* * *
The response catches him off guard, a grin catching his mouth before he leans back and laughs. He shakes his head, taking a swig of beer before looking at me sheepishly. “I’m being a little conceited, aren’t I?”
* * *
I grin. “A bit. You give one hell of a fuck, but yes, you aren’t that tempting.” A bald faced lie. Give a girl some time with this version of Nathan, and she could easily drown in his blue depths.
* * *
“Hey,” he says with a devilish wink. “Back at’cha. In regards to the fucking, that is.” He reaches forward and snags my hand, bringing it to his lips for a soft kiss. “As far as lovable, an unattached man would be insane not to fall for you.” As he brushes that delectable mouth over my knuckles, my heart tries hard not to swoon.
* * *
I tug on my hand, trying to salvage my most crucial organ before it shatters into a million pieces. “Any other reasons you hesitate to open that sacred bed up to me?”
* * *
He hesitates. “When Cecile comes back, I want to be able to tell her that any other women—you or anyone else I’ve been with—meant nothing to me. That I’ve been waiting for her. That it has been purely sex with them, nothing more.”
* * *
Aw fuck … My heart implodes, the sharp stabs of a thousand tiny emotions. I busy myself with lobster, taking out my aggression on an innocent claw, fighting to keep my face calm, and only half listening when he continues speaking.
* * *
“But, if it’s important to you, I'll do it. I need this money. There is an opportunity in Puerto Rico and I need this capital to take advantage of it. Asking for two nights in bed is a small request on your part.”
* * *
“And my father,” I remind him.
* * *
“That part’s easy,” he says, taking the lobster from me and breaking it open with one carefree motion.
* * *
Great. A long-term financial burden is easy. Two nights with me—that’s the part he finds difficult.
CHAPTER 45
NATHAN
* * *
It’s funny how your head can forget things. He looks in her eyes, shining from the alcohol, a grin stretched across her face, and can barely remember Cecile’s face. A woman once so ingrained in his thoughts, his mind so dominated by her absence, and now he can barely remember her smile. Candace smirks, and he leans forward. “What?” “Oh … nothing.” She fiddles with her watch, a Tag Heuer that he had given her during the flight. Lined with diamonds, it was a small concession to the favor that she was, rather cheerfully, performing. “Just thinking about your Jekyll and Hyde tendencies. He scowls, and she laughs. “I’m serious!” She reaches forward, touching his arm, and it’s all he can do not to grab her wrist and pull her into his lap. “In Napa you were wonderful. Then we got back to Tennessee and you were ice cold. Now you’re flirtatious and fun …” she wrinkles her nose at him. “I’m just a little afraid of the monster that’s lurking, once we touch back down on US soil.” He sits back, crossing his ankles, and pulls his beer toward him. “No monster anymore. Drew and I thought…” he tilts his head. “We thought it’d be easier for you if I was an ass.” He lifts his beer to his lips and watches her struggle with a crab leg, her forehead pinching in concentration. She glances at him. “So the asshole thing was all an act?” She sniffs, putting the edge of the leg in her mouth and cracking the shell with her teeth in a manner that would make Rosit Fenton shriek in dismay. “Nobody’s that good of an actor.” “Fine,” he snaps. “Maybe I enjoy being an asshole at times.” It isn’t exactly true. It wasn’t that he had ever wanted to hurt her. But sometimes, he had needed some distance, needed her to step away, to lose that look in her eyes, the glimmer of hope he saw come through that curve of her mouth. Sometimes, he’d needed to cut her just to save his own neck. She laughs, and he wonders if, maybe, this could ever be about more than just the money.
CHAPTER 46
An hour later, my heart has forgiven him, aided by a half dozen bottles of ice-cold Bahamian beer. The alcohol has loosened our tongues, words spilling across the table before either of us can hold them back. We have agreed, in one drunken toast, to open the vaults: freedom to ask any question and receive a full, unedited response. We started off friendly, but the questions have gotten dirtier and more personal as the beers keep coming.
* * *
Nathan flips a bottle cap in my direction. “Worst strip club client ever?”