“Well, it looks delicious,” she went on as if he gave a damn about what she thought about the lunch. “Thanks for putting it together.”
“Eat up,” he told her. “I thought we’d sail to the other side of the island and maybe go into Freeport and pick up some things.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, surprised. He stood and pulled out a chair for her so she could sit down.
If she expected him to ask questions about her call, she was mistaken. He was cutting himself off before he got in too deep. He liked Molly, he liked the sex, but sitting through the phone call had filled him with resolve. Being just her pal and confidant was a no-go, after all.
“Thanks,” she said, scooting into the table. She took a sip of the water he’d poured earlier, the ice almost completely melted. “I didn’t mean to talk so much.”
“No need to apologize.”
He casually watched as she took a bite of a carrot stick, as if nothing was amiss or his gut wasn’t churning like a washing machine agitator.
“Would you want to take a swim after lunch?” she asked, meeting his eyes. “I was just down there looking at the water all day and thinking how we hadn’t done that yet.”
“Sure, Molly,” he said, taking a sip of the tequila he’d been nursing. But the mescal buzz was not doing what he’d wanted, namely chilling him out to the point where he could let the length of that phone call go. Where he could be noncommittal about her talking to her ex not even an hour since he’d been inside her with her screaming his name. He could barely believe how largely he’d miscalculated how much she meant to him. For years, he’d been living in denial and in the dark about his feelings, just locking them away so he could get by, but the thought of her going back to her ex was busting the walls he’d erected around those memories open.
She searched his face. “I don’t know if your scowl means you want to know about the phone call or you don’t.”
Fuck. He smoothed his face out, not even realizing he’d been scowling, but not at all surprised. He had a poker face for everyone but Molly. She remained the only person he ever truly let down his guard with so it made sense that he’d been unable to hide his emotions from her. Though, admittedly, he kind of thought he was doing an admirable job of it if the only evidence of his raging inner turmoil threatening to tear him from the inside out was a comparably benign scowl.
“I want you to do whatever you want to do, Molly.”
She raised an eyebrow at him but he was not going to beg her for details about a phone call he just wanted to forget even though he’d tried to push her into making it. He respected her too much to put her in a position where she felt she owed him anything.
“I think it was a good talk,” she told him, stopping there.
“You seemed to be having a good time at the end.”
She held his eyes again and he felt her trying to ferret out his intention and meaning, but his face was a pleasant mask now. In another minute, he’d be calm enough to be the charming playboy he always was, but the heat in his stomach hadn’t quite been snuffed out yet.
“I think ‘good time’ is overstating it,” Molly said drily. “But I think we got to an amicable place. It felt good to get everything out and to tell him how I felt. Saying it all out loud made me realize that I was over it. You were right that I should call him back, to put us on the same page.”
“And what page is that?”
She shrugged and he hated it. “Just that he’s the one who messed up. He mentioned that the girl I’d caught him with was just a onetime thing and that he was sorry. It felt like a real apology. He didn’t make excuses or anything, just really felt bad.”
“He fucking should,” Oliver bit off, cursing himself for the outburst.
“He does,” Molly assured him. “And then we sorted some logistics about the house and what we’re planning to do with it, if I want to sell it to him or if there’s a chance we could try to work things out.”
He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask the question he wanted to ask.
“So I told him I was currently seeing someone and we could proceed with selling the house.”
His heart started beating again. “Do you want me to buy the house?”
Molly choked on the sip of water she’d been taking.
“Excuse me?”
“Do you want me to buy him out of the house so you can just have it now?” he asked again, slower this time so she heard him. And for the record, he knew that this offer, too, was a mistake, but he still felt compelled to offer it, to expedite this process. He’d already been waiting for her for seven years, so it would be nice if they could speed it up a bit. Besides, if his parents did truly try to use her as leverage, it would be better for both of them if they were in a more permanent arrangement. “If you put it on the market you’ll be in touch with him constantly.”
“Do you think I want you to purchase a house I can afford on my own?”
“The offer wasn’t made based on whether or not you could afford it on your own. I’m sure you can. The offer was made out of convenience since I can just pay him cash and have the deal be done by the end of today.”
Molly shook her head. “I don’t want the house, Oliver. If anything he’ll buy me out.”
That was still a lot of the contact he was trying to avoid. He wanted Max totally out of the picture so the pile of forty-five grand pianos would be taken off his chest and he could breathe easier.
“So he’s started that process, then?”
Swallowing her bite of turkey sandwich, Molly set it down on the plate before glaring at him. “What is going on here? I thought you’d be happy that I told him I was seeing someone. Isn’t that what you insisted upon yesterday?”
“It’s a start,” he told her.
Her eyes flashed and he wanted to smile. He liked an irritated Molly as much as he liked a naked one.
“You’re just being an ass on purpose now, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” he said, some of his anger dissipating at the reminder that she’d told her ex they were together. That was enough for now. Carving him completely out of her life was a project for another day.
“He’s already in the past, Oliver. I promise.”
At her pointed stare he just smiled, wanting to get back to normal again, wanting to believe that she was his even if it wasn’t true. “Okay, you’re right, let’s forget about your ex. Can we go swimming now or do you want to talk more about your feelings?”
She rolled her eyes and finished up her sandwich. When she took the last bite, he made her leave the dishes there for the crew to clean up and threw his shirt off onto the chair when they reached the main deck.
“You want any of the toys?” she asked, heading toward the storage door.
“Not the water kind.”
Molly just snorted and pulled out a couple rafts while he made sure they had enough water bottles.
“Do you want to do the Jet Ski?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nah, they’re a pain in the ass to get out.”
His first instinct was to tell her that it wasn’t their job to get them out, but he didn’t want to put any more distance between them right now by bringing up the fact that he pretty much didn’t do the shit he didn’t want to do. He had more important stuff on his agenda at the moment.
On the aft deck, he took in the sparkling blue water around them; they were a couple miles from the shore with neighboring yachts dotting the landscape. Not in any danger of being seen, he took off his shorts and dived in naked, letting the cool water flow over him as he swam, eventually surfacing a little way from the boat. When he looked back at the boat, Molly was standing on the edge looking down at his abandoned clothes.
Then she shrugged and stripped, too, which had him doubling down on all the tumultuous emotions he’d tried to hold back since they’d talked about
her ex yesterday. She could set a garage of his Ferraris on fire if she was as committed as him to abandoning propriety when it was fun to do so. This is what he’d remembered the most after they went their separate ways, that they’d just had so much damned fun, and it’d been such a long time since he could say that he’d had fun. He’d been living behind glass for so long, always watching other people living their lives and just waiting for it to be his turn. Finally, his time had come and it had definitely been worth the wait.
First, her simple coral T-shirt fell to the ground, then her yellow bathing suit top, followed by her matching bottoms and shorts, leaving her completely bare to his eyes.
“You actually coming in or just trying to work on your all-over tan?” he asked when she hesitated.
She rolled her eyes at the heckle and jumped in gracefully and swam toward him.
When she was a couple feet from him, just wading in the water, she pushed her shock of wet hair back from her face and met his eyes. “This water cooling you off?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Just a little bit.”
“I just don’t know if us jumping into a serious relationship is the smart move, Oliver,” she told him, running her hand down the exposed slope of his shoulder above the water as she voiced the reason he’d been weird about her phone conversation.
He’d made his feelings about that more than clear, so he stayed mute.
“I like you,” she told him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m not used to having you back in my life. I’m afraid this is all some amazing dream I’m having. I’m naked in the ocean with a guy who would make any woman drool, has promised to dedicate himself to outdoor recreational activities with me and who owns the most luxurious yacht I’ve ever seen. You have to know that it doesn’t seem real.”
He touched his lips to hers. “I’m very real, Molly,” he reminded her, willing her to get over his wealth. “I’m more than just my money. It’s all I’ve ever wanted people to know, and I hope you believe it.” And then he took her mouth, pulling her into him as their legs paddled in between each other, their skin brushing silkily upon each other’s. It was a weirdly sensual feeling and he’d never experienced it with anyone else.
“I know you’re real,” she told him, her hand finding his hard length. “It just feels like me being here isn’t. I know you’re more than your wealth, but I don’t know that I belong in your real life, Oliver.”
She stroked him lightly, just playing because there was no way he could fuck her like he wanted in the ocean, but he’d take her hands on him any way he could get them, and this was a different kind of intimate, the casual ownership of his dick. It didn’t have to be about sex; she just knew that he was hers to do with as she pleased. For some odd reason he couldn’t quite understand, that thought settled something inside him.
“My real life is shitty, Molly. That’s why I’m here,” he admitted, brushing barely there kisses over her sun-warmed cheek. “Whatever life we make together is the one I want.” And regardless of what his parents might think or do to try to manipulate him, he was ready to defend Molly and their life together to the death.
The pebbled nubs of her nipples caressed his chest and his breath caught as if he’d never felt the sensation before, but it was all heightened under the water, making what was already a delicious sensation even more so. “I’ll believe you,” she whispered against his lips. “I want to believe you so badly, Oliver.”
Then she was kissing him, hard, and he gripped her head in his angling for a better way into her mouth, their tongues meeting as the need to connect rose inside them.
When he pulled back to breathe, she unexpectedly ducked down into the water, escaping from his arms. She emerged again, her head popping up with a grin, several feet away.
“What are you doing, Molly?” he asked, sensing danger.
She shrugged, then leaned back in the water until she was on her back, floating there like a goddess, the sun bright on her upturned breasts and the muscular lines of her legs.
But then she moved and he got a huge splash in the face, and it kept coming as she kicked her feet.
He growled and went after her, not able to keep the grin off his face.
“No,” she called, “this is what you get for being such an overbearing ass.”
Ducking under the water, he swam to her side where she wasn’t expecting him and drew up and grabbed her into his arms, effectively dunking her in a crafty sneak attack.
“Oh my God,” she spluttered when she came back up. “I cannot believe you did that!” she yelled when she’d pushed the hair back from her face.
“I was just trying to illustrate to you how real I was,” he laughed, swimming backward as she advanced on him.
“You’re going to wish you weren’t by the time I’m done with you,” she warned, but was also grinning, which diminished the threat in the words.
“I can’t wait,” he told her, then swam quickly away, knowing sooner or later he’d let her catch him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“WHAT DO YOU think of it?” Oliver asked Molly as she inspected the engine room of another yacht docked in the Grand Bahama Yacht Club.
He’d dragged her to shore to tour a couple of the yachts in the port and get her thoughts on their construction. What he was really doing, however, was trying to subtly impart that by working with him she’d be completely in charge of building something from scratch, which he knew she loved. And if she was being honest with herself, if Oliver wouldn’t essentially be her boss, she might love building something new for a change.
“It’s pretty sleek,” she told him as she ran her hands over one of the shining stainless steel hoses jutting out from the engine block. “But not as nice as yours. Since you’re running liquid natural gas you’re getting more bang for your buck and a cleaner ride. This is a twelve-cylinder engine while you have ten. It feels like we’re talking about apples and oranges.”
“So this is a dinosaur?”
She nodded, but knew he already knew it. He’d had his yacht built with cutting edge eco-technology that put it leaps and bounds beyond most boats still on the water. But this trip was how he was going to open up the conversation he wanted to have with her about building yachts.
“The market for new yachts is there, but I’ve been toying with devoting a portion of the business to upgrading ones already on the water. We don’t make the engines, unless of course, you were to grace us with your genius for that, but what if we could design a new kind of engine that could easily exist inside the bones of an old yacht?”
“I don’t know anything about yacht markets, Oliver,” she said. “But I trust your judgment. I always thought there was a small market for yacht charters that cost over 600,000 a week, but it wasn’t as if we ever had a free week during a charter season so my knowledge of how the one percent lives is limited. That said, with the global emissions laws ramping up, more and more yachts are going to have to comply so it’s probably a good idea to start supporting that kind of change.”
“I totally agree.” Oliver grinned. “I guess great minds think alike. So my next question is, what would you do to make yacht engines more efficient?”
“Oliver, if you want to break into the marine manufacturing market, you need to do it without me. I told you I like my job.”
“I know, I know,” Oliver said, brushing her reminder aside. “But when I do hire someone, I need to know that what they’re telling me is legitimate. I don’t want to just build yachts, I want to build the best ones. I want shit no one has even fucking thought of before, Molly, you know? And I know you’re the type of person who thinks that way. So tell me your thoughts so I know the person I hire instead of you has vision.”
Molly sighed and gave him a put-upon look because he was so good at flattery and she wasn’t unaffected by it. She moved farther into the room, ducking under a low light fixt
ure to inspect an older control panel.
“Yachts are all about excess,” Molly said, stating the obvious. “But engineering is about doing the most with the least amount of work, space and material. So if I were building an engine, I’d start there. But the problem is that people want what they know works. That’s why the same companies in business are still in business—they’re dependable—which means you can’t just abandon all that has come before and start from scratch.” She smiled, eyes twinkling. “But I would.”
Oliver quirked an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
“Because I’m better at making things for people who dream than the people who make things for money.”
There was a moment of silence as Oliver stared at her, his eyes shifting from humor, to regard, to heat, and then finally to humor again. “I like you a lot, Molly.”
“Same,” she told him, then scanned the engine room at large. “This is yesterday for sure, but you could make an engine that could be adjusted to fit inside a variety of spaces so that upgrades would be as painless as possible.”
“What about a three-million-dollar signing bonus?” Oliver said, hoping to catch her off guard.
Molly shook her head, amused. “Nope.”
“Unlimited vacation days? You make your own schedule?”
Still shaking her head, Molly crossed her arms over her chest.
“A base of operations near a mountain so you could hike at lunch?”
“Negative.”
Oliver’s nostrils flared and then he grinned. “My body?”
Molly snorted. “I already have that.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, but whenever you want it. One look and I’m naked. A snap of your fingers and I’m naked. Crook your finger and I’m naked. Ask me nicely and I’m naked and kneeling.”
Molly couldn’t help it—she laughed and leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “This is beneath you, Oliver.”
“I’m fine with that as long as you’re on top of me,” he shot back, pulling her into his arms. She loved how well she fit there, too. She liked it when things fit perfectly in a space, the lines and curves joining just right as her body did with his, their lips at the ideal height for her to lift an inch and for him to drop an inch and meet.
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