“11:00 am. I didn’t want to wake you. I figured the longer you slept, the less you would hurt this morning. Did it work?” Maureen shook her head and then wished she hadn’t as her brain pulsed even harder. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Special delivery of ibuprofen.” Stephen crossed to the bed and plopped three tablets in her hand.
They had been up late into the night talking. Maureen had given him all of the details of how she happened to be on this yacht. He had laughed when she’d explained her “Make Every Man Want You” article, and she had seen the humor in it and laughed along with him. He’d listened carefully as she explained what had happened with Nick earlier that year, and the fact that he cared about her was evident in his anger as the story unfolded. Hours later, when her eyes had started to close, he had announced that it was safe for her to go to sleep. He’d carefully removed her flip-flops and tucked her, fully clothed, into his bed. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he had said before heading off to the crew quarters to get some rest.
“Thanks!” She smiled shyly, taking the ibuprofen and wincing as she swallowed them.
“So, we have a bit of a problem.” Stephen sat carefully on the bed beside her. “Brad wants you off the boat.”
Maureen frowned in confusion. Off the boat? Had she made that much of an idiot out of herself last night? Was he embarrassed to even be in her presence? That seemed weird.
“He wants me to go home?”
“Well, he wants you off the boat.”
“But… why?”
Stephen sighed and pulled himself up to sit next to her, resuming his position from last night. “Do you trust me, Maureen?”
She laughed. Did she trust the guy who had rescued her, practically saving her life, and then shared his most intimate details of his life with her? “Of course I trust you, Stephen. What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you. I mean, I can’t tell you all of it, but I can tell you Brad isn’t who he seems to be.”
“How would you know that? I mean, he’s just a guest on this yacht.” Maureen thought back to yesterday at Cabbage Beach and remembered how weird Stephen had been when he was talking about Brad. He didn’t like him. “Are you just saying this so I don’t feel bad about him kicking me off for being a total loser?”
“Listen, Maureen. If you trust me, just know that I know Brad isn’t a good dude, okay? I can’t tell you any more than that, but I don’t want you to think there is anything wrong with you. He doesn’t want you off the boat because he doesn’t like you—he wants you off the boat because he’s paranoid.” He paused and looked at Maureen; she could see the concern in his eyes.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess I better get my stuff together, then. Can you give me a ride to the airport?” Stephen got up from the bed and started pacing the cabin. Even though it was large for a boat, he pivoted every seven paces or so. It was making Maureen nervous. “So, you don’t want to give me a ride to the airport? Or you can’t give me a ride to the airport?” Maureen’s head was throbbing harder now and she felt very close to tears. “What’s going on, Stephen?”
He stopped pacing and came to stand in front of her, where he picked up both of her hands and took a deep breath.
“I think you might think I’m crazy. So, if you think I’m crazy, just tell me and I'll take you to the airport. Okay?”
Maureen shifted uncomfortably. Why was she still under these covers? She was feeling very vulnerable right now. “Stephen, just tell me what you want to tell me, okay? You’re weirding me out.”
“So, Brad thinks the guy who owns this boat is called Lester Butler. That's wrong, though—the owner is someone else who also has a house here on the island not far from here. Don knows the owner really well, and… well... you can stay in the house.”
Maureen could feel Stephen’s hand shaking in hers as her own heart pounded. Something was going on here. She looked at his face—his sweetly handsome and sincere face—and felt something burst inside her. The pounding in her head and nausea in her stomach were gone.
Standing in front of her was a strong, sexy, kind man, and he was nervous. She was making him nervous! After that first dinner with Stephen, her instincts had told her this man was something special, but she hadn’t trusted her instincts because she had made so many mistakes in the past. Stephen had asked if she trusted him now, and she did, but an even bigger realization had come to her: she trusted herself.
“Stephen,” she squeezed his hands and held his steady gaze, “do you want me to stay?”
He drew her around to face him as he sat next to her on the bed. “Yes, Maureen. Yes, I want you to stay. You came here because you wanted to change your life, and I don’t want you to go back to New Jersey thinking you’ve failed somehow. I believe you need this time away not to become someone else, but to realize that who you are is who you are supposed to be.” He paused then a took a deep breath. “I also want to get to know you. I haven’t wanted to even talk to anyone in two years, but I want to talk to you. I want to hang out with you and drink wine and talk. I don’t want to hang out with Magnificent Mo, though—I want to hang out with Maureen. Don’t change your flight. Stay here for another week, like you planned.”
She felt tears of relief and excitement prick her eyes. She could do this. She could stay and figure out who Maureen really was. She couldn't believe she could stay and spend time with this sexy man, who, miracle of miracles, seemed to want her, Mousy Maureen, to stick around.
“Okay, Stephen. Let's get my stuff and move on out of here. How do I avoid running into Brad?”
40
Bad Influence
Misty was doing the downward dog pose. She swore she practiced yoga daily and that it was the reason she was so still and zen, but Nandita didn’t think she was still or zen. Plus, she'd never seen her do more than the downward dog.
“So, have you had phone sex, yet?” Misty’s pink curls were a tangled pile on the yoga mat, which she carried around, attached to her backpack, for show.
Not one of her friends in India would have the nerve to utter the word “sex,” let alone include it in such an impertinent way. She longed to be as free and honest and outgoing as Misty, but she ignored the question.
“Are we planning on doing our homework today?” Nandita straightened the pile of loose-leaf pages spread over her bed and opened her history book. “I’ve spent hours studying, but I think your grade is in danger.”
Misty jumped out of her downward dog, grabbed her head, and sat down again hard. “Woah, head rush!” She put her head between her knees and Nandita had to strain to hear her muffled voice. “I hate history.”
“You hate every class, Misty, but if you want to pass, you have to study.” Nandita reached a hand down to pull Misty off the floor when her phone rang. She reached for it, but Misty was faster.
“Hello, darling!” she purred. “It's your favorite best friend, Misty. How’s life in paradise today?” Nandita was scrambling to take the phone away from her, but the girl danced around the room, dodging her grasping hands. “Well, that’s not good! We can’t have you all on your own, can we? Of course we’ll come!” Nandita was shaking her head firmly, shooting eye daggers at Misty. “You’re right, and it’s rude of me to keep you from her. Here she is.”
Nandita snatched the phone from Misty’s hands and turned her back on her.
“Hi, Brad.” She smiled as she pictured him on the other end of the line, confident, handsome, and smiling back at her. “Please ignore Misty. She’s just trying to start trouble.”
“I like her kind of trouble, Nandita, if it brings me closer to you. Seriously, Maureen is gone, and I’m dying to see you. I think about you every second of the day. You must come.”
His words swept her away, as usual. She still couldn’t believe that such a successful, attractive, American man was interested in her—not just interested, but completely smitten. They spent hours on the phone each day, and he showered her with compliments: she was smart, s
he was independent, she was strong, and she was beautiful. She wished Satish could hear the way he spoke to her—she was an adult and deserved to be treated like one. This man, not a boy like Sachin, wanted her. They talked as equals. Brad listened to and shared with her. She was giddy with infatuation.
“I can’t come, Brad, you know I can’t. I have to go right now, too, because Misty is here and she is listening to every word I say.” Misty grinned at her, and she stuck out her tongue. “Can you call me later?”
“Of course I can. Goodbye, beautiful. I’ll be pining for you every minute.”
She hung up the phone. Misty put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Details, please! Why didn’t you tell me Maureen wasn’t there, anymore?”
Nandita tossed her phone onto the bed. “Because I knew what you would say. You think that was my only excuse for not going there, but you don’t realize it’s impossible. I could never go without Satish finding out, and when he found out, he would probably send me back to India.”
“What if I told you I had a plan?” Misty stretched back into downward dog and then alternated raising her legs, stretching them out behind her. She was the opposite of graceful, and Nandita rushed to push back the items at the edge of her bureau; her friend had knocked them off before.
“Misty, I don’t care what plan you have. It won’t work. A trip to the Bahamas will never happen.”
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Misty grunted as she stood into warrior pose. “Your step-mom, or whatever she is, said she would help you, right? I mean, she said she would talk to your brother.”
“She’s not my step-mom, but yeah, she did say that. She’s sweet.”
“So, we have no classes Saturday through Wednesday, right? Convince her to let you stay at my house for the long weekend. My mom will totally give me the fare to the Bahamas, I think. This way, I will be there to protect you, in case Brad is secretly a kidnapping rapist, and my mom will cover for us, so your hot brother will never even know we've left. You can say you’re going to school directly from my house and you will be home Wednesday night. Satish will have no clue, and you'll be engaged to a millionaire! It’s a perfect plan!”
Nandita felt a whisper of excitement. Could she do that? Could she get away with it? It would be so dangerous, and if Satish were to find out, it would hurt him terribly that she had deceived him. He was pretty unreasonable, though. She had come to America to be independent, make choices, and get out from under the thumb of her father, and Satish was so strict that sometimes she felt as though she had just traded one father for another.
She was confident she could persuade Claire to get Satish to agree to a weekend at Misty's if she had no classes—she’d made him feel guilty about the missed party last week. It wasn’t like she was asking again about moving into the dorms. She wouldn’t even be out of the house on a school night.
“I don’t know, Misty, that’s pretty deceitful. I’m not sure I could do that to Satish.”
“Do what to Satish? He’ll never know! Listen, you came here to be independent, right? Well, Satish isn’t exactly supporting that goal, is he? All you're doing is taking your life into your hands, and isn’t that what you wanted from the start? Come on, Nan, be brave!” Misty stood straight, thrust one arm in the air, and folded the other across her chest, like the Statue of Liberty. “Be American!”
Nandita laughed and flopped backward on her bed to stare at the ceiling. She could do this. She would do this.
“I’ll do it,” she whispered as a small smile stretched across her face.
41
Water’s Edge
“Are you sure it’s okay that I stay in Nassau?” Maureen and Stephen were once again in the yacht van. They were headed to the east side of the island, driving along the prestigious Eastern Road. Maureen gaped openly at the extravagant villas lining the street.
She was starting to worry that she was going to be extremely uncomfortable in this house. In fact, she would have called some of the ones they were passing mansions. They stopped behind a car waiting to turn right and a man selling a bag of fruit headed toward her open window. She shook her head and smiled, and he waved happily and headed to the car behind them.
“Are you sure Lauren Belle won’t mind?”
“It’ll be fine,” Stephen turned and smiled at her. “The owner hardly ever uses it. There’s a fantastic team looking after it, so it's not neglected, but I do imagine it’s a little lonely.”
“You think a house can be lonely?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
Maureen had never considered it, but she found it incredibly appealing that Stephen thought this way. He was a sensitive guy. “I never thought about it. If this house is lonely, though, I'm happy to bring it some company.”
They continued down Eastern Road and the ocean, still as a lake and as blue as Stephen’s eyes, peeked out from between the houses on her left. Every time she caught a glimpse, she gasped at the view. The Bahamas was a beautiful place. They passed a quaint, white lighthouse and then turned into a driveway next to a house directly on the ocean surrounded by a high, white picket fence. A hand-painted sign that hung on the fence read, “Water’s Edge.”
“Here we are! Let’s leave your bag here, so I can show you around first. I think you’ll be very comfortable.”
They walked around to the front of the house, Stephen unlocked a heavy front gate, and they crossed into a lush, tropical front garden. To her right, a huge sea grape tree provided shade for a couple of wicker chairs and a side table. To her left was a paved area in front of a long row of windows, with a patio table and a huge, shady umbrella. There were plants everywhere, including in the green garden beds around the perimeter and in huge, painted pots across the stone pavers. It was a riot of color and scent, and Maureen sighed in pleasure. A hummingbird buzzed around her head as if to say “hello,” and she jumped about two feet in surprise.
Stephen laughed, “They’re very friendly. If you keep the doors open, they occasionally come inside the house for a visit. Let's go in.” He crossed to a large, oak front door and they went inside.
Maureen felt like she had entered the Tardis. What had looked like a modest cottage from the outside opened into a huge, two-story main room. The living area was filled with overstuffed, white, slip-covered sofas and beachy furniture, including seagrass rugs and collections of shells and starfish displayed everywhere.
Stephen had started to explain the layout to her, but Maureen was immediately distracted by the view. The back of the house was all glass; two large windows sat on either side of a set of French doors leading out to a patio. Through the glass, all she could see was blue. Transfixed, she started toward the door.
Stephen must have noticed she wasn’t listening to him, because he jogged after her, laughing. “Yeah, sorry, I always forget to show this part first. It’s the best part.” He threw open the back doors and Maureen felt the remainder of her hangover fade away, as well as all of the stress she had been feeling about the direction this vacation was going.
“It's incredible!” she said.
She was standing at the top of a two-level patio. There were lounge chairs everywhere, as well as a large dining table in the shade of a palm tree that looked as though it was growing directly from the concrete. Under the palm tree on the bottom deck, a hammock gently swayed in the breeze. Maureen immediately planned an afternoon reclining in that hammock with her book, a drink sitting beside her on the sea wall.
To her right, a sparkling swimming pool with a gurgling fountain poured over an inset filled with conch shells. The pool was perched at the edge of the ocean with deck stairs leading down to the lower patio. To her left was an outdoor bar area with tables and barstools surrounding it. It was all beautiful, but Maureen couldn’t take her eyes off the view. The ocean splashed softly against the sea wall and was so close that she felt as though she was standing on the deck of the yacht, except without a neighbor in sight.
“That’s Rose Island
,” Stephen said, pointing at an island in the near distance. “You can head straight out to the ocean from that gate there,” he said, pointing to a gate in the wall. “The snorkeling is outstanding around here, and the water is so shallow that you can walk pretty far out before you need to swim.”
“I can’t believe no one lives here,” Maureen sighed. "I would never leave.”
“Well, you can stay as long as you'd like. Like I said, the owner hasn’t used it much lately. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll show you to your room?”
He led Maureen to an oceanfront master bedroom with a spa-like en suite and told her to go ahead and explore while he got her suitcase. She aimlessly wandered the house, marveling. She couldn't believe she was getting to stay here. A huge kitchen opened onto a sunken formal dining room, and there was a sunroom, a loft library, and three more bedrooms. She felt like she had won the lottery.
Stephen came back with her suitcase. “So, I am going to leave you to get comfortable and relax. I imagine you could use a nap.” He smiled at her gently, and she blushed in embarrassment.
“I never apologized for throwing up in your cabin,” Maureen said. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
He jingled his keys to the van and crossed to take her hands in his. “It was a real pleasure to take care of you, Maureen.” He turned to face the ocean and they both stood silently for a few minutes. “I’d like to come back later and bring you dinner, if that’s okay. I didn’t think you would be up for going out tonight.”
“That would be amazing, Stephen. I would love it. Thanks again for doing this for me. I can’t imagine a more relaxing place to sort my head out.”
“You’re more than welcome.” He tossed his keys in the air a few more times and then turned to leave, but after a few paces, he seemed to change his mind. He stopped, turned to Maureen, and asked, “So, can we call it a date? Tonight—can we call it a date?”
Unstoppable: A Sweet Romance (Jersey Girls Book 2) Page 16