by Chant, Zoe
That finished out Day Ten. Dennis was driving back over the hills from the valley when his cell bleeped.
His heart beat fast as he pulled off the road and looked.
Meet me at the Cafe Del Rey’s bar at the Marina, six tonight? M.
***
Mindy sent the text off, and watched her cursor blink as her heartbeat galloped.
One minute, two, then came a response: On my way.
Mindy shut her eyes in gratitude, and wiped her damp palms down her side.
She still had a few things to do, but at six o’clock she was there in the bar overlooking the boats floating gently on the sparkling water of the marina, as the westering sun sank slowly toward the horizon. She had bought a new outfit, for the first time since she was a teenager wearing capris and a dainty top. She had not worn pants since she was sixteen, and came downstairs in new jeans to her step-brother’s guffaw, and comment about Wide Load.
Since then, she’d hidden her figure under skirts. But with Dennis, there was no hiding. She wanted to see him see her.
The light had turned golden, catching gloriously in Dennis’s tawny hair when he walked into the bar and glanced around. He looked even better than she remembered, dressed in a loose gray silk shirt over a black tee, and jeans. She watched anxiously, smiling when he saw her and flashed his own dear smile, those sexy long dimples bracketing the lips she loved to kiss.
“Wow,” he said. “You look awesome.”
Joy leaped inside her. “So do you.”
“Buy you a drink?” he asked, leaning on the bar next to her and smiling down into her eyes.
“If you like,” she said, “but this was only a meeting place.”
“We met in a bar,” he said, grinning.
Mindy finished off the mineral water she’d ordered, and slid off her stool. “I know. That’s kind of why I picked this place.”
He gave that deep-chest purring chuckle. “But no belly dance?”
“Oh, that can come later. If you like.”
“Oh, I like.” He glanced around. “So, what’s your plan? Are we having dinner?”
“Yes.” She swallowed in a tight throat. Her idea had seemed so wonderful all these last days as she dealt with everything, but now that the moment had come, she was worried that she had totally screwed up. “But not here.”
“Lead on,” he said, holding out his arm.
She slid her hand around the swell of his bicep and guided him out. He didn’t speak as they turned down to the floating docks, and paced along these until they came to the end, where the big yachts had slips. One after another they passed huge, showy mini-Love Boats, until they reached the end slip, where a beautiful cruising sloop rocked gently on the water, the two big, beautiful Bermuda sails furled.
A young female crew member stood at the ramp, smiling in welcome. “Hi. I’m Chelsea.”
“Would you like to come aboard?” Mindy asked, her heartbeat now drumming.
Dennis glanced up, then his gaze swept the deck, his tiger eyes wide with appreciation. “Sure!”
Chelsea wore navy blue bellbottoms and a crisp white shirt. She conducted them into a spacious central cabin with long windows down the sides, and a sunroof overhead. The delicious aroma of beef bourguignon wafted through the cabin, and Dennis glanced down at the two places set. He took his seat, and the Chelsea offered them a choice of excellent California reds.
Mindy said, “You pick.”
“I like anything,” Dennis admitted.
“Whatever you recommend,” Mindy said, and they were served the sauvignon.
“Do you want to cruise around the harbor?” Mindy asked.
Dennis grinned. “If it’s part of the package, bring it on. I have to admit I love sailing, even for half an hour’s float around a box.” And as Chelsea vanished down below to fetch the salads, he leaned forward to say softly, “Mork, this is damn sweet of you, but hell, I would have been happy to meet at a Starbucks. I can’t tell you how glad I was to get your message.”
“I had a bunch of stuff to do,” she said, as the yacht began to move smoothly into the basin. “How about we catch up over dinner?”
He agreed, and as perfect salads were served, eaten, and then the main course brought out, Dennis gave her a generalized report on the cleanup of the case, leaving out names and anything having to do with shifters.
She listened silently until he was done, then said, “I saw the papers after I left JP’s house. It was all about the mess Haskell had totally dumped. The reporters said he’d vanished, leaving Michael Benedict and the assistants.”
“Who were not part of the scam. Neither were the few office workers at the studio. As for Haskell, he was caught at the Mexican border, which was kept out of the papers while the authorities finished rounding up his minions. He ratted out everybody involved, which helped the tech people track down all the various shell accounts. Including his. Your friend’s investments might be tied up for a while, but I think she’ll eventually get it all back. Or most of it.”
“She’ll just be glad to be rid of him and his shady deals,” Mindy said. “As for the rest, one of the things I wanted to do was something for those poor film students. They took a major hit through no fault of their own. I met with them and got their story. Haskell had deliberately gone looking for clueless people he could take advantage of—he was never going to pay any of them.”
“Yeah, we found that out. The contracts were complete B.S. And because none of them had agents, they didn’t recognize the legalese that basically screwed them. And Haskell had forced NDAs onto them so they couldn’t go to their instructors or anyone who might have warned them about all the danger signs.”
“There wasn’t much I could do for Michael, the director, but I got Emma and Kayli internships through one of my step-sisters, who recently married a news producer. These internships won’t be as glamorous as having your own screenplay filmed, but they have the advantage of being real. And they’ll learn a lot from the inside. After the gossip about the fiasco turns into old news, their resumes will begin with legit credits.”
“That was a cool thing you did,” Dennis said. “I don’t think anyone gave them a second thought.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think they would,” Mindy said. “Your five million was apparently supposed to cover the shoot that day.”
“A five million that never existed.”
“Yeah. So I did a little delving, and saw to it that the caterers and the animal people and so on didn’t get bankrupted because of Haskell.”
Dennis set down his fork. “You did? How did you do that?”
Mindy thought, Here it comes. But she couldn’t bring herself to the point. Scolding herself for being a chicken, she said, “You’re done, I see. Want dessert now, or later?”
Dennis glanced out the long windows, the running lights of the boats they passed reflecting in his eyes. “How long of a cruise do we get?”
“Long enough for dessert,” she said, forcing a smile as she led him up on deck. Here, the two forward crew, a man and a woman, greeted them with friendly smiles. One of these introduced them to the captain, who had done his twenty years in the Navy before beginning a new career as a captain for private vessels. He and Dennis exchanged chat as the three of them walked the length of the narrow bow, and Mindy watched Dennis eye the flush deck, and run his gaze up the clean lines of the cruising sloop’s mast.
“How long is she?” he asked Captain Niles.
“Forty-six meters,” Niles replied.
“Cruising speed?”
“Ten knots. She can get up to thirteen.”
Dennis whistled. “She’s a beauty.”
“That she is,” Niles responded with pride, and returned to the cabin.
“Want to look below?” Mindy asked.
“Why not?” Dennis asked. “Damn. She really is a beauty. Clean design. I have to say, were I a billionaire, I’d still much rather have one of these than any of those five decker floating boxes.” He w
aved a dismissive hand at a twenty-five million dollar yacht as they passed, whose owners and guests partied obliviously on the main deck.
“I thought you might,” Mindy said as they descended the gentle curve of the staircase to the below deck. “Here is the main cabin aft.” She led the way in. “Three guest cabins besides this one. The crew of six is housed forward.”
Dennis grinned. “You’ve got all the stats.”
She nodded, and as the yacht made the turn out of the Marina into the open sea, she began to rock with a wider rhythm, and Mindy sat down suddenly on the pristine bed.
Dennis leaned forward to catch her hands. “Geez, you don’t want to put wrinkles in that bedspread—it’s tight enough to bounce a quarter. They probably charge five C-notes a wrinkle.”
Mindy knew she was being a total wuss, so she gulped in a breath and got it right out there. “It’s yours.”
Dennis had been looking out the window at the setting sun just touching the water in a fiery red orb, but cast her a confused look. “What’s mine? The quarter? The bedspread?”
“The yacht. It’s yours. That is, I chartered it. For a year. In case you . . . change your mind. About sailing, or you didn’t like what I picked.” She twisted her fingers together, looking at him anxiously. “Or thought this was a dumb idea. But I thought, we could go around the world, and you could look for the stories you want to tell. And I could help. Or not. It’s yours. To decide. My gift to you.”
It was his turn to sink abruptly onto the bed next to her. “What?” he said in a voiceless whisper.
“It’s my last secret, the other one I was afraid to confess. I stopped telling anyone, because . . . well, because I spent the first few years of my adult life as the clueless fat girl who was only being courted for her money. Because I’m rich.” And when he didn’t speak, she filled the silence desperately. “Really rich. My great-grandmother left me the lion’s share of her money. Though everybody else all thought they deserved it, especially when they flattered her and sucked up to her, even when they were calling her crazy behind her back. See, I always thought she said that about being a pony as a way to see who was humoring her because of, you know, the money. Because even when I was a kid, I could see the way my own mom talked about her grandmother, and to her. And a lot of the other relatives, too. But Great-Granny and I . . . Dennis, you’re not saying anything.”
Dennis stood up, then sat down again. “I . . .” He rubbed his hands up his face, and then blinked at her.
She began talking again to fill the silence. “It’s why I never had a job. A real job. But once I found out what I was good at, I studied to get better at it. But I never wanted to be licensed, because then they’d look past Maurek—my dad’s name—and find her name, and then there it would be all over again, the fake smiles, the flattery, the cons and come-ons. And so, with that, and my poodle, I never dated more than twice, and when I’d finish a job, I’d take off somewhere interesting. To study dance, or to see art. Or just to meet people who had no idea who I was or how much money I had. I got addicted to travel, so much that I never bought a house. Just leased that apartment in Beverly Hills.”
Dennis turned to her, and the stunned look left his face, and he seemed to see the anxiety in her eyes, because there was his tender smile. And he took her hands. “What’s for dessert?” he asked gently.
“Strawberries and champagne.”
“Sounds delicious. But I have a better idea for this champagne,” he said.
“Which is?”
“It, two flutes, you and me, in this bed. Sans clothes.”
“To celebrate the sloop?”
“To celebrate the rest of our lives, because loving you is going to take an entire lifetime,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Maybe two.”
“Then we’d better get right on it,” she said, pulling the curtains, and shutting the cabin door.
A note from Zoe Chant
Thank you for buying my book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to be emailed when I release my next book, please click here to be added to my mailing list.
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The cover of Hollywood Tiger was designed by Layla.
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