With her, I was thinking I might just cut up all her bikinis and throw them in the damn garbage.
Still, I stayed.
I got up on the board.
And she said if I’d asked, she would have got on her knees and praised me.
I almost let her. Her free spirit was rubbing off on me.
30
Morina
Another whole month together and Bastian was still home pretty much every night. He left sometimes for work, probably flew around the country in a day, but he came back.
I worked at the food truck.
I went to the humane society. Dr. Nathan told me Moonshine was growing and no one wanted her because they didn’t love pit and rottweiler mixes. I petted my little girl more than I did the others.
Bastian and I lived in a weird harmony. My horoscope even said I should continue it.
I prepared myself and went to the board meeting alone, even though Bastian swore up and down he should come with. I hated the old ways, the world trying to make it so that women needed to rely on their husbands. I stood my ground and his driver took me.
The meeting bored me to death while Ronald made small talk with the board members who were mostly my grandmother’s age. Today they weren’t voting on the government funding–whether it would be oil expansion or clean energy. Yet, Ronald rubbed the right elbows and even tried to rub mine.
He came over after the meeting, smiling with those fake white teeth. “You’ll be at my next event, right, Morina? We’re going over to Tybay beach.”
The one and only topless beach in the area. The way the man glanced down at my tits gave me a perfect indication of the man he was.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Great. Great. I’d love to talk more about your shares. I know you and Bastian are married now, but they’re still your call, right?”
Digging for information subtly wasn’t his strong suit. I smiled and waved as a couple of the board members left. Bastian hadn’t let me go alone. My security lingered in the corner, of course.
“It’s a call I’ll make with my husband.” I turned on my heel and walked out. A quick decision, one my grandmother had known I’d make throughout my life, was to leave that man in the dust.
My shares were going to the right place. Bastian wasn’t slime like Ronald. He’d felt the ocean. He knew my town’s beach.
He’d smiled in the sun and surfed a freaking wave.
I teased him that he deserved a reward other than me in a one-piece. God, I knew I was falling for him. The way he shone as a businessman who wanted to be everyone’s friend in daylight. Then I got Sebastian Armanelli when I pushed him over the edge on a rare night: the man behind the suit, tatted up, vicious, commanding, possessive.
He’d held back for a month and I had too against all the gut feelings I’d normally fly head first into. I’d only kissed him once on the beach, and I would have kissed literally anyone who suited up my food truck the way he had.
We’d been good.
He thought it was for the benefit of my sanity and his and the contract as well. He wanted a clean sign over of my shares to him.
He’d get it either way.
I didn’t know if my sanity would get out so clean though.
When I got home, I told Bastian how the board meeting went. I left out all of Ronald’s sleaziness but told him the next event would be in a couple of weeks at the beach.
My husband searched my face like he wanted to dissect every word I said. Then, he grabbed a small dark spray bottle from the side that hadn’t been there when I’d left.
“What is that?”