Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“Private. Perfect for a honeymoon.”
She begins to pull away. “Pretend honeymoon, so don’t get any ideas.”
Ah, Mila. It’s too late for that. “Wait.”
She turns back, her brows pulled in. But I’m already taking her smooth calf in my palm.
“Oh.” Her palm is warm on my back as I pull off her pink flip-flops. One. Two. I throw them in the direction of the stairs.
“Can’t do that on Southend.” Her words sound a little shaky, and she shoots me a hesitant smile. “Someone’s dog would run off with them.”
How easily she makes me laugh.
We walk in a companionable silence along the shoreline. When I reach for her hand, she allows it, but just for the benefit of those who might be watching, she insists. The surf gently rolls in, warm and inviting over our toes as we head toward a dark rocky outcrop. The world is quiet but for the sound of the water and the press of our feet into wet sand.
It’s pretty perfect.
“It’s so beautiful here.” Her attention flits my way. “I can see why they’d travel halfway around the world to get married here.”
“It is special.” I’ve always loved the island, though I don’t get to spend nearly enough time here. Work keeps me busy. But also, that sixteen-hour flight plus a helicopter flight is a lot. But it’s mainly work that keeps me away.
“Do all the suites have access to this beach?”
“Nope. This stretch is totally private to our suite.”
“I can’t imagine what it must cost to stay here.” Her murmur seems a little awe filled. It seems to immediately embarrass her as her lips purse, her attention sliding out over the water. “Not that they have to consider that sort of thing, I suppose,” she adds eventually.
“You should come again. On me.”
From under her hat, she mutters something that sounds unpleasant.
“I’m serious.”
“Seriously smutty.”
“I’m serious. And smutty. But I hadn’t meant it like that. Although . . .” As she reaches over and playfully punches me in the arm, I react in kind. “Oof!”
“It comes as second nature to you.”
“Let me rephrase. You can visit here anytime. Mi casa es tu casa.”
“That’s kind of you.”
And that was a very polite English brush-off.
“Hell, if we don’t get an annulment, you might be entitled to half the place.”
Her hand slides from mine, and it takes me a couple of steps to realize she’s no longer walking with me. I glance back.
“Please stop saying things like that. It’s not funny,” she adds, obviously deciding I’m not taking this seriously enough. “If other people hear you—”
“Who?” I hold my arms wide and glance around the deserted beach. “Who would hear?”
“I don’t have a lot going for me right now, but I do have my professional reputation.”
“Mila, it was a joke.” What hasn’t she got in her life? Other than money, which I guess is obvious now.
“I know it probably looks like I’ll do anything for money,” she said. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. She’d be doing cartwheels along the beach after googling my net worth. So what am I missing here? And what can I do to help? Is it weird that’s what I want to do? Help her. Be useful. Be by her side. Be fucking hers.
“Just knock it off. Please.”
“Okay.” I give a short shrug and walk back, taking her hand again. “Promise.” We begin to walk again.
Women. They usually maintain they’re interested in my pretty face, my cock, and my cash, in that order. Though I am aware that, for some—for a lot—the order is reversed. It’s not always as mercenary as all that. Sometimes it’s my profile, my status, that they’re looking to benefit from. I’ve dated a lot of women, and I’ve never made a big deal of my background, but when the topic of money inevitably comes up, I’ve never found a woman repulsed by my wealth.
I guess Mila is a two-out-of-three kind of woman.
And I am undeterred.
“Holding the wedding here was my gift to them,” I admit. “It wasn’t supposed to cost them a dime.”
She lifts her head, her gaze almost apologetic. “That’s generous.”
“I wish it had worked,” I say, shrugging off the compliment. “It’s my suite.” I glance up at the volcanic rock face, not sure why I feel uncomfortable saying so. I don’t normally feel bad for being rich. “The one we’re staying in, I mean.”
“Wow. Lucky you.”
Simply by virtue of my birth, that’s true. But I’ve worked hard my whole life and grown the money I was born to. My share of my grandfather’s estate has doubled since he passed, but that’s not to say I don’t realize how lucky I am compared to most folks.
“And also unlucky, as it turns out,” she adds with a hint of malicious glee.
Fuck me, I love that look on her. It seems to say Look at what I’m about to do to you. Well, bring it on, bunny, because I want the full experience. “How so?”