Wherever It Leads (19 page)

“Are you staring?” he asks, making me jump. I laugh and continue to openly admire him. Screw it.

“Yeah. So?”

He chuckles and puts his hands behind his head, his body glistening with the movement. “This is nice, huh?”

“So nice. I’ve always loved the water. There’s just something about it that soothes my soul or something. Presley says it’s because I’m a Scorpio.”

“I’m a Scorpio,” he notes. “But I don’t know much about all that.”

“Me either. Presley goes through these phases of Feng Shui and astrology and veganism. I learn a lot just by watching her dabble in everything.”

“I was a dabbler back in the day,” he reflects. “I wanted to be a doctor, an archaeologist. And I was a vegetarian at one point too.”

“Seriously? I’ve seen you eat a lot of meat over the last few days.”

“I said
was
,” he laughs. “Not anymore.”

“Good to know. I don’t trust anyone that doesn’t like a good hamburger every now and then.”

He peers at me over the top of his sunglasses.

“What?”

He shakes his head and slides his glasses back over his eyes.

“Nope. The ignoring my questions stops now.” I’m kidding but not kidding. I want to know what that look meant.

“And I thought you were being sweet now.”

“I was. And then you annoyed me,” I laugh.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“I’d be shocked if you did, but yes. Please do.”

“I like it when you’re bossy,” he tells me. “You get all fired up and that goes straight to my cock.”

I roll my eyes and relax back into my chair. “I’m starting to think everything goes straight to your cock.”

“Everything having to do with you certainly does,” he mutters. “But you want to know what that look was for?”

I shrug, not going to bite. That gives him the power. I’ll hold on to a little bit yet.

“Frustrating girl,” he groans. “Fine. Your declaration of your love for a hamburger is not something I’ve heard a woman say before.”

“What? They usually declare their love of sausage?”

He chuckles. “You’re impossible.”

“So I like a hamburger. I also like Swedish Fish. What’s your point?”

He opens his mouth and closes it. Twisting in his seat, he faces me head-on. “When I normally spend time with a woman, it’s very . . . contrived. Everything she does and says is very calculated, every word that comes out of her mouth for my benefit. But then there’s you.” His grin melts me. “From what I can figure, you say whatever you’re thinking and that’s that. You aren’t really bothered about how I’ll take it.”

“Why would I? You’re a big boy. You’ll get over it.”

He roars, his laughter causing a flock of birds perched on a tall red rock to fly away. “You know,” he says, settling down, “I imagined you’d be . . . fun. I had no idea you’d be so . . . refreshing.”

“Refreshing, huh?” I grin.

He leans back again and stills. I watch the water ripple, a fish jump and splash into the blue.

I’ve never thought of myself as
refreshing
. Boring or predictable, maybe. But refreshing?

Fenton yawns next to me, stretching his legs. It’s hard not to feel like a bundle of hormones around him, yet the more I talk to him, the more I realize how much more there is to him than a hot body.

“Sometimes I have half a notion to sell everything I have,” he says, jostling me out of my reverie. “I just want to buy a boat and float around the world, docking at different islands and countries. A nautical nomad or something.”

“Why don’t you?”

“It’s not that easy, Brynne.”

“Of course it isn’t,” I scoff. “But if that’s something you really want to do, you should do it. At least for a month or something. Take a vacation and float around with no itinerary. Think how fun that could be.”

“I can’t. I mean, I could, but I can’t just leave my companies to run for an extended period. Fuck knows what I’d come back to, if anything.”

“Just close the restaurants. You make food for people,” I point out, trying not to sound like it isn’t important. “I’m pretty sure they can find other places to eat.”

“You do know I have more than restaurants, right?” he smirks.

“I don’t know much of anything because someone doesn’t like to talk about work.”

“Well, that someone doesn’t like talking about work when he’s with a beautiful woman.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” I coax, knowing he does but still wanting to hear him say it. It’s quickly becoming a drug and I’m not saying no to a fix.

He scoots to the far side of his chair and rolls up on his side. “Get over here and lay by me.”

I flash him a big grin and climb over, lowering myself beside him. I lay on my back and his hand rests on my stomach like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He looks down at me, studying me in the way he does.

“I’ve enjoyed these last couple of days with you,” he admits. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for making me come.”

He snorts, catching my innuendo.

“No, really,” I confess, “I’m happy I came with you. This little adventure has been exactly what I needed.”

“Me too.”

The sun blazes brightly, the reflection of the water shining off Fenton’s glasses. I wish I could see his eyes, to try to get a feel for what he’s feeling, but they’re effectively blocked.

A nervous jolt shoots through me and I do the math. I have to be at work in a few days. The idea of going back to reality—to work, to the ordeal with Brady, to Grant—seems overwhelming. My time with Fenton has been the most hedonistic thing I’ve ever done and knowing that’s going to end sends my spirits spiraling. Somehow I hadn’t thought too much about leaving, about the clock striking midnight and turning back into a stepsister.

“When are we going home?” My voice is filled with the same dread I feel. It’s almost painful to say the words, the sounds barely slipping past my taut voicebox.

“I’m waiting on some news about a couple of things. I should have some of it rectified tonight or tomorrow and then I’ll have a better idea. A couple of days probably. Is that okay?”

I nod, feeling the blues start to sink in. I’m going to miss him and I don’t want to.

“If you need to get back sooner, I can have someone take you. It’s not a problem.”

He says that, but the way he looks at me tells me it
is
a problem. Why? I’m not sure, but I won’t leave unless I have to and a couple of days is better than tomorrow.

“A couple of days is great. I have work coming up, but I’d like to stay with you as long as you’re here.” I chew my bottom lip, my stomach rolling with anxiety. I shouldn’t have said that. It sounds pathetic and needy and I’m not either of those things. I don’t want to be, anyway. But I wasn’t prepared to feel like this.

“What did you just think?” he asks, his voice packing a level of feels I’m not prepared for.

“Nothing of importance,” I lie. I don’t want to tell him I was thinking that I didn’t want to leave him. How stupid.

“Brynne—tell me.”

“Just . . .” When I look him in the face, I lose my resistance. He lifts the words from my lips with a single look. “I was thinking I would miss you when we leave.”

He flinches. It’s a quick movement, a fast blanch, but I catch it. And my stomach drops into a free-fall, my reputation now obliterated. I’m sure he’s thinking I’m some pitiful girl that doesn’t know how to do things without strings. But I
do
know how to do that. I
want
to do that. I can’t help it that he’s the Pied Piper, leading me around with a sexy grin. It’s not fair.

“Brynne . . .”

“No, Fenton,” I say, sitting up and starting towards my chair. His hand on my arm stops me. I look at him over my shoulder.

“Lay back here.”

“I . . . No, it’s okay. I’m sorry,” I blush. “It was—”

“It was exactly what I was thinking.”

My breath leaves my body in a slow, steady stream. I wonder if I heard him right, but the hesitant grin on his face tells me I did. Shakily, I fall back into position on the chair and his hand presses flat on my stomach. I don’t know if it’s so I don’t get up or so he’s sure I’m here, but I love the feeling of his heavy arm lying on me. Of knowing he doesn’t want me to get up. Of being sure he’s still here.

“I told you I’ve enjoyed these last couple of days,” he confesses. “I’ll hate to go home and let you go back to your life.”

I wait for him to continue. There’s little doubt he can feel my heartbeat pounding in my stomach, but he doesn’t say anything. He just strums my skin with his fingers, sweeping them over my stomach.

Pulling his sunglasses off, he wipes his brow with the back of his hand. Some of his thick hair sticks to his forehead and I want to reach up and push it back, kiss his pursed lips, straddle him and kiss him until we forget this awkwardness. But it’s already in the universe. There is no taking it back.

“My life is a big mess right now, anyway,” I say, trying to feel okay about this. Trying to convince myself as much as him that I don’t need him, that I can split ways and go on with life. That I have a lot of things going on that I’ve been able to forget about for a few days, but things that are going to have to be dealt with. I force a swallow, summoning my courage. “I have all this family stuff happening. Grant is around, school will be starting soon . . .”

He narrows his eyes. “I didn’t think you had anything to say to Grant.”

“I don’t. But I’ll still have to deal with him, and I don’t know how to go about it. He locks me in with a promise he has something to say about my brother, and although I know it’s probably bullshit, I can’t risk it. What if this is the time he breaks?”

“What if he breaks and does something to you?” His eyes darken, his brows pull together.

“I’ll handle this.”

“You’ll call me.”

It sounds so simple coming from him, but the look on his face is anything but. I gulp.

“I’m not bothering you with this. I can handle Grant.”

“That doesn’t mean you should.”

“Grant was almost a part of my family, Fenton. I dated him for two years. I think I can deal with him.”

“I don’t give a fuck how long you dated him. If you were paying his bills and letting him skirt having to be a fucking man, I’m surprised you even classify it as a relationship or love under your own definitions.”

“You don’t understand.”

“What I don’t understand is how you could even think this way.” His chuckle reverberates through me, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. “With me, you’re strong and smart and witty. When you talk about him, you seem the exact opposite. Why would you want to give anyone time that makes you feel this way?”

“You don’t know him.”

“Maybe not. But I haven’t heard anything to like.” He removes his hand from my body and I instantly miss it. “Your family was okay with him acting like he did to you?”

I’m not going into this. It would only add fuel to Fenton’s fire.

“My family is too busy with my brother to really care that much,” I say.

“What’s happening with your brother?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I watch the boat drift by a large red rock that looks like a table. I try to focus on the layers and colors and not on Fenton.

“I get not wanting to talk about stuff,
as you know,
” he laughs softly. “But I’m curious as to what’s going on. What would make your parents not notice their daughter broke up with her boyfriend of two years.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I say simply.

“But satisfaction brought it back.”

“I hate you,” I laugh.

He scoots closer, the heat of the day too much for us to be lying this close, but I can’t pull away. I like the proximity, the way it makes me feel safe. The little ripple of anxiety, that things are about to sprial out of control with my life, is calmed with him peering over me. It’s a relief to be able to breathe for once . . . even if it is sweltering.

The heat, the smell of his skin diminishes my resolve and I give in.

“My brother is missing. He has been for a while.”

“Like a runaway?”

“He took off to do something nice and something happened and now . . .” I sigh, fighting back tears. Fenton notices because he notices everything and scoops me up. Our heated, sticky bodies cling to each other, but that’s one thing he doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he doesn’t care. “My brother is the kindest person you’d ever meet. He’s a humanitarian, like you said your mother was. He’d do anything for anyone, and it was his heart that got him in trouble.”

I wipe a stray tear rolling down my cheek. “I miss him so much, Fent. I miss his stupid jokes and Dodger stats and calls late at night to ponder life’s great mysteries. I just wish he’d come home.”

That’s the best I can do without going into detail, and the last thing I want to do is to spoil this moment with a timeline of events, the way he looked on the proof of life video, the worst case scenario the government has given us and what that would do to me and my family if it were true.

His face is buried in my hair. “I’m sorry. I know what it feels like to lose someone.”

“He’s not dead,” I choke.

“No, I know. I didn’t mean that, rudo,” he says hurriedly. He breathes me in, holding me tight. “In my line of work, we lose a lot of people, whether it be their lives or just that they walk away and we never see them again. And, you know, both of my parents are gone.” He presses a kiss to my head. “Having an attachment to someone and having them leave is one of the hardest parts of life.”

I wonder if that’s one of the reasons he doesn’t have friends or girlfriends, why he purposefully doesn’t let a lot of people in. I don’t get to ponder it too long before he speaks again.

“Sometimes I think getting on a boat and floating around would be the easiest life, the best use of my money.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Lots of reasons. I guess the main one is I can’t trust anyone to handle my businesses. We do a lot of important things, and I can’t just walk away from that.”

“Like make food?” I laugh, wiping my face with the back of my hands.

“Making food, yes,” he chuckles. “And helping children with scholarships and buying land before the trees can be cut off it. We provide security to hotels and casinos, keep concert goers safe. We fund small businesses that hire homeless people and help get them started in life. Lots of different things.”