“Banana hammock?” I ask when he hangs up.
“It’s for Commando,” he says with a shrug. “The swimwear company.”
Waze interrupts him with, “Turn left in one mile.”
The bay hugs the bridge as boats zip through the blue waves. It’s possible I might be driving above the speed limit. It’s also possible I like it.
I half want to be annoyed by Asher’s flash, but this car is—holy fuck—fun.
So much of the last six years have been the opposite. Work, parenting, trying to prop up a marriage.
But very little fun, and even though he drives me crazy, Asher is the definition of fun.
Maybe that’s why I told him my wedding story on the plane. I want him to know why I am the way I am—wound a little tightly.
Okay, maybe a lot.
Asher isn’t, though. And I can’t help but wonder where the hell he came from. “What do your parents do? Are they around?”
“Yes. Sort of. They’re divorced. Have been since I was in boarding school. They’re both remarried. Dad’s third marriage. It’s . . . whatever. I’m not close with either of them,” he says, offhand. “They both do something with money. International finance or what have you.” I catch a quick glimpse of him as I turn off the causeway. He strokes his chin. “Does that make them bankers like you?”
“I’m not a banker,” I scoff. “Please. I’m a trader.”
“But you work for a bank,” he says slowly.
“Well, sure.”
“If it quacks like a duck . . .”
I snort. “Trading and banking aren’t the same, no matter what the sign on the building says.”
“Enlighten me,” he insists.
“A banker borrows at one percent and lends at fifteen percent and plays golf on the weekends. A trader is out there in the choppy water.” I gesture vaguely toward the sparkling ocean beyond the bay. “Trying to buy low and sell high and keep the water out of his nose before the hurricane arrives.”
“In other words?and it shocks me to learn this about you?the job is risky.”
“All the time,” I agree. “One bad day can end your career. So you have to be the kind of guy who never has that kind of a day.”
“And how do you do that?”
I shrug. “You just have to be smarter or more ruthless than everyone else who’s out there trying to eat your lunch.”
“So you can either outmaneuver or out-nerd the other guy,” he says with a chuckle.
“Exactly. On a good day, you can do both.”
Waze speaks up again. “Your destination is two hundred feet on the right,” the app announces, and I turn into a driveway that makes my jaw fall to the other side of the bay.
“Are you kidding me?”
Hannah showed me pictures. But in person, this mansion is insane. A massive, gated entrance sprawls across a driveway that’s probably made of gold bricks.
Details first, though. I gesture to the sheltered keypad at the gate.
“I’ve got the code in my phone,” Asher says, grabbing it from his shorts pocket. “Someone likes long passwords,” he mutters as he swipes the screen, then finds what he’s looking for. He starts to read it off. He must think better of it, because he unclicks his seatbelt, reaching across me to tap in the code. His chest rests against my right arm and his body stretches along mine.
I. Don’t. Move.
I just try not to inhale his scent.
But I can’t stop. He smells like rainwater and a summer breeze and all my fantasies, and I want to touch him so badly. My runaway brain rattles down the tracks as I picture dropping my mouth to his neck, licking his throat, sucking on his earlobe.
My breath catches on that image.
He freezes.
He noticed the hitch in my breath.
He totally fucking noticed.
Please don’t say anything. Don’t tease me over that. I don’t think I can handle it.
But the squeal of the gate saves my ass as Asher settles back into his seat without a mention—just a casual, “There we go.”
I pray I’m not going to sport wood when I get out of the car.
With a loud, final wrench, the gate stops rolling, and I drive past it. A few seconds later, it rattles closed, sealing us in.
When I cut the engine, I have no choice but to gawk.
It’s a palace, sprawling at the top of a short hill. And it does take my mind off matters south of the border. “Wow,” I say, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Hannah will be ecstatic, which is all that matters. I grab my phone, send her a quick text.
Mark: You’re gonna love it. This place is stunning!
She replies right away.
Hannah: Eep. Show me pics!
Mark: Stand by.
Once I switch back to my regular glasses, we leave the car in the driveway, and Asher types his code into another lock box on the mansion’s spacious front porch.
Then we’re heading inside the air-conditioned home worthy of Madonna or a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, and I snap some shots for Hannah. The marble floors. The vaulted white ceilings. The entire glass wall in the living room overlooking the glistening bay, with boats bobbing in the distance on the placid water.