How true. It had stifled hers until she’d identified what she truly wanted out of life, and that was to work with kids. To do something exceptional with her skills in Africa, where too many were denied basic health care. And perhaps, she thought, it had killed her marriage the first time around because Coburn was right. His ability to see through her made her feel naked and vulnerable. His ability to make her feel terrifying. It was why she’d run away. She knew that now.
Her husband let out a roar of laughter as the two boys pulled on his pant leg to try to bring him to the ground, fierce determination on their young faces. He would be a good father. With Coburn, life was an adventure waiting to happen. His joie de vivre when she’d met him had been so opposite to her own careful, controlled nature that she had been blown away by it. Amazed someone could live in the present like that when she’d known as a teenager what her next two decades would look like.
But somewhere along the way their separate agendas had collided and her husband’s lust for life had gone from being charming to infuriating. Now with more pressure on him than ever before and saddled with a baby he hadn’t even wanted, how would he react? Would it be too much for them?
She swallowed past the knot in her throat. She couldn’t think like that. She had to be positive about this if it was ever going to work.
* * *
“They tire you out?”
Arthur joined Coburn on the lawn as he held his hands up, declaring himself done with the impromptu soccer game.
“They’re fast little devils,” Coburn conceded, taking the cold beer Arthur handed him. “I haven’t been to the gym nearly enough since I took over Grant.”
Arthur tipped his glass at him. “It’s all consuming, isn’t it? Why do you think I got out when I did? The secret is balance, my friend, and it’s not easy to find.”
Coburn took a long sip of his beer and stared out at the jaw-dropping view of the vast blue horizon. “Ever handle a recall?”
His mentor nodded. “More than I would have liked. You up against one?”
He nodded. It was highly confidential, early days yet, but he knew with Arthur it would go no further. “It could be a big one. Any advice?”
“Get out in front of it. Get the facts, make your assessment, and if you have blame to take, carry it with big shoulders. These can make or break a company’s reputation.”
He knew it. He wasn’t sleeping because of it.
He picked Arthur’s brain on his experiences until the internet billionaire from the neighboring island stole Arthur away for a discussion on boats. His wife was standing with their hostess and two other women on the far side of the patio. He joined them just in time to catch the tail end of a discussion of Caribbean real estate as the wives of the internet baron and a software CEO debated their favorite islands.
“Do you have a preference, Diana?” the diminutive, very beautiful internet baron’s wife asked.
Diana smiled. “I love the Turks and Caicos. My parents have a place there. Unfortunately it would be difficult to live in the Caribbean with my profession.”
“Oh. You work?”
His wife stiffened under the hand he held to her back. “I do. I’m a surgeon in New York.”
“A surgeon?” The CEO’s wife wrinkled her brow. “You mean a ‘cut people open with a knife’ kind of surgeon?”
“Exactly that,” his wife confirmed. “With a purpose in mind, of course.”
The other woman didn’t seem to get his wife’s dry sense of humor. “That’s very...impressive. I bet Coburn is wowed by you.”
“That’s one way of describing it.”
He slid his hand down to her waist and pulled her into his side with a reprimanding squeeze of his fingers. “I most certainly am. Beauty and brains are a definite turn-on for me.”
“I’ll bet they are.” The blond girlfriend of another neighboring millionaire who looked young enough to be her fiancé’s daughter gave him an appreciative once-over. She had been throwing him sideways looks since he’d arrived, making him wonder if her man needed to pop a few pills to satisfy her. “My husband tells me you run one of the world’s largest automotive companies, but I wouldn’t understand what it is really because it’s all that stuff inside a car.”
He smiled. “Very well put.”
“Do you work?” his wife piped up. She hadn’t gotten any less stiff beneath his hand. The urge to drag her off somewhere to loosen her up was an idea.