by Zoe York
“How about you?”
She looked up. “What about me?”
“Tell me about Daphne’s injury.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? I know what you mean. You mean some deep, dark, emotional wound.”
“Sure do.” He gave her an even look. “We all have them. Daddy issues, imposter syndrome, struggles with grandiosity. Whatever it is, I’m curious. But feel free to tell me to fuck right off. I was just asking.”
Her nose wrinkling deepened. “It’s not a secret or anything. But it’s not a big deal, either. I don’t have Daddy issues.”
“You didn’t strike me as the type.”
“I’m not. I have Mommy issues.”
“Ah.”
“Full disclosure—I don’t take criticism well.” She twirled the glass between her fingers. “I got a lifetime’s amount in eighteen years.”
“And then what happened?”
“I got a job at the yacht club in our town, doing anything and everything, and saved all my pennies. When someone needed to desperately sell a sailboat on the down-low, and quickly, I had cash. And a way out.”
“How did you end up here?”
“I sailed.”
“Solo?” Shit, that was impressive. He told her as much, and she blushed.
“I took my time,” she muttered. “Stayed in the Bahamas for a month. But then I slowly island hopped until I discovered Miralinda and their generous youth employment visa. I got a job as a bartender, and after three years of that, had a chance to become a permanent resident.”
“Would you ever go back to the States?”
“And give up the finest berth on the island?” She snorted and ducked her head. “Nope, never.”
He let her end the conversation there, but he didn’t miss how she’d answered his serious question with a joke. “It’s a pretty sweet island. I grew up here, you know. Well, I came here while growing up.”
“Good catch,” she said dryly. “Because I don’t think that visiting once or twice each summer counts as knowing the island inside out. I bet you rarely left the estate.”
She wasn’t wrong.
He filled his glass again and changed the subject. “What’s one thing that a lover might find out about you on your wedding night?”
“That I have a fake husband. Makes the hook-up super awkward.”
He guffawed, because that was fucking funny. “Touché.”
“Don’t call yourself my lover in this scenario.”
“I was trying to be polite.”
“I’m not polite.”
“Noted. Okay. What’s something that a spontaneous husband might discover between celebratory romps? Something your friends will notice if I drop it, casually-like, in conversation.”
She made a face and looked off to the side. When she looked back, her cheeks were pink. “You’ll discover this soon enough. I snore.”
“Aww, that’s cute.”
She pulled another face, this one more dire.
“I sleep through anything,” he said to reassure her. “Tanks moving out. Wild animals snuffling around. I won’t notice snoring.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Give me something now. And you’d better make it embarrassing.”
He rubbed his jaw. “You may discover this, too. But honestly, it’s not a big deal. I have nightmares. Most guys do.”
She gave him a solemn nod. No jokes, no deflection. “That must be rough. Thanks for telling me. And it’s not embarrassing, you know.”
“No, I get that. I also snore, I’m pretty sure.”
That got him a smile.
They finished the plate of food in silence. It was companionable, if not intimate. It was best like this. They didn’t need to play fast and loose with their chemistry. That was best reserved for public settings, where it was a bonus.
In here, it would just complicate everything unnecessarily.
Finally, she stood. “I should go to bed.”
He poured the rest of the champagne into her glass. “Take this with you. Have sweet dreams.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “My dreams are never sweet, Will. No nightmares, nothing like that, but…I’m pretty nihilistic, conscious or not.”
“Maybe that will change now. You’re a millionaire, after all. I hear they have it pretty good.”
She looked at him, her eyes searching his face. As if to say, Sure, bud, but you just told me that it’s not all that and a bag of chips, didn’t you?
He had. It wasn’t.
But if he made her life a bit easier through all of this, that would be something good. Not everything, but something.
Chapter Ten
Daphne’s new husband snored—lightly, steadily, and all night long.
She woke up at two, at three, and then for good at five in the morning. It wasn’t that she minded the snoring. She’d get used to it soon enough. It was just weird to have someone else on board with her. And because he was sleeping in the main cabin, she couldn’t even crawl out past him.
At least until her bladder began to protest. After fidgeting uncomfortably for a few minutes, Daphne gave up. Peeing trumped being a polite hostess.
Was it hosting if it was your husband, anyway?
But the second she tugged the curtain aside, Will sat straight up. He swung his feet out of the nook under the cockpit and stood up, reaching for her. From snore to alert and in her personal space in half a second. “What’s wrong?”
Daphne realized a few things about her husband in quick succession.
He slept in his boxers.
His legs were impossibly long and ridiculously muscled.
And his package was…prominent. Because as he settled his hands on her upper arms and tugged her against him, she could feel it against her belly.
Then she realized something terribly alarming about herself—she liked it, and low inside, a dark, unexpected heat started to curl in response.
This was different than kissing him. That was nice. Of course it was. Even super-hot, because he was a good-looking guy and had a talented mouth.
This was something else entirely. This was sloppy and confusing. They’d jumped right over a few steps they were never meant to take, and suddenly they were in a private, intimate moment in the middle of the night.
Nearly naked, pressed against each other. Goosebumps rose on her arms and skittered down her back.
This wouldn’t do at all. She tried to focus on the benign—he’d woken up, alarmed. No reason to be, though. False alarm. “I didn’t mean to startle you, I thought you were asleep.”
“I was.”
And now he wasn’t. She needed an out. “I have to go up to the marina,” she whispered. “Use the facilities.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t need to—”
“Let me put on some shorts,” he said at the same time.
Well, good. Yes. He should do that. She crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the dull ache in her breasts as he twisted around. It was impossible not to look at him. The way his boxer-briefs molded against his hips, his ass, and rode low on his waist. There was too much skin, too much muscle, and not nearly enough willpower.
She swallowed hard.
Do not crush on your husband. That is not the deal.
It was entirely possible she hadn’t thought this through.
Will took the few seconds it took him to button up his shorts to get his racing heart under control. He was a trained killer. He could wake up from a dead sleep and shoot a man at a hundred yards without missing a beat.
He didn’t know what to do with a sleep-tousled wife wearing tiny shorts and a skimpy tank top suddenly appearing next to him.
His body knew what to do, apparently. By the time he’d been all the way awake, she’d been in his arms, soft and warm.
He needed air. He grabbed his phone from the shelf beside his pillow. It was early, but he could probably find them coffee somewhere. Sna
tching his keys, he gestured to the ladder. “After you,” he said gruffly. “And once we’re done there, I’ll go grab some breakfast, unless you want to go back to bed?”
It was the wrong thing to say. It gave his body all the wrong ideas, like tumbling into her bed on the other side of the curtain and rolling her on top of him. Filling his hands with the curve of her ass and guiding her as she’d grind against—
“I’m up for the day,” she said brightly. “Definitely not going back to bed.”
Coffee it was. And then he was going to buy some sweatpants to sleep in for the next night.
They walked up to the clubhouse in silence, then he left her to do her business on the ladies’ side. He hit the head himself, then kept going to his Humvee.
Nothing was open in town yet, but the light was on in the bakery, so it wouldn’t be long. Petite Ciotat had a rhythm to it. He’d gotten used to it over the weeks he’d spent there, going back and forth between Villa Sucre and the in-town offices for their executive training company. The bakery was the first to open. Then the coffee shop on the corner.
Will would hit them both up soon enough. First he’d kill some time by going to the office, which had a brand-new sign, he noticed. It must have been installed over the weekend while he’d been busy falling faux-in-love.
He liked the look of it, the name—FliP—a stylized combination of their last name initials. After admiring the design, he unlocked the front door and let himself in. The rented space was simple but functional. Three offices lined the back wall, and in the large open space in front, they had rolling whiteboards covered in curriculum ideas and to-do lists. Next up for Will to do was a series of webinar videos to hook customers into hiring them. Now that Daphne had married him—and he’d be able to settle his claim on Villa Sucre once and for all—it was time to kick the recruitment campaign into high-gear.
He grabbed a red marker and circled the videos. That’s what he’d do this week.
Then he went to his desk and fired up his computer. It was still the middle of the night on the west coast, so he wasn’t going to call his brother, Quinn, but the guy deserved to be the first to know what he’d done—or at least the fictionalized version thereof. Once he sent that email—short, vague, happy—he sent a more professional version of the same to Gill. It would take a week or two to get a marriage certificate, but the deed was done. He wanted the legal paperwork drawn up and ready to go the second he had proof he was a married man.
After he hit send, he rocked back in his chair and kicked his feet up onto the corner of his desk.
That was how Brayden found him a few minutes later, because Will didn’t move when he heard the office front door swing open. He’d had enough of leaping up in alarm for one day, and it was just barely dawn. Plus, the only other people who had keys were Navy SEALs just like him, and he didn’t feel like being cold-cocked.
“What the hell are you doing here?” his partner asked. “I woke up and saw the light on.”
Brayden lived with his girlfriend Arielle in an apartment on the next block.
“Forgot you might notice that. I’m still getting used to the whole small town thing,” Will said.
“And?”
“Uh, it’s a long story.”
“You want to go get coffee?”
“Yeah. And then I’m heading out.” He grinned. This worked, actually. “I’m taking breakfast back to Daphne.”
“Back to? As in…”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I spent the night on her boat. We were celebrating.” Heat crawled across his chest and up his neck as the next words crowded on his tongue. It was one thing to email his lawyer about it. It was another to say it out loud to his best friend. “One thing led to another last night, and Daphne and I… we sorta got married.”
“No need to go into details, man—wait, what? Married?” Brayden laughed. “Dude, I thought you were going to overshare about sex.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“Shit.” Brayden scrubbed his hand over his face. “Okay, you can probably get it annulled.”
“I don’t want to get it annulled,” Will said mildly. “I want to buy her breakfast and get back to our celebrating.”
His friend gave him a look of alarm that Will couldn’t understand. “Does your brother know?”
“That’s why I was here. Easier to send an email on the computer than from my phone.”
“Look, this may not be any of my business, and feel free to tell me to fuck off again, but man, have you thought about a prenup?”
Will gawked at his friend—and business partner, he needed to remind himself. Right. Shit. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain that part away. Because oh yeah, they had this covered six ways from Sunday on the legal front, but that didn’t jive with the whole spontaneous cover story.
A laugh ripped from his chest. “Yeah,” he finally said. “She brought it up. It’s all good. We scribbled some shit on a napkin and we’ll make sure it squares with the lawyers, okay?”
Brayden shrugged. “Sure. I guess. Damn, man, I didn’t see that coming. I mean, we all know that you two can’t stop looking at each other and poking, but we thought it was just an itch that needed to be scratched.”
“It’s not like that,” Will said, clapping Brayden the shoulder. Maybe it was a little harder than necessary. Whatever. “Come on. Coffee time. And then I need to get back.”
“Sure, sure.”
But Brayden’s words stuck with Will even after he picked up the island’s version of beignets and two travel cups of steaming coffee.
It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would look at Daphne and worry about her being a gold digger. That wasn’t acceptable on any level. He needed to do something about that. Needed to step up his game in public so there was no mistaking he was head-over-heels for her, and that was the only reason they were married.
The truth, of course, was way more complicated. It probably always was. But that was between the two of them, and nobody else’s business.
Not now, not ever.
Chapter Eleven
Daphne snuck in a quick shower while Will went in search of coffee and breakfast. Then she put on her most modest swimsuit and on top of that, a basic, high-neck t-shirt and a pair of shorts that hit at least mid-thigh.
It was as conservative as clothing got on the island.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
Today was the day she would tell her friends she’d gotten married—surprise!—and the day she would start looking at Will with stars in her eyes, because that was the deal. That was her new job. Or one of them. A fake role and a very real opportunity to do something great, inextricably tied together.
Tomorrow, she’d give her notice at work and start the countdown to working full-time on her own dream. A line of beauty products made on the island, with local products, and by local hands. She couldn’t wait to put up the job listings.
Back on the boat, she tidied up nervously. Everything had its place, and there was a place for everything… but now she was sharing the space with someone else. His stuff would need a space, too. He was a SEAL. He could figure the details of that out, but she needed to clear him a shelf, a drawer.
Will was living on her boat.
He would be snoring on the other side of her curtain and wearing nothing but boxer-briefs for the foreseeable future.
She needed him to dress more conservatively, too, but how could she convey that without revealing that he affected her?
He had to know.
Maybe she should address it. Name that big horny elephant in the room and kick him off her sailboat in one honest fell swoop.
But when Will returned, breakfast in hand, his face was tight, and she didn’t get a chance to lay her cards on the table. He launched right into disturbing news of his own before she could even say hi.
“I told Brayden,” he blurted, handing her a coffee. “And it didn’t go that wel
l, to be honest. Which is my fault, and I’ll fix it.”
“Wait, what?” All concerns about her being hot for Will jumped overboard. “What needs to be fixed?”
“He thinks we should get an annulment, you know? So you don’t steal all my money.”
That was…funny. Sort of. Daphne laughed weakly. “That’s ironic.”
“I realize.”
She scowled at him, which felt familiar and comfortable in this moment of stress. “What did you say?”
“I said I wanted to buy you breakfast.”
“No, wI mean what did you say about the annulment?”
“That it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Good.” She sighed and drank some coffee. This was annoying, but she’d already planned for it, and it would be okay. She gave him a sidelong glance. He was being strong and stoic, but he was worried. She could tell. He was getting easier to read, in a way. Will Parry had layers, it seemed. “I’m not worried about how it looks, for what that’s worth.”
His eyebrows curved up as he searched her face. “You aren’t?”
“Have you forgotten about my business grant?”
He clearly had. The way his face changed, she couldn’t help laughing. Sheer relief washed over him and he grinned. “Right.”
“No offense, but a girl knows how to protect her own reputation, you get me?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “I guess you don’t need me to do that for you.”
“No.” She drank more coffee, then threw him a bone. “But I appreciate the thought.”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a rueful smirk.
“This may mean…” She groaned in mock-distaste. “We’re going to need to be extra affectionate with each other.”
He immediately moved closer.
She put her hand on his chest. “In public,” she whispered. Every bit of her desire for his ridiculously hot body rushed back. Under her fingers, his muscles rippled as he flexed. “And only in public,” she said, clearing her throat.