He looked down at her, and his blue eyes were full of suspicion. She didn’t like that. “Are you looking for an interview?”
“No,” she said, much too quickly to be convincing. She’d love an interview for her blog, but she wasn’t bringing that up yet. Her stomach rolled. Joshua-slash-Jesse wasn’t the only one hiding things. Did he know about her blog, or was he simply suspicious of anyone who asked him questions? “It is odd, though, that you’d reveal yourself to me when you usually hide your face from the world.”
They moved a space in line, and she went down a step while he stayed on the level part.
“I want to talk to you about why you quit,” he said.
She guessed she could buy that. He was probably livid that somebody had stolen from his company, and he’d want to get to the bottom of it. “So you don’t think there’s any other reason you’re so familiar to me? Maybe we’ve met before?” She arched an eyebrow and gave him a stare down. “Hmm?”
His blue eyes were full of amusement, as if she were a funny meme. At the same time, his lips curved up, but again it was like he suppressed his smile. Dang it. She needed to be funny, charming, get him to smile fully, and then she’d know for certain. She didn’t want to accuse Joshua Jewel of lying to her right up front and lose any chance of getting to know him, maybe getting that interview she’d denied wanting. Hopefully, she could tell her side of the story about Curtis accusing her of the ludicrous embezzlement charge. If this was Jesse, he already knew it.
“I don’t think I’d forget you,” he said in a sultry voice she found far too appealing.
Two could play at this game. She gave him a sassy smile. “You don’t know me. Maybe I’m completely forgettable.”
Joshua cracked a pretty good grin, and she thought a dimple was forming. He lowered his voice and said, “Completelyirresistible.”
Jade’s stomach did a little flip, and her heart picked up a beat. Joshua Jewel was hitting on her. Or was it Jesse hitting on her? She was so confused, and she really, really wanted them to be the same man, because otherwise she was a flaky woman. She’d thought she was completely into Jesse, but how could she also be completely into someone else?
“That’s the terrifying thing,” Joshua said in that same low murmur.
“Terrifying?” she shot back. That wasn’t good. He had to be teasing. No way did she terrify someone ultra-impressive like Joshua Jewel, or Jesse James, or whoever he was.
“Your turn, lady!” a little kid yelled.
“I think he means you,” Joshua said in that same husky voice, his eyes never leaving hers.
Jade pulled off her coverup dress and slid out of her flip-flops, stacking everything in a pile on the step. She glanced back at Joshua; he was watching her with a longing, almost hungry look. The bright Caribbean sun had nothing on that look in his eyes. She wanted to forget all about bodyboarding, grab him, kiss him, and then she’d know if he was Jesse or not. If Jesse had let her glimpse eyes like that, she never would’ve left the Jewel resort. Yet if this was Jesse, he’d have some serious explaining to do. Dang, she was confused.
“C’mon, lady,” the same little kid called. “Go, please.”
Jade flushed with embarrassment, breaking her concentration on Joshua. She hurried to the instructor, who handed her a board and asked, “Have you done this before?”
“In the ocean,” she said.
He smiled. “You’ll be great. Lie down on the board, and I’ll push you off.”
Jade set the board down on the blue edge at the front of the surfing machine like he showed her. She lay on her stomach on the soft board, her hands gripping the front edges. The instructor pushed her back into the flow of water. She and the board rushed up the wave. She was certain she would fling off the wave and slam into the backstop thing, like she’d seen some people do when they crashed, but as it reached the lip, the board sailed back down toward the bottom. Water sprayed in her face, but she realized she was riding in the surf.
“Yes!” she cried out.
She stayed in the main part of the rush of water, playing around with the board and directing it from side to side. She glanced over at Joshua, who gave her a thumbs-up and a partial smile. Why was he controlling his smiles? It had to be because he was Jesse and knew that if she saw that dimple, his game would be up. Yet why was he playing games with her? The Jesse she thought she’d been falling for wouldn’t have done that.
“Lift up!” the instructor yelled, demonstrating lifting his upper body.
Jade obeyed and pressed up on the board, similar to a cobra yoga position. He clapped, and she rode that way for a few seconds, turning the board back and forth.
“On your knees!” he called.
Jade was a little apprehensive, but she clung to the sides of the board and slowly pulled her knees forward. The board wobbled, and her stomach dropped. Miraculously, she didn’t go flying, so she kept bringing her knees up until she was kneeling on the board. It felt squirrely and her nerves were dancing as much as the board, but she was doing it.
A few triumphant seconds passed and the board seemed to settle. The instructor made the circle signal. “Turn around!” he hollered.
Jade’s eyes widened. She wasn’t so sure about that. He kept doing it, so finally she tried to pull at the side of the board so it would turn. It did, far too easily. She flipped one-eighty and was facing backwards. She screamed in surprise and pulled harder, and in response, it flipped her forward.
“Yes!” she screamed, taking her hands off the board to punch them in the air.
The board flipped up, and the wave caught her. Water filled her mouth and nose as she was sling-shotted up the wave, slammed into the soft plastic of the rear wall, and then got caught in the churning wave for a second.