Barefoot at Sunset (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 1) (17 page)

She swallowed, embarrassed and surprised how much his opinion mattered. “Well, then I guess I’d be another statistic and end up divorced, or I would have worked hard to make it a decent marriage.”

“Did you really love him?” he asked.

“I…I…” She inhaled deeply, enjoying the aroma, but not the truth. “I live in New York, which is no easy place to be single. I’m staring down the barrel of thirty-nine, and every year, the pool of available men gets murkier. I’ve been a bridesmaid in five weddings in the past four years, and my married friends are stable and happy and…not lonely on Sunday afternoons. I…” Her voice cracked, and she wanted to kick herself. “I just wasn’t lucky in love like you were.”

He looked at her, silent.

“I mean, I know you weren’t
lucky
. But you did have that one great love. You know what it’s like and…”

“Is it possible you didn’t really love him? You just wanted him to be the right guy?”

She considered that and didn’t like how close to right he was. “I loved things about him,” she said. “He wasn’t…perfect.”

“No, that’s for sure.” He took a bite of food, looking down, ending the conversation.

“But it’s nice that you care. You know…like a kind older brother.”

He snorted softly, chewing, then wiping his mouth with the napkin, looking hard at her. “Nothing I feel around you is brotherly.”

Heat started low in her belly, clutching her. “Oh. That’s…”
Exactly how I feel.
“Interesting.”

He gave a sly smile. “Isn’t it?”

She looked down at her own plate, not remotely sure where this was going, but like some of those left turns she’d made today…she wanted to risk it.

“So why don’t you go after the Casa Blanca account and start your own boutique ad agency?” he asked.

The question threw her, making her fork freeze mid-bite. “What?”

“You heard me.”

She blinked at him, the idea so…amazing and far-fetched and frightening she couldn’t quite respond.

“I mean, I don’t know a lot about advertising, but if creative is the low point on that account, and that’s what you do, maybe you should talk to Lacey and pool your resources and take the business right out from under your ex’s snotty nose.”

“You
really
didn’t like him, did you?”

“You have no idea.” He took a deep drink of wine. “But, seriously, Em. You quit your job because of him and what he did, and now he’s losing the account because you’re gone.”

“I don’t hate that idea, but…” She tried to eat, but couldn’t bring herself to take a bite. His suggestion just fell all over her chest like a warm coat on a cold day, and she really didn’t want to like it so much, but… “No.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Really? You need the list of reasons? How about I don’t have the experience? I need working capital. I don’t know the account management side. I might get sued by East End Marketing for poaching a client. And…and…”

“And you’re scared.”

She stared at him, giving up a bite for a drink of cold water for her surprisingly parched throat. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Spitless.”

“Then it’s another fear we’ll have to conquer.”

She laughed. “Get three clients and I’m an agency.”

“Damn straight,” he said, his own appetite appearing to improve with the turn of the conversation. “You have the experience, and you probably picked up more about management than you realize.” He took a bite, then pointed the fork at her as he chewed and swallowed. “I’d finance your working capital and, honestly, that loser doesn’t have the nads to sue you. I’d bet my life on it.”

And he’d probably be right. “You’d finance it? I don’t think I could accept that offer, but thank you.”

“Hey, I saw you in action today. When you want to come up with something creative…” He leaned forward and lifted his brows. “Everyone will
sway
?”

She laughed. “It worked, even if Jasper was only slightly horrified at first.”

“But you persuaded him, and isn’t that the whole idea of advertising? You have skills, and I’d invest in them.”

“Thank you, but that would…”
Complicate the hell out of my life.

“What if we win the dance competition?” he asked. “You could have my half. Then you’d have ten grand to start.”

She stared at him, not sure if she wanted to throttle him, kiss him, or laugh in his face. “You’re serious.”

“Dead.”

“Why?”

He shrugged and cut the tail off a shrimp. “Because I want to. This is how I live now.
Carpe diem
, you know?”

“What do you mean ‘how you live
now
’?”

He took a second to gather his thoughts, then said, “The one thing I learned from my darkest days is that life is short, unpredictable, and only as good as what you make it during the time you’re given. As much as I wanted to roll around and feel sorry for myself and drink myself into a stupor after Julia died, I refused to.”

“That’s why you took a chance on selling the company and spend your time jumping out of planes?” Emma asked.

“It’s why I do everything wholeheartedly and with passion. I never doubt my ability to at least try. And I never, ever let a golden opportunity pass me by. And this? This is your golden opportunity.”

A slow heat built in her belly, a combination of wanting to agree and just…wanting
him
. “You think so?”

“I know so. You should pitch Lacey while you’re here. Talk to her, tell her who you are…”

“Oh, that’d be a fun conversation.”

“We’ll be straight and tell her everything,” he said. “She’ll understand why we’re pretending to be engaged. Why don’t we arrange a time for you to sit down and talk to her about the business and—”

“Whoa.” She held up her hand. “I didn’t say I’d pitch her. I’m not ready to do that. And what’s this
we
business, anyway?”

He gave her a teasing look. “Hey, I spied for you tonight. I’m invested in the outcome, okay?”

“Okay.” She smiled, the thought of his investment—emotional, financial, even time—was like balm on a heart that had gotten surprisingly bruised today.

“So talk to Lacey,” Mark said. “What can it hurt? I mean, if you don’t want to—”

“I do,” she said. “The more I think about freelancing an account or even starting my own little shop, the more I love the idea.” Like,
really
love it.

“Owning your own business and being your own boss is just like driving a Porsche,” he said with a smile. “You got power, control, speed, and it feels good.”

“And it costs a fortune and could send you flying right over a bridge.”

He laughed at that, shaking his head. “
Carpe diem
, Em.”

For a long moment, all she could do was stare at him. This handsome silver devil who’d found her on a doorstep weeping such a short time ago and now believed in her so much, he actually made her think she could do this.

“How did you do that?” she asked on a whisper.

“How did I do what?”

She searched his face, imagining a thirty-two-year-old man mourning the loss of his beloved wife. “When your wife died, you became better, not bitter. Of all the things you’ve done, that’s the one that I envy the most.”

“It’s a choice you make.” He leaned back and took a drink of water. “So? What are you going to call your new agency?”

And right then, under the pale moon with a man she barely knew, Emma felt her whole heart and soul slip, slide, and stumble toward something she’d never felt before.

Mark believed in her, and because of that, she believed in herself.

How was it she’d planned to marry a man who’d never made her feel like this…and she was going to walk away from this one, who did?

Chapter Fourteen

Mark woke around three thirty in the morning with a crick in his neck from the only thing that wasn’t truly luxurious in the villa—the pullout sofa bed.

Whose stupid idea was it to sleep on this thing?

But the door to the villa’s only bedroom stayed firmly shut. Emma had spent the rest of the night chatting about the possibility of her own business, and while Mark had really enjoyed her growing enthusiasm, she’d ended the night with a warm hug and a platonic good night.

What the hell had Plato been thinking with that bullshit, anyway?

He pushed off the throw blanket and got up, trying to decide if he wanted a real drink or coffee. Since this hour didn’t really qualify for either one, he settled on an ice-cold bottle of water and took it out to the patio where the air was cool, salty, and inviting.

Shirtless with nothing on but thin sleep pants, he stood at the railing and looked at the pinpoints of stars, the moon risen too far to leave much of a silver river on the bay. The sand was empty, the tide low, the surf too gentle to hear from this distance.

He took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable. The kick of an old ache that never, ever failed to land its steel toe in his solar plexus during a contemplative moment. Grief. Loneliness. A black hole of hurt.

But he didn’t feel it.

Come on, he chided himself. It would be wrong to look at stars and feel the breeze and listen to distant surf and not think of Julia, right? She’d love this. She’d say…she’d say…

What would she say?

Good God, he couldn’t even conjure up the memory of her voice. What the hell?

“Julia,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

But nothing, not a sound, came to mind. Not her laugh, not her sighs, not a teasing joke or insightful comment.

His chest felt numb and heavy. He’d forgotten her. How had that happened? Was it because he’d met—

“Hey.”

He turned at the sound of a different woman’s voice, this one soft and sweet and a little tentative. Emma stood in the French doors that led to the bedroom, a sleep shirt grazing the tops of her thighs, her long hair tangled and mussed.

“What are you doing up?” he asked.

“I can’t sleep. Same problem?”

“Probably for different reasons.” He rubbed his neck. “Sleeping on a pullout is for college students, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, Mark.” She took a few steps closer, out of the shadows into the soft moonlight. “I’m sorry.”

“The sleeping arrangements were my idea.”

“Everything’s your idea,” she agreed, her bare feet padding on the pavers as she approached him. “Fake engagements, opening new businesses, competitive dancing.”

“Hey, the dancing was
not
my idea.” His laugh caught in his throat as she reached him and he could see her face. Damn, she was pretty. Her golden-brown eyes always had a light in them, and her lashes, even when she didn’t have makeup on, were long and reached up almost to the arch of her brow. And her skin was like whipped cream, with lips just pouty enough to make him think about kissing them every single time she wasn’t smiling. God, he couldn’t stop looking at her. There was something precious and feminine about her features, but arresting and sharp, too. She was damn beautiful.

“It’s a pretty night, though,” she said, looking out to the blackness of the Gulf of Mexico. But his gaze stayed on her, dropping over the thin sleep shirt, impossible not to notice the sweet tips of her breasts, her nipples hard in the night air.

His body tightened and reacted, blood instantly moving south.

“You want to take a walk?” she asked.

Yeah, right back to that bedroom. “Not particularly.”

She sighed, joining him at the railing.

“Drink?” he asked, holding out his water bottle.

“Yeah, thanks.” She put her mouth against the open top and lifted the bottle, and he made no effort not to stare at the exposed throat and her half-closed eyes. When she finished, her lips were moist from the water and parted.

He took the bottle and set it on the table. He needed his hands and mouth free…for her. He had to touch her. Kiss her.

And he wasn’t going to stop there.

“Emma.” He reached to her face, touching that sweet skin and moving his hand into her silky hair.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her lips almost quivering as she drew in a slow breath. “Mark.”

“You know, I gave you a big lecture tonight over dinner.”

“
Carpe diem
?” she asked. “It worked. I’m seizing. Or at least thinking about seizing.”

“So am I.” He inched closer, threading her hair around his fingers. “And what kind of man would I be if I told you that I never miss an opportunity or skip a chance or refuse to try to get whatever I want…and let you slip out of my hands into that big bed alone?”

She looked up at him, very slowly angling her head, like a kitten nestling into a petting hand. “So you seize the day
and
the night?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, lost in her eyes and the sound of her voice. Emma’s voice. Not Julia’s.

“I’ve been with women.”

She laughed softly. “I bet you have.”

“Not extraordinary numbers,” he said, not sure why that particular truth was important, but it was. “But enough.”