The Secret (Billionaire's Beach Book 6)

by Christie Ridgway

  Cool and collected was her trademark.

  “What did Liz mean about letting me decide if something was worth the cause?”

  She hesitated.

  “Charlie?”

  Then, resigned, she began to lay it out for him. Because if she held back, Liz would badger her about it. Worse, maybe ferret out that her reluctance had to do with her intemperate thoughts about her boss.

  “It’s ridiculous, really, and I’m embarrassed having had to tell you about it,” she said at the end of her little spiel. “You’re certainly under no obligation to go out with Liz’s sister or even make the call.”

  “You like the woman?”

  “Liz’s sister? Well, she seems very nice. I’ve met her a few times, but—”

  “I’ll do it.” Ethan was staring at her as he said the words, and she felt even more flustered than before. “It seems it’s past time that I got out there.”

  Chapter 3

  Ethan felt the sun on the top of his head and shoulders and the cool ocean breeze on his face. It fluttered the tails of his short-sleeved shirt. The weather was a promising omen, he thought, shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans. The perfect backdrop for the day he proved to himself he could have a good time without being behind his desk or in the company of his beloved six-year-old.

  He slanted a glance at the woman strolling beside him on the lush grass. Merry Langford, Liz’s sister. With his butler/nanny having the day off, he’d left Wells with his buddy Jake for the afternoon. Ethan’s original intention had been to take Merry to coffee and for a casual perusal of the shops and galleries in one of the nearby towns. But traveling south on the Pacific Coast Highway they’d spied a sign for “A Taste of the Beach,” a food and drink festival set up at a public park on a bluff overlooking the ocean.

  Instant change of plans.

  So here they were, holding small plastic cups of a local cider and breathing in the mingled scents of barbecue and baked goods.

  “Oh,” Merry suddenly said. “I see someone I must to speak to. Do you mind if I dash off for a sec?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she rushed away, the bright white sneakers she wore with ankle-length jeans and a red top almost a blur. The brunette moved fast and talked fast—as well as a lot. It made his role in the conversation more sponge than tennis racket.

  Merry was thirty-six and had been married and then divorced for the last five years.

  Merry ran a chain of successful day spas that had been started by her ex-mother-in-law whom she seemed to have gotten custody of in the divorce.

  Merry loved films, Thai food over Chinese, and she was considering training for a half-marathon.

  He could see that. She was certainly energetic enough for such an endeavor. The atoms in the air around her seemed to agitate in her presence, and he watched, bemused, as she approached then spoke to another woman beside a smoothie booth. Merry’s face expressed a range of moods, and her hands waved around, making them almost a third participant in the conversation.

  So unlike Charlie, with her graceful economy of movement and her quiet, capable manner that exuded a confidence Ethan hoped would rub off on his son. Charlie—

  No. There was no good reason for him to be thinking of his butler or making comparisons between her and Merry. No good reason at all.

  And then, as if he’d conjured her up, he spotted Charlie on the edge of the small crowd surrounding the stall doling out a new local brew. She wore slouchy pants in an oatmeal color with a pair of leather sandals. A thin, white, vee-neck T-shirt covered her top half, but he frowned, thinking she must be cold.

  Thinking she should be wearing the sweatshirt he’d brought back to her from Paris, the one that covered her from neck to knees, especially as he noticed her smiling up at a man who was clearly her companion. The guy was buff, with mocha skin, braided hair pulled back in a ponytail and a grin that Ethan wanted to punch, just for form’s sake.

  Charlie looked too entranced by it.

  Stepping in her direction, he was halted by a small hand on his arm.

  “I’m sorry,” Merry said. “Miss me?”

  Before he could get a word in, she was off and running about the client she’d been talking to. As he listened, he kept his gaze on Charlie and her man. Hadn’t she said she wasn’t dating? No, now that he thought about it, she hadn’t made a commitment either way. And clearly Ponytail considered it a date, because he touched his fingers to the small of her back to urge her forward.

  Merry must have caught the direction of Ethan’s gaze because she said now, “Oh, did you want to try the beer over there?”

  “No,” he said, and forced his feet on an entirely different path. “Let’s go to the yogurt bar, and you can tell me all about your training schedule for the half-marathon.”

  Not long later, Merry spotted another acquaintance which prompted a second dash. He didn’t take it personally—and was frankly glad for a little quiet. He ambled toward the edge of the park, to the fencing that separated the flat grass from where the bluff fell away to the ocean. Far below the waves churned and thrashed, like that upheaval his buddy John was convinced Ethan needed in his life.

  It didn’t look comfortable, that upheaval.

  “Hey,” a voice said now. “What are you doing here?”

  He turned to face his butler, and to see the breeze pressing the thin cotton of her top against her torso. Instead of a wet T-shirt contest, it was a wind T-shirt contest with the same results—her pert breasts lovingly delineated, the stiff jut of her nipples clearly revealed.

  In the vernacular of his youth, her headlights were on. High beams.

  And he felt like a callow teenager for noticing it.

  “Uh…” Great. Tongue-tied by the sight of breasts. Yeah, his foray into Adult World was taking a decided nosedive.

  “Weren’t you going for coffee with Merry?”

  “Yeah.” It had been Charlie’s recommendation, actually, that and the stroll through a small, quaint, beachside downtown. “But we caught sight of this festival and decided to stop.”

  He glanced behind her and didn’t see a sign of Ponytail. Maybe it had been merely a random encounter with some guy she knew. “How about you?”

  “I…well…” She lowered her voice, and ducked her head as if trying to cover the blush beginning to stain her cheeks. “I’m here with a man who has asked me out a few other times.”

  Hmm. “And you said no before?” Ethan guessed.

  “I’ve been busy,” she said, defensive.

  “So what changed your mind about today?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it as the man he’d seen her with earlier approached. Upon introduction, he couldn’t find any genuine reason to despise the guy. His name was Roland Finch, he owned a valet parking service that was contracted by local Southland restaurants and was also used by people hosting one-time events like weddings and other celebrations.

  He was friendly and an easy conversationalist, which should have been the first hint that he and Merry would hit it off when she found her way back to Ethan. With more introductions made, the foursome naturally drifted back toward the action of the food festival.

  “Looks like we’re on the brink of a double date,” Ethan murmured to Charlie as the other two forged ahead in the direction of a table offering small squares of local cheeses. “Sorry about that.”

  “I’m not objecting,” Charlie said, slicing a single glance at Ethan.

  He frowned. “You don’t want to be alone with him? Because I can—”

  “It’s not that.” Charlie shook her head. “He’s a really nice guy, but…”

  Ethan winced for the fellow member of his gender, liking him, suddenly, inexplicably, much, much more. “Really nice, but is for the guys who like pastel-colored cocktails and walks in the rain. Somehow I don’t think that’s Roland.”

  With a shrug, Charlie hurried ahead to catch up with the other pair who were making their way to a long grill where serv
ers were handing out skewers of chicken satay.

  But soon enough, the foursome had separated into twosomes again, and he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Charlie once more, as the pair in front of them apparently found a dozen topics of mutual interest.

  “It’s possible,” Ethan mused, “that this is going to be Roland and Merry’s first date instead of mine.”

  Charlie shot him an assessing glance, her blue eyes bright. “Ouch?”

  “Nah.” The wind caught pieces of her unbound hair, tossing one up and then across her mouth. He took the errant strands in hand and tucked them behind her ear, his fingers lingering on the delicate curve. “I’ve had better ones. And I’ve definitely had worse.”

  Somehow they had stopped moving and were facing each other, alone in the crowd. Ethan’s hand drifted from the edge of her ear to stroke her cheek, his knuckles tracing the pink color that deepened as he watched. Her tongue snuck out to dampen her lower lip, and suddenly he was the one who wanted to do that.

  Taste her there.

  Learn the kind of kiss that made her heat up. That made her melt. He felt his cock stir. “Charlotte…”

  She stepped away and shoved her hands into her pockets. “Tell me about your first date with Michelle. With your wife.”

  Ethan sucked in a long, cooling breath of air, then let it out. Copying Charlie’s pose, he slid his own hands into his pockets and cleared his throat. “My first date with Michelle.”

  His butler nodded, the movement a little jerky. Then she began walking toward the fence line where they’d stood before. “I’d like to hear about it.”

  Upon reaching the rails, they both stared out at the horizon, where silver-gray water met summer-blue sky. Ethan pictured his wife, and it was funny, but thinking of her nineteen-year-old self didn’t bring him any pain. Maybe because the boy he’d been felt so distant from the man he was now, tempered by joys, grief, and fatherhood.

  He knew he was smiling. “We lived in the dorms together. We went to a movie they were showing on campus—my roommate was from the same hometown as hers—and they gathered together a group of us.”

  “So not a date date?” Charlie asked.

  “Maybe not at the start, but we always referred to it later that way.”

  “What was the movie?”

  “Some Woody Allen film. I hated it, and when I snuck out early, I found Michelle on my heels. She couldn’t stand it either.”

  “What happened after that? The malt shop for chocolate sodas?”

  He slanted a glance at her, mock-frowning. “Is that a poke at my age, little girl? It wasn’t the 1950s.”

  Her delectable mouth twitched, and her brilliant eyes crinkled at the corners. “You played beach blanket bingo, then, like Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in those musical comedies from the mid-sixties.”

  Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Have you ever seen one of those beach party movies?”

  “Yes. My favorite parts are the surfing scenes, where the actors are just standing on boards pretending to balance while a motion picture of wild waves plays behind them.”

  He laughed. “We’ve got to show one of those to Wells soon.”

  “I don’t know. You may have forgotten, but they’re kind of…racy in their own way.”

  Something about the prim set of her mouth made him laugh again. “Who don’t you think can handle that? You, me, or my boy?”

  One of her shoulders lifted, fell.

  Leaning close, he lowered his voice. “After we bugged out of the Woody Allen flick, Michelle and I watched a hardcore porn movie.”

  Charlie’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. Her mouth moved, and he read the silent “No.”

  “Yes. One of the frats was running a movie next door to the theater where Woody was playing. They advertised it as something innocuous, the title had the words lambs and goats if I recall, but once I paid our entrance fee, it turned out to be not at all innocuous…or the least bit innocent.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I only knew I wasn’t going to be the one to run first. So we both sat there, waiting for the other to crack.” He laughed. “The two of us were still in our seats, not looking at each other or anyone else, when the final credits began to roll. Those two hours were quite educational.”

  Feeling Charlie’s stare, he turned to her. “What? What does that weird look on your face mean?”

  She cleared her throat, her gaze dodging his. “I don’t know. Maybe…maybe I can’t imagine you watching…well. That kind of movie.”

  “That kind of movie?” Now it was his turn to stare. “You mean a dirty movie?”

  Her arms wrapped around her body, and her face flushed. “I guess I just don’t see you in a…in a…sexual way.”

  Ethan’s gaze jerked away, back to the horizon, and he told himself that was fine. He employed Charlie, after all. His aim had always been to remain professional in manner and deed when it came to his butler.

  So, surely he shouldn’t be insulted. Or disappointed.

  Though surely he was more than a little bit of both.

  Shit.

  She probably hadn’t meant to clobber his male ego, but like she’d said before—ouch.

  Trying not to show that—however unknowingly—she’d hit the target dead center, he cast a casual glance at her…and went on sudden, new alert.

  His butler was staring at her toes, and her body language—her ducked head and the tight self-hug—made him take a second, longer look. Something was off about her, like something had been off about that weird expression she’d worn when he’d mentioned hardcore porn.

  Her pose struck him as secretive, he decided. Deceptive.

  She’d claimed she didn’t view him in a sexual way, but then she went stiff and clearly extremely self-conscious. Like she might if she did view him in just such a way—and was trying to keep the truth of that to herself. Huh.

  Who knew? Who knew the mind of elegant, unflappable Charlotte Emerson could turn in a dirty direction?

  As if jolted by his silent thoughts, her body lurched into motion.

  “We should go find Roland and Merry,” she said, dropping her arms and starting to walk off.

  Some devil made him stop her escape, the devil his friend John had brought to life by his talk of adult pursuits and getting laid. “Charlie?”

  She paused, turned, as he’d known she would. So polite. So polite, but now he knew there might be something earthier beneath the smooth and shiny polish.

  “Yes, Ethan?”

  “Have you thought any more of taking that vacation I mentioned?”

  “No.”

  “Still, you should get away from the house more often,” he said easily, as if suggesting nothing the least bit reckless. “Why don’t you come with us tomorrow? We’re heading down south to Crescent Cove for a sand sculpture contest.”

  He saw her swallow. Then he saw the refusal on the tip of her tongue. Without mercy, he threw down his best card, because despite all the reasons this was a bad idea, he wanted to see more glimpses of this new Charlie. The one who seemed just a little bit nervous in his presence. The one who dropped some of her cool control when she saw him as a man. When she saw him in a sexual way.

  “I know Wells would love you to come.”

  She might be able to refuse him, but Ethan knew she couldn’t resist his boy.

  Charlie changed three times for her outing to Crescent Cove to see the sandcastle competition. The reflection in her mirror didn’t look quite right no matter what she put on. Something had shifted inside her, some balance had been upset, even though her features looked to be in the same place as before.

  It had to be Ethan’s talk of porn movies and sex that had unsettled her.

  Well, Ethan actually hadn’t talked about sex, that had been her imagination whispering away in the back of her mind from the instant he’d touched her ear and stroked her cheek. Her body had gone hot and hyper-aware of the man, the most dangerous and futile of responses.
>
  And yet she’d agreed to an outing with him today.

  But that had a purpose. To get back to the way they’d been before, when she’d not allowed herself any thoughts of male/female intimacy with Ethan. Yes, there was risk in this family-ish excursion too, she knew, but they’d had them before and she’d survived the pleasure of interacting with father and son together.

  She just had to watch herself from wishing too hard for things that could never be. And keeping detached enough from the man and boy to protect them all. If Ethan discovered her secret she’d be shown the door, and she thought—in her limited roles as domestic manager and caretaker of a six-year-old little boy—that she did a good job. They’d all suffer if she was forced to leave.

  But she had to remember that the operative word was “limited.” There were boundaries not to cross without risking heartbreak all around.

  Settling on long shorts, flips flops, and a tank top layered with a light hoodie, Charlie let herself out of her detached bungalow and crossed the short distance to the main house. Opening the side door, she heard the clatter of dishes and took in the scents of breakfast. On weekdays, she made Wells’ first meal of the morning as Ethan got ready for work. Weekends, he liked to cook for his son himself.

  In the kitchen, Wells caught sight of her and bounced on his feet. “Charlie! Pancakes!”

  She couldn’t help smiling at his excitement. “They smell good.”

  “We made some for you.” Grabbing a plate from the counter, Wells skipped toward her. “Look, Dad made you bunnies because he knows you like them.”

  Charlie inspected the blobs of griddled batter—a round middle one with two long oblongs hanging down on either side. “Um…it’s a good thing I like basset hounds too.”

  Ethan assumed an air of injured dignity. “It’s a lop-eared bunny.”

  “My apologies,” she said, smiling at him.

  “We need to sit down and eat,” Wells put in and grabbed the plate again to set it upon the nearby table set for three, which included a bowl of fresh fruit and a platter of bacon.