by Nikki Logan
Rich’s own heart was beating set to erupt from his chest. He couldn’t imagine what theirs were like.
Of all the stupid things that she could volunteer to help with...
Mila fell back against the boat’s fat rim and stared up into the blue sky. Then she turned and sought out his boat. His eyes. And as soon as he found them she laughed.
Laughed!
Who was this woman leaping into open ocean with a creature related more closely to an elephant than anything else? What had she done with gentle, mermaid Mila? The woman who took such exquisite care of the creatures on the reef, who didn’t even tread on an ant if she could avoid it. Where was all this strength coming from?
He sank back down onto his seat and resigned himself to a really unhappy afternoon. This activity crossed all the boxes: dangerous, deep and—worst of all—totally uncontrollable. Beyond a bit of experience and skill, their success was ninety per cent luck.
It occurred to him for a nanosecond that experience, skill and luck were pretty much everything he’d built his business on.
All in all, they tagged six animals before the team’s collective exhaustion called a halt to the effort. Science would glean a bunch of something from this endeavour but Rich didn’t care; all he cared about was the woman laid out in the back of the inflatable, her long hair dangling in the sea as the inflatable turned for shore and passed the film crew’s boat.
Rich was the first one off when it slid up onto the beach, but Mila was the last one off the inflatable, rolling bodily over its fat edge, her fatigued legs barely holding her up. In between, he stood, fists clenched, bursting with tension and the blazing need to wrap his arms around Mila and never let her go.
Ever.
‘Rich!’ she protested as he slammed bodily into her, his arms going around to hold her up. ‘I’m drenched.’
‘I don’t care.’ He pressed against her cold ear. ‘I so don’t care.’
What was a wet shirt when she’d just risked her life six times over? Mila stood stiffly for a moment but the longer he held onto her, the more she relaxed into his grip and the more grateful she seemed for the strength he was lending her. Her little hands slid up his back and she returned his firm embrace.
Around them, the beach got busy with the packing up of gear and the previewing out of video and the relocation of vessels but Rich just stood there, hugging her as if his life depended on it.
In that moment it felt like absolute, impossible truth.
‘Ugh, my legs are like rubber,’ Mila finally said, easing back. She kept one hand on his arm to steady herself as her fatigued muscles took back reluctant responsibility for her standing. She glanced up at him where a Mila-shaped patch clung wetly to his chest.
‘Your shirt—’
‘Will dry.’ He saw the sudden goose pimples rising on her skin. ‘Which is what you need to be. Come on.’
‘I’m not cold,’ she said, low, but moved with him up the beach compliantly.
‘You’re trembling, Mila.’
‘But not with cold,’ she said again, and stared at him until her meaning sank in. ‘I’m having a carnival moment.’
Oh. Candyfloss.
The idea that his wet skin on hers had set her shivers racing twisted deep down in his guts. He wanted to be at least as attractive to her as she was to him. Though that was a big ask given how keyed-up he was whenever she was around. Yet still his overriding interest was to get her somewhere warm...and safe. Like back into his arms.
That was disturbingly new.
And insanely problematic given he was leaving tonight. And given that he’d vowed to finish the conversation he’d wanted to have out at the sinkhole.
He stopped at their piled-up belongings on the remote beach and plucked the biggest towel out of the pile, wrapping it around her almost twice. He would much rather be her human towel but right now the heat soaked through it was probably more useful to her. She stood for minutes, just letting the lactic acid ease off in her system and walking off the fatigue. Then she passed him the towel and pulled on her shorts and shirt with what looked a lot like pain. She glanced at her team, still packing up all their gear.
‘I should help,’ she murmured.
Rich stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. ‘You’re exhausted.’
‘So are they.’
‘I’m not. I’ll help in your place.’
‘I’m not an invalid, Rich.’
‘No, but it’s something I can do to feel useful. I’d like to do this for you, Mila.’ When was the last time he’d felt as...impotent...as he had today? Out on that boat, on all that water, witness to Mila risking her life repeatedly while he just...watched. And there was nothing he could do to help her.
It was like sitting in traffic while his father’s heart was rupturing.
His glare hit its target and Mila acquiesced, nodding over mumbled thanks.
Rich turned and crossed to help with the mounded pile of equipment from his boat.
He didn’t want her gratitude; a heavy hauling exercise was exactly what he needed to get his emotions back in check. The more gear he carried back and forth across the sand, the saner he began to feel—more the composed CEO and less the breathless novice.
Though maybe in this he was a novice. It certainly was worryingly new territory.
He was attracted to everything that was soft about Mila—her kindness, her gentleness; even her quirky superpower was a kind of fragile curiosity. Attraction he could handle. Spin out the anticipation and even enjoy. But this...this was something different. This was leaning towards admiration.
Hell, today was downright awe.
Gentle, soft Mila turned out to be the strongest person he knew, and not just because she’d spent the day wrestling live dugongs. How much fortitude did it take to engage with a world where everyone else experienced things completely differently to you? Where you were an alien within your own community? Every damned day.
So, attraction he could handle. Admiration he could troubleshoot his way through. Awe he would be able to smile and enjoy as soon as the adrenaline spike of today wore off. But there was something else... Something that tipped the scales of his comfort zone.
Envy.
He was coveting the hell out of Mila and her simple, happy, vivid life. Amid all the complexity that her remote lifestyle and synaesthesia brought, Mila just stuck to her basic philosophy—protect the reef. Everything else fell into place behind that. Her goals and her strengths were perfectly aligned. No wonder she could curl up in that quirky little stack-house surrounded by all her treasures and sleep deep, long and easy.
When had he ever slept the night through?
When he’d come to Coral Bay on a fact-finding mission, his direction had been clear. Get a feel for the issues that might hamper his hotel development application. The hotel he needed to build to keep the lucrative coastal strip in Wardoo’s lease.
Simple, right?
But now nothing was simple. Mila had more than demonstrated the tourism potential of the place but she’d also shown him how inextricably her well-being was tangled up with the reef. They were like a symbiotic pair. Without Mila, the reef would suffer. Without the reef, Mila would suffer.
They were one.
And he was going to put a hotel on her back.
His eyes came up to her as she joined in on the equipment hauling, finding strength from whatever bottomless supply she had. He could yearn like a kid for Mila’s simple, focused life and he could yearn like a grown man for her body—but this need for her, this fear for her... Those weren’t feelings that he could master.
And he didn’t do powerless. Not any more.
Mila Nakano never was for him. And he was certainly no good for her. If anything, he was the exact opposite of what was good for her.
> And he wasn’t going to leave tonight without letting her know how much that was true.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE PORTUS WAS closer by a half-hour than Mila’s little stack-house in Coral Bay town centre and, given she was coming to him for dinner anyway, Rich had called his crew up the coast and had the tender pick them both up at the nearest authorised channel in the reef. The last time she’d been aboard she had done everything she could not to touch either of the men wanting to help her board safely; it was probably wrong to feel so much satisfaction at the fact that she didn’t even hesitate to put her hand into his now.
Or that she’d looked at him with such trust as he’d helped her aboard.
It warmed him even as it hurt him.
He’d led her into the Portus’ expansive bow bedroom, piled her up with big fluffy towels, pointed her in the direction of his bathroom and given her a gentle shove. Then he’d folded back the thick, warm quilt on his bed in readiness so that she could just fall into it when she was clean, warm and dry.
That was two hours ago and he’d been killing time ever since, vacillating between wanting to wake her and spend what little time he could with her, and putting off the inevitable by letting her sleep. In the end, he chose sleep and told himself it wasn’t because he was a coward. She’d been almost wobbling on her feet as he’d closed the dark bedroom doors behind him; she needed as much rest as he could give her.
Now, though, it was time for Sleeping Beauty to wake. He’d made sure to bang around on boat business just outside the bedroom door in the hope that the sounds would rouse her naturally, but it looked as if she could sleep through a cyclone—had he ever slept that well in his life?—so he had to take the more direct approach now.
‘Mila?’ He followed up with a quiet knock on the door. Nothing.
He repeated her name a little louder and opened the door a crack to help her hear him. Still not so much as a rustle of bedclothes on the other side. He stepped onto the bedroom’s thick carpet and took care to leave the door wide open behind him. If she woke to find him standing over her he didn’t want it to be with no escape route. He also didn’t want it to be over her.
‘Mila?’ he said again, this time crouched down to bed level.
She twitched but little else, and he took a moment to study her. She looked like a child in his massive bed, curled up small, right on the left edge, as though she knew it wasn’t her bed to enjoy. As though she was trying to minimise her impact. Or maybe as though she was trying to minimise its impact on her. He studied the expensive bedding critically—who knew what association was triggered by the feel of silk against her skin?
Yet she slept practically curled around his pillow. Embracing it. Would she do that if she wasn’t at least a little comfortable in this space? She’d been exhausted, yes, but not so shattered that she couldn’t have refused if curling up in a bed other than her own had been in any way disturbing to her. There was no shortage of sofas she could have taken instead.
Rich reached out and tucked a loose lock of hair back in with its still-damp cousins. Mila twitched again but not away from him. She seemed to curl her face towards him before burrowing down deeper into his pillow. Actually, his was on the other side of the bed but he would struggle, after he’d left this place, not to swap it for the one Mila practically embraced. Just to keep her close a little longer. Until her scent faded with Coral Bay on the horizon behind him.
He placed a gentle hand on her exposed shoulder. ‘Mila. Time to wake up.’
She roused, shifted. Then her beautiful eyes flickered open and shone at him, full of confused warmth as she tried to remember where she was. It only took a heartbeat before she mastered them, though, and looked around the space.
‘How did you sleep?’ he asked, just to give her an excuse to look back at him.
She pushed herself up, and brought his quilt with her.
‘This bed...’ she murmured, all sleepy and sexy.
His chest actually hurt.
‘Best money could buy,’ he squeezed out.
‘How do you even get out of it?’ Her voice grew stronger, less dreamy with every sentence she uttered. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to be able to.’
That was what he wanted; the kind of sleep the bed promised when you looked at it, lay on it. The kind of sleep that Mila’s groggy face said she’d just had. And now that he’d seen his bed with her in it, that was what he wanted too.
But wanting didn’t always mean having.
‘Damo will have dinner ready in a half hour,’ he said. ‘Do you want to freshen up? Maybe come out on deck for some air?’
It was only then that the darkness outside seemed to dawn on her. She pushed up yet straighter.
‘Yes, I’m sorry. It was only supposed to be a nap—’
‘Don’t apologise. After the day you’ve had, you clearly needed it.’ He pushed to his feet. ‘I’ll see you on deck when you’re ready.’
He left her there, blinking a daze in his big bed, and retreated up the steps to the galley, where he busied himself redoing half the tasks his deckhand had already done. Just to keep busy. Just to give Mila the space he figured she would appreciate. He lifted the clear lid on the chowder risotto steaming away beneath it and then, at Damo’s frustrated cluck, abandoned the galley, went out on the aft deck and busied himself decanting a bottle of red.
‘Gosh, it’s even more beautiful at night,’ a small voice eventually said from the galley doorway.
His gaze tracked hers across the Portus’ outer deck. He took it for granted now, but the moody uplights built into discreet places along the gunnel did cast interesting and dramatic shapes along the cat’s white surfaces.
‘I forget to appreciate it sometimes.’
‘Human nature,’ she murmured.
But was it? Mila appreciated what she had every single day. Then again, he wasn’t at all sure she was strictly human. Maybe all mermaids had synaesthesia.
‘What smells so good?’
‘No crayfish on the menu tonight,’ he assured her. ‘I believe we’re having some kind of chowder-meets-risotto. What are your feelings about rice?’
Her dark eyes considered that. ‘Ambivalent.’
‘And clams?’
‘Clams are picky,’ she said immediately. ‘I’m sure they would protest any use you made of them, chowder or otherwise.’
The allusion brought a smile to his lips. ‘But you eat them?’
‘Honestly? After today, I would happily eat the cushions on your lovely sofa.’
She laughed and he just let himself enjoy the sound. Because it was the last time he ever would.
He led her to the sofa and poured two glasses of Merlot. ‘This isn’t going to help much with the sleepiness, I’m afraid.’
Mila wafted the glass under her nose and her eyes closed momentarily. ‘Don’t care.’
He followed her down onto the luxurious sofa that circled the low table on three sides. Her expression made him circle his glass with liquid a few extra times and sip just a little slower. Craving just a hint of whatever it was that connected Mila so deeply with life.
Pathetically trying to replicate it.
They talked about the dugong tagging—about what the results would be used for and what that meant for populations along this coast. They talked about the coral spawn they’d collected and how little it would take to destroy all that she’d ever collected. One good storm to take out the power for days, one fuel shortage to kill Steve Donahue’s generator and the chest freezer they were using would slowly return to room temperature and five years’ worth of spawn would all perish. They talked about the two big game fishermen who’d gone out to sea on an ill-prepared boat during the week, and spent a scary and frigid few nights being carried further and further away from Australia on the fast-moving L
eeuwin Current before being rescued and how much difference an immediate ocean response unit would have made.
Really he was just raising anything to keep Mila talking.
She listened as well as she contributed and her stories were always so engaging. These were not conversations he got to have back in the city.
He thought that he was letting her talk herself almost out of breath because he knew this might well be the last opportunity he had to do it. But the longer into the night they talked, the more he had to admit that he was letting her dominate their conversation because it meant he didn’t have to take such an active part. And if he took a more active part then he knew he would have to begin the discussion he was quietly dreading.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mila said as she forked the last of the double cream from her dish with the last of her tropical fruit. A gorgeous shade of pink stained her cheeks. ‘I’ve been talking your ear off since the entree.’
‘I like listening to you,’ he admitted, though like wasn’t nearly strong enough. But he didn’t have the words to describe how tranquil he felt in her presence. As if she were infecting him with her very nature.
That, itself, was warning enough.
‘Besides,’ he said, beginning what had to be done, ‘this might be my last chance.’
Mila frowned. ‘Last chance for what?’
‘To hear your stories. To learn from you.’ Then, as she just stared, he added, ‘I have what I need now. There’s no reason for me to come back to Coral Bay.’
Yeah, there was. Of course there was. There was Wardoo and there was his proposed development and there was Mila. She was probably enough all by herself to lure him back to this beautiful place. What he meant, though, was that he wouldn’t be coming back, despite those things.