by Zoe York
Daphne held out her bouquet. “A hand-binding service, maybe? With the vines?”
“I love it.” The priest smiled as she took Will’s hands and wrapped his fingers around Daphne’s, so they were holding the bouquet together. She closed her eyes and said a quiet prayer, then lifted the trailing vines. “May these vines be a reminder of the connection you have found on this island. A reminder of affection—” She wound one around Daphne’s hands. “A reminder of commitment.” Another wrapped around Will’s wrists. “A reminder of faith, and purity, and trust.” The last vine, the longest one, she wound first around Will, then over to Daphne.
They were well and truly tied together now.
For better or for worse.
“By the power vested in me by the government of Miralinda, and as a servant of a God, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may seal this marriage with a kiss.”
Feelings—complicated, intense feelings—threatened to overwhelm Daphne as Will looked at her, really looked at her, before leaning in. When his lips brushed hers, the kiss was soft and gentle. But it kept going, and even that delicate touch was enough to make her head swim.
Was it wrong to enjoy being kissed by your very-real fake husband?
Again, Daphne didn’t want to be right. She didn’t want to guard herself against this moment.
So she didn’t.
Dorsey refused payment for the service, but Will would make it right. He’d make a significant contribution to her church as soon as he found her website or jungle donation box, however it worked here on the island.
They took a few pictures at the altar. A couple together, posed, and then he took a few candids of Daphne because he liked her smile and the way she blushed.
Those pink cheeks drove him to do something rash when he got her back to the marina. He parked in a visitor’s spot and turned off the Humvee.
She turned in her seat and gave him a pleased smile. “That went well, didn’t it?”
“It did.” He reached out and caught her wrist in a gentle circle of his fingers. “An excellent first step.”
She glanced down at where he was touching her. “First step?”
He grinned.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay. See you tomorrow, Will.”
“Not so fast.”
“What?”
“I’m coming with you.”
She looked around. “Where?”
“To your boat.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m…We just got married, Daphne. Where did you think I was going to stay?”
“At the estate? At one of the half dozen mansions you’ve probably bought all over this island? I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
“I don’t own any mansions here.” He laughed. He didn’t own mansions anywhere, actually. He preferred low-key accommodation. Like a sweet little sailboat with a feisty roommate.
“But…you can’t come to my boat. There isn’t enough space for the both of us on it. Where are you going to sleep?”
Will leaned in and let himself have one last smirk. He’d do his best to be a good, non-smirking husband tomorrow, but it was too easy to rile her up. “Where else? With my wife.”
Chapter Nine
“This is a trap.” Daphne leaned back, trying to put as much space as she could between her and her brand-new husband. In the front seat of his Humvee. When someone shows you who they are, believe them. Will was so unbelievably selfish. She’d known that from the second they’d met. Why had she let a little excitement obscure that fact?
What. Had. She. Done?
“I can see how you’d think that, but—”
She wriggled her wrist out of his hand and held up her hand, palm toward him. “No. Seriously, Will, stop it. You’ve got to be kidding, right?”
“I shouldn’t have smirked,” he said, not looking like he was kidding at all.
She was an idiot. “Facial expressions are really the least of it. You can’t stay on my boat! What were you thinking?”
“That I would stay on your boat.”
“And not ask me about that?”
“Was it not in the contract?”
“No!”
“Damn it, I thought I specified that.” He rolled his lower lip between his teeth and gave her a thoughtful look. “Is it really that big a deal?”
“You’ve been on my boat,” she burst out, nearing hysterics now. “It’s not big enough for two people to sign a contract on, let alone…sleep together on.”
His eyes narrowed.
“And we’re not sleeping together.”
“I didn’t think we would.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“Perhaps the lady doth protest too much?”
“What?”
“Are you telling me you’ve never had guys over?”
She gasped. “That is none of your business.”
“I’m just inquiring from a logistics point-of-view.”
She groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I always make them leave. I mean, when I do have a guest, which is not that frequently.”
“I couldn’t hear that clearly through the mumbling, but I’m touched that I’ll be special.”
She lifted her face, ready to snap at him again, but the look on his face managed to soften her heart. How did he do that? “Shut up,” she said gruffly.
He grinned. “I definitely shouldn’t have smirked. Okay, let’s try this again. So…we got married tonight.”
“We did.”
“And tomorrow we’re going to tell people about that.”
She sighed. “I suppose so.”
That made him laugh. “So, without going into details, won’t we also be telling them—in the broadest sense—about our wedding night?”
“No. This isn’t Outlander. Nobody needs to know if there’s blood on the sheets.”
“There wouldn’t be any blood. I’m not a virgin.” Will gave her what she was pretty sure was meant be a charming smile. It was ruthlessly predatory—and still charming. Her husband was a menace. “Come on, Daphne. I’ll sleep on the floor like a good, proper fake husband.”
She thought about that for a minute. That wasn’t necessary. He could squeeze onto one of the benches. But she wasn’t offering him that olive branch just yet. “This wasn’t discussed before.”
“An oversight.”
“Or a trap.”
“Ah.” Now it was his turn to raise his hands. “I’m sorry. No deadly tiger pits. Although I admit to enjoying the moment when you realized I was staying. I’m human and that was funny.”
She closed her eyes.
Where are you going to sleep?
Where else? With my wife.
She snorted. “I guess that was kind of funny.”
“You walked right into it.”
She groaned. “I so did.”
“I have booze, if that helps.”
Her groan turned back to a laugh and she blinked her eyes open. “What kind of booze?”
He gave her a sheepish look. “Will you kill me if I say champagne?”
Nope. Somehow it was fitting. “Good stuff?”
“The best. Two bottles from the case I gave Mick and Cara for their wedding.”
Sold. “Come on, husband. Jeez, that’s going to take some getting used to. Let me show you to your extremely tiny berth.”
Will slung his bag over his shoulder as Daphne stormed ahead into the marina. But he caught up when she skidded to a halt short of the slip where her boat was docked.
“We need to go over a few ground rules,” she said, her gaze sliding past him.
“Shoot.”
“The toilet, for one.”
“What about it?” Small sailboats like hers had chemical toilets. He knew what he was getting into.
“You can’t use it.”
“I’m sure I can. I’m a Navy SEAL. Don’t let my family life confuse the issue. I’m fine with rough conditions.”
; “You might be fine with that. I am not. The toilet is for emergencies only. The marina has a twenty-four-hour clubhouse for members, with private bathrooms.” She pointed behind him and he turned to look. “Use them. That’s also where we shower.”
“Got it. What else?”
She squared her shoulders. “I’m going to have to give that some thought. Over champagne.”
He swallowed back a chuckle and gestured down the dock. “Lead the way.”
She stalked off again, pausing just a second at her slip to kick off her heels before hopping onto the deck of her boat.
He waited on the dock.
When she glanced back at him over her shoulder, he raised his hand. “Hi.”
“Are you waiting for an invitation now?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
She tipped her head back and laughed. Then she looked back at him, a lopsided smile on her face. “I don’t know how to do this part of it.”
“Of what?”
“A wedding night. What’s the faux-nuptials’ equivalent of carrying someone over a threshold? Dragging you across the scuppers?”
He held out his hand. “Sounds good to me.”
She leaned out and slid her fingers over his, squeezing tightly as she pulled him onto her boat. Once he was aboard, she hung on to his hand for a beat.
Will took a deep breath, making it obvious. They’d just done something big. Crazy, some might say. Momentous, to be sure. And then he’d scrambled Daphne’s thoughts into full-on panic mode by being a teasing jerk instead of the grateful man he ought to be.
He wanted to fix that, right here, right now.
“I have something to say.” He rubbed her hand, soft and warm against his fingers. “Thank you for tonight. For agreeing to my crazy plan, and then taking it to the next level. I shouldn’t have sprung this part of it on you, because I appreciate the hell out of you. Out of all of this. Your effort, your understanding, your partnership.”
“Stop it,” Daphne said softly. Her eyes were big and appreciative, though. He’d managed to get that part right at least. “Remember that I’m doing this for my own reasons.”
Right. A million of them. He couldn’t let soft eyes and sexy kisses distract him from that fact. That was why he’d picked her, after all. She had just as much at stake as he did—and she didn’t have any illusions about their relationship.
As if she was also thinking more pragmatically, Daphne snapped her fingers in the general direction of his bag. “Okay, mister. Pop a cork on something fancy.”
“Do you have flutes?”
She laughed. “No. I have one type of wine glass. It doesn’t have a stem, and it’s metal. It probably makes your hundred-dollar-a-bottle stuff taste completely ordinary, but we’re on a boat.”
“Sounds good to me.”
She disappeared into the cabin. He dug out the cooler bag with the bottles of champagne and a carefully wrapped plate of food, which Daphne did a double-take at when she returned. “What’s that?”
“A bite to eat after our adventure.”
“Huh.”
He gestured at the deck beneath their feet. “Shall we have a picnic?”
She took a deep breath, then waved her hand at the setting sun, a huge orange ball burning low over the water to the west. “It’ll be dark soon. Let’s go inside. I’ll give you the tour and you can decide if you want to stay.”
He was staying.
“Bring your bag,” she tossed back as she descended the ladder.
It was already on his shoulder.
She’d turned on one light when she went in to get the glasses, but now she flicked on another. He took a careful look around her living space—now quite a lot tidier than when he’d caught the tail end of her getting dressed a few days ago.
A few days ago. It felt like a lifetime.
In some ways it was. Ages ago, on the other side of marriage vows. He’d been a bachelor then, and now he was forever not that man anymore. There was weight to that. It had a similar feel to his discharge from the navy. A moment in time that shifted everything, that changed the course of his life.
No longer a SEAL.
No longer a single man.
What would he be like, a year from now, coming out from under the next moment—divorce? He couldn’t ever see himself getting married for real. Daphne would be his only wife. He hoped they’d be friends forever, bound by this experience.
That was what they should toast tonight. It was the strangest of bonds, but it was theirs, and it was special in its own way.
In front of him, Daphne did a slow turn in the cramped cabin. “So, this is your new bedroom, for however long you want to stay. Maybe we can have marital problems sooner than later. I’ll leave that up to you.” She gestured at the table in the middle of the tiny corridor that led to her room. “This folds into the floor. And the cushions on the bench fold down, giving you a thicker mattress. If you put your feet up and into the well under the cockpit, it’s a decent bed for one.”
Will had slept on worse, but Jesus, that was one small-assed space. “Sounds great.”
“I’ll get you some bedding in a bit.” She gave him a polite smile.
Ah. Right. His deep thoughts weren’t shared. She was focused on surviving the crazy plan and gaining her freedom. First financial freedom—which he was happy to give her—and then eventually emotional freedom, too. He would have mixed feelings about ending their arrangement.
She’d be happy to not have a house guest in her tiny space.
He steeled himself. There would be no toasting to deep connections tonight. He set the champagne and food down, tucked his bag into a nook, and sprawled on the bench that would be his bed. “Okay, wife. Tell me more rules. This is your domain, and I’m a grateful, obedient guest.”
She rolled her eyes. “Uh, okay. Well, that’s my personal space in there.” She pointed to her bedroom in the forward part of the boat, separated from the main cabin by a curtain. “No Man’s Land. Literally and figuratively.”
“Literally?”
She shifted on her feet, not looking at him. “Obviously, I wouldn’t have any male company while you’re here.” She frowned and jerked her head up, glaring at him. “As long as that rule is reciprocal, of course.”
That had been in the contract, but he wasn’t going to point out that detail again. Easy to agree with her when it was what he wanted, too—keep it simple. “I’m a one-woman man, don’t worry.”
“A year is a long time to go without…” She crossed her arms. Testing him.
“I’ve gone longer. War zones aren’t great for hook-ups.”
She made an apologetic face. “I should have anticipated that, my bad.”
“It’s fine. This is for both of our benefit, and we’re on the same page. Next rule?”
She cast her eyes about the small space. “I don’t know. That’s it for now.“
Good enough for him. He unwrapped the foil and wire on the top of the champagne, then twisted the cork out with a satisfying pop. “To rules, and conversation, and being more clear as we go forward,” he said after pouring them each a glass.
She tipped her bubbly against his with a clink. “I’ll drink to that.”
He watched her over the rim of his glass as they both sipped.
She looked right back, and then set her glass down. “We should get to know each other.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Mick’s injury.”
He hadn’t seen that coming. “What about it?”
“He showed up first. He has a limp. He doesn’t talk about it. And then Brayden shows up, and you come here, too, and there’s a reason. You’re driven. Is it about him?”
It was about all of them. “It’s complicated. He was hurt in the field. Damn lucky, too, but he’s never going to be combat-ready again, and shifting to desk duty is a hard adjustment for anyone. Harder still for a SEAL, and impossible for some of us.”
�
��I have so many questions.”
“Ask them.” He nudged the food toward her. “And eat as you do.”
She picked up a piece of fruit and gave him a scrutinizing look as she chewed thoughtfully. “You don’t mind me being nosy?”
“Not at all. If it’s not my secret to tell, I’ll say that.”
“Isn’t starting a business just another desk job, in the end?”
“Nah. All the admin work we’re doing—the marketing, the set-up, the curriculum design—that’s all pointing toward getting us back in the field. Sure, it’s instructional, and civilian, but it’s still hands-on in a way we wouldn’t get in the navy.”
“We? You include yourself in that? You weren’t injured, were you?”
He rubbed his jaw.
She shoved the plate of food back at him. “Eat.”
He chuckled. “You like to push my own shit back at me, don’t you?”
She grinned. “Love it.”
He picked up a sweet bun. “No, I wasn’t injured. But I ran into some career stumbling blocks because of choices I’ve made in the past. I stayed an operator a little too long, and I wasn’t interested in the political postings that would be required to get me back on track for promotion. I hate that kind of thing.”
“Did being a Navy SEAL turn into a dead-end job for you?”
“Something like that. Don’t get me wrong—I was honored to serve. And if circumstances were different, I’d have done another five years. But that would have been the end of the road for me, and I’d rather leave on my own terms. Take this opportunity to create something that gives others a second career, too.”
“And you have the means to help them out. That’s really nice, and I can’t believe I said that.” She flushed a little.
“I have to be crystal clear here—this isn’t me helping anyone out. They’re helping me. I’m just the seed money. They’re the brain and brawn and heart and soul.”
She smirked at him. “Sure.”
“Eat.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and drained her glass. “Refill, please.”
He topped her up, then stretched his arms wide across the back of the bench. She dove into the food, making a circuit around the plate. Fruit, cheese, pickles, meat. A bite of bread, and then again in the same pattern. A little bite of everything. Some bites bigger than others.