Her interest perks. “Out to where?”
My mind goes to the boat waiting for us in the bay. “It’s a surprise.”
She pouts prettily. “I hate surprises.”
“I’m sure you’ll like this one,” I say confidently.
We get dressed and have breakfast together out on the balcony. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s pleasant, just being with her. I have an unbidden image of the two of us, together in my apartment in New York. It feels inevitable, and desirable. Arresting the thought, I look up to find her gazing at me, a strange expression on her face.
I raise an eyebrow. “You want to tell me something?”
She shakes her head slowly. “No.”
“Then stop looking at me like that, or else I won’t be able to get anything done this morning.”
She turns back to her phone, making me wonder what she was thinking. I want to flatter myself that she was thinking along the same lines as me, imagining a future for us beyond this one week.
It’s a foolish line of thought. Impractical, too. There’s no room in my life for anyone permanent.
There isn’t.
I leave her after breakfast and work for a few hours. When I emerge from the library, I find her on the sofa, hard at work on her computer. Her hair is piled in a loose ponytail on top of her head as she frowns in concentration at her screen.
Standing at the doorway, I watch her silently. She’s not just beauty, she’s light, and for the first time in my life, I’m aware that if I fall any deeper for her, I’ll be lost.
As if she can feel my gaze, she turns in my direction. Her fingers hover over the keyboards, her cheeks stained with a barely visible flush.
“Are you going to say something?” Her voice is teasing and light. “Or are you going to keep looking at me like that?”
I cross my arms and lean against the wall behind me. “Looking at you how?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, like you can see inside me.”
I chuckle. “Believe me, I wish I could.”
She looks puzzled, and her eyes follow me as I push off the wall and go to stand behind her, behind the sofa. Gently, I stroke her hair, undoing her ponytail and watching as it falls around her shoulders in a mass of soft silk.
She sighs and sets her work down.
“I love your hair.” It’s true. I do. “Sometimes it’s red, sometimes gold, and sometimes it’s both.”
She turns around to face me, her eyes searching my face. “Is that the only thing you love?”
No. Not at all. “You have no idea,” I say softly. If I give her a hint of how I feel, how reluctant I am to let her go, she’ll probably run screaming to Jack-Whatshisname. I straighten and step away from the sofa. “You should pack an overnight bag. We’re leaving in about an hour.”
Her eyes dance with excitement. “You still won’t tell me where we’re going?”
I grin. “You’ll see soon enough.”
A car takes us from the hotel to an exclusive clubhouse that boasts a golf course and a dock. As we approach the large boat waiting in the water, Rachel turns to face me, eyebrows raised in a silent question.
My lips quirk. “Do you like sailing?”
“I don’t know.” She smiles. “I’ve never done it.”
I take her hand, loving the feel of her fingers wrapped in mine. “Well, come on, then.”
Once in the boat, she changes into a bikini that shows off her exquisite curves. We have lunch on the deck, enjoying the view as the boat sails across the bay.