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)
“You can’t?” he replies, all smirking taunt.
“Older men,” I say, digging my hole deeper. “What would we have in common? Tell me a scary story about the last recession,” I say, all breathless ridiculousness. “Feed me your butterscotch candies, Daddy. Then let me rub your arthritic joints with Voltaren.”
What in the name of all that’s good and holy is wrong with me?
“Daddy?” Fin says, biting back a grin.
“That’s what you picked up from all that?”
“That and it sounds like you might be into men much older than me. Just so you know, I’m undeterred.”
“You’re a”—zaddy—“a mental case,” I say, leaning away from his almost embrace.
He stretches his arms above his head, very much unspurned. “Want to take a nap?”
Unspurned and unrepentant.
“Together?” Clothed or unclothed? The latter, in Ronny’s voice, seems to come out of nowhere. “Why?”
“It was a big night.” His hand drops to his abs, and he gives a tiny wince. “A time zone change.”
“From Jakarta?”
“I’m kind of tired.”
More like pushing his luck. “No. No napping. You can, absolutely, if you like. But we,” I add, motioning a finger between us, “can’t do that.”
“We can do whatever we like.”
“Not when we’re supposed to be decoys.” I hook my thumb over my shoulder. “Thinking about it, shouldn’t we be seen out there, in the resort?”
“Seen doing what?” That tone. Does he even know he’s doing it—the sex-voice thing?
“We could go to a yoga session?” I suggest. “Or maybe visit the main pool or go for a walk to provide the media a few long-distance photo opportunities. It’s not like we can hide out here for the next six days, is it?” More like I won’t be able to cope for six days alone with him.
“So . . . yoga and walks and swimming is what you think newlyweds would be doing?”
“Why not?”
His expression flickers as he begins to stand. “I guarantee that wherever they are, Oliver and Evie will barely have left their suite. They’ll be too busy enjoying each other, which is the way it should be, bunny.”
“I don’t—bunny?” I fill the word with derision.
“Yeah. Let me know when you remember why, and we’ll revisit the conversation. Meanwhile,” he says, holding out his hand. “I guess I could cope with a walk along the beach with a pretty girl.”
Chapter 11
Fin
“You didn’t tell me this walk was in fancy dress,” I say as Mila appears from the bedroom, because apparently, a walk along the beach required a change of outfit.
I threw on a pair of board shorts, hoping she’d join me similarly. Swimwear, I mean. Purely for aesthetic reasons. Nothing to do with a perv.
Sadly, Mila’s beachwear is a little more . . . full coverage. She is a quirky bird, and I find that shit endearing.
“Are you even under there?” I tease, crooking a finger under the straw hat she’s wearing. The brim is so wide, it’s like its own fucking orbit.
“Har-har.”
“Jesus!” I jump back theatrically and grin. Maybe it’s because she makes you laugh. “I thought I was looking at a giant fly.” Because, under the hat, Mila is wearing a pair of huge fuck-off sunglasses.
“Stop that,” she retorts, slapping my hand away to tug her monstrous head covering back into place. “I’m going incognito. The hat hides my hair, and the sunglasses—”
“Half your face.”
“Exactly. I might be Evie under all this,” she adds, plucking at the decidedly unsexy striped garment she wears over her swimsuit. One-piece, I’ll bet. Some ugly travesty, when a body like hers should be poured into a tiny bikini.
“Be Evie? For all I know, you might have Evie under this,” I say, pulling the neckline. Did living with a guy who didn’t appreciate what he had make her feel like she should hide in baggy clothes and fucking shapeless dresses?
“Stop it!” She issues another reprimanding slap.
“Where’d you get the tent? I didn’t know the circus was in town.”
Mila inhales a sharp breath, yanks off her sunglasses, and uses them to point at me. “That is a horrible thing to say.”
“And that is a horrible . . . whatever it is. Why would you cover up all this beauty?”
She stills, her head tilting ever so slightly to one side, like she’s trying to make sense of what I just said. Stunned? Confused? Whatever that is, it’s better than a kick in the balls, which is what I thought she’d choose.
“It’s just a beach cover-up,” she says, her tone modulated somewhat.
“I’ll bet it’ll cover the whole thing too. Sea and sand. It might even eclipse the sun.”
“Rude!” she explodes, slapping my hand away as I inch the hem up.
“I’m just making sure you don’t have Victorian-style knickerbockers on underneath.”
“In-cog-ni-to.” She punctuates the syllables with a poke to my chest.
“Ug-ly hat.” I tug three times on the brim.
“Hey!”
As I whip it away, the thing sails across the room like a straw Frisbee. “That’s much better.”