, coolly, taking a sip of my water.
"Please," said Daniel, looking up at him with a slightly confused expression. "Don’t apologize. Can I help you?"
"Well, maybe." The photographer smiled, extending his hand for Daniel to shake. "My name’s Ryan Brewer, I’m a freelance journalist. I just happened to be out here on vacation, and who do you think I saw?"
Daniel’s smile was frozen. "Me?"
"You," said the journalist, pulling out an empty chair without asking. He sat down, leaning toward Daniel. "Can you believe my luck?"
"Hardly," said Daniel.
"I’d love to get a quick interview. No big deal. Nothing heavy, just a light piece, I’m thinking maybe Vanity Fair?"
"A quick one,"
said Daniel. "I suppose."
"Okay. First of all - what makes Daniel Thorne tick?"
I drummed my fingers on the table.
"A desire to succeed, I suppose," said Daniel. "Same as anyone else."
"You think you’re the same as other people?"
Daniel picked up a grape and examined it. "More or less," he said.
"So what sets you apart?"
Daniel took a deep breath, and let it out. The journalist’s foot was jiggling under the table.
"I suppose I do things," he said. "Other people might just be content with - thinking, or imagining. I act on it. That’s what sets me apart."
"That’s very interesting," said the journalist. "That’s very…you know, I talked to some people about you recently. They said something similar - that your ability to take action is what makes you different."
Daniel looked up, sharply. "And who would that be?" he said, a little louder than necessary.
"You might remember them. I believe you were involved in some…legal troubles with a few them, actually."
My husband stood abruptly, rattling the table.
"Maddy," he said. "Let’s go."
I got up to follow him, and the journalist jumped to his feet as well. "Mr. Thorne," he said, tripping over his chair to come after us. "Mr. Thorne, please, if you could just give me a minute more of your time -"
One of the waitstaff appeared out of nowhere, grabbing the journalist by the arm and yanking him back. Daniel was walking quickly back to the lobby of the hotel, and I hurried after him, my feet sinking into the sand as I tried to pick up my pace. He put his hand on the small of my back and urged me forward.
"What was that all about?" I muttered, under my breath, but he didn’t answer.
We’d made it halfway back to our room before I saw someone hurrying towards us - I recognized him as the resort manager, who’d introduced himself to use when we checked in.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thorne," he said, slightly breathless. "Please accept my deepest apologies. I was just informed by the restaurant staff -"
"It’s fine," said Daniel, shortly. "Not your fault."
"All the same," said the manager. "I promise you, he will be removed from the premises. We absolutely do not allow our guests to be harassed."
"Thank you," said Daniel, hurrying me into the room and shutting the door behind us.
***
I didn’t ask any more questions until dinner - which was room service, naturally. Daniel had been doing a lot of pacing and looking out of the open wall, but hadn’t ventured back outside yet.
"What was that guy talking about?"
He was looking at me, so I knew he heard the question, but he paused a long time before answering. "There was a lawsuit," he said. "A long time ago." He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. "It was frivolous, but I settled. One of the conditions of which was that neither one of us would discuss the details."
I leaned forward slightly. "Not even with your wife?"
He just shrugged.
After he’d opened another bottle of wine, he looked at me again, carefully, and seemed to notice the way my eyebrows were still slightly knit together.
"Don’t worry about it," he said. "It’s nothing."
"I’m not worried," I said. "Just curious, that’s all."
"It’s very boring," said Daniel, smiling. "I promise."
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.
After dinner, Daniel went to take a shower, and I immediately pulled out my phone to see if I could search out some details of the mysterious lawsuit. Normally I tried to avoid searching for his name, for my own sanity, but his reticence had me deathly curious.
I knew that there was a decent chance it wouldn’t have been well-covered, especially if it was more than handful of years ago. But it turned out to be even worse than I’d suspected; there wasn’t a single mention of Daniel Thorne being involved in any sort of lawsuit, ever.
This was going to drive me absolutely insane. There was plenty I still didn’t know about Daniel, after all the time we’d spent together, but nothing had ever intrigued me this much. One thing was clear: he didn’t want to tell me. I was pretty sure whatever settlement he’d agreed to didn’t actually preclude him from sharing the details with his wife, for God’s sake.
What had the journalist said? Something about Daniel’s "ability to take action" being the thing that set him apart from the crowd. It had put Daniel on his guard - clearly, that meant something.
I curled up on the sofa and tried, unsuccessfully, to quiet my mind. These last few months had been…strange, to say the least. From time to time, I still felt like I was just pretending to be Daniel’s wife. I still held the secret, deep inside, that our relationship hadn’t started out as something real. No matter what had happened since - no matter what we were now - every time we were out together, every time I told "our story," every time he put his arm around me, every time I looked at him, I would remember.
But then there were those other times.
A few weeks ago, before we’d left for our second honeymoon, I remembered walking into the kitchen and catching sight of him unexpectedly. He was folded up on the floor, halfway under the sink, and really my first thought should have been oh God, I hope he’s not trying to fix something himself. But instead, I just stood there, dead still, and my heart twisted with a feeling so intense I almost couldn’t breathe for a moment.
These little interludes were becoming more and more frequent. I’d grown up as one of those girls who rolled my eyes when people talked about love so strong it was a physical pain in your chest, and now I’d turned into one of them.
But still, I had a hard time to wrapping my head around the concept of Daniel Thorne, the businessman. I was starting to become more familiar with him as a public figure, but that was different. Not too long ago I’d seen him give a keynote address in front of a crowd so large it almost gave me stage fright on his behalf. But he didn’t show a sign of nervousness, and he commanded them with an effortless charisma. He was still uncomfortable dealing with people one-on-one, but he’d gotten much better at hiding it. I think I was often the only one who noticed how much he wanted to shrink into the corner, once the speeches were over.
The part of his mind that actually came up with ideas, and figured out how to act on them, was still a mystery to me. There were times when I wouldn’t see much of him for a few days - he’d spend nearly all his time in the office, only coming home to sleep occasionally. When it was over, he’d have pages and pages of ideas submitted to the people who actually implemented whatever he came up with. But now, I found myself wondering what his process had been like before he had a whole team of people to do the practical work for him. When he got his first ideas, did he build the prototypes himself? Where had they come from? Were they simply strokes of inspiration, or had he toiled over them for days, weeks, years?
A unpleasant notion was growing in my mind, and I tried to shake it off, but it had already taken root. What if there was someone else? In the vague lore of Daniel’s rise to success, which I’d seen written and re-written in many different articles, there was never any mention of someone else. To hear him tell it, he’d been completely alone from the beginning.
But that didn’t seem very likely, did it?
No, no, no. I had to stop. There was absolutely no use in this line of thought. I was allowing myself to speculate coldly, as if he were some distant figure I knew nothing about, instead of my husband. The fact that I hadn’t come to terms with the paradox in my own mind didn’t give me the right to make ugly assumptions about his past.
Daniel came out of the bathroom smiling and toweling his hair. And completely naked.
Every single thought vanished from my head.
"Don’t look so pensive," he said, turning and slinging the towel over a rack nearby. "The interview’s not still bothering you, is it?"
"Not so much at the moment," I said, eyeing him.
He grinned
. "It’s a good thing you don’t still work for me. I could have you fired for inappropriate behavior based solely on the way you’re looking at me, Ms. Wainwright."
"Yeah, I think it might actually be more inappropriate to walk around naked in front of your employees," I said, sitting up and stretching out across the sofa as he came closer. "But I won’t tell if you don’t."
He knelt on the sofa, leaning down over me, one of his legs planted firmly between my thighs. "But how do I know I can trust you?"
I smiled innocently. "I’m told I have a trustworthy face."
I wasn’t used to seeing him like this. Usually, at this point, he’d still be at least mostly dressed. I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the angles of his naked body as he loomed over me - watching the way his muscles tensed and stretched, how they moved under his skin. He worked hard to maintain his body, presumably more for his health than for my personal benefit, but I appreciated it nonetheless.
"There might be something you could do," I said, softly, letting my fingers trace each taut little swell of muscle on his stomach. "But I don’t know if you’ll like it very much."
He brushed his lips against mine, so softly it almost didn’t count as a kiss.
"Try me," he whispered.
My throat tightened. I needed him, suddenly, urgently, and I didn’t have the patience to carry on with our little game. And judging by what I could feel resting hot and heavy against my stomach, I wasn’t alone.
"Daniel," I whispered, intending to say more, but he read my face and hushed me with a kiss, pulling my panties aside and slipping inside me quickly. I sighed at the familiarity and how perfect it was. Every time. I locked my ankles around his waist and tilted my hips up to meet him, trying to ignore the wonderful, painful twisting in my chest when I looked at his face.
The sun was sinking down low in the sky. By the time he shuddered and stilled on top of me, I could hardly see his face.
I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance) Page 2