She probably meant to be kind, but all her condescension did was remind him why he never did anything before learning everything there was to know about it. Controlling his environment.
Open ocean was not a controlled environment.
‘How about you?’ he deflected as the drag of the water dropped away and they stepped onto toasty warm sand. ‘You don’t get bored of the same view every day? The same reef?’
She turned back out to the turquoise lagoon and the deeper blue sea beyond it—that same blue that he loved from the comfort and safety of his boat.
‘Nope.’ She sighed. ‘I like a lot of familiarity in my environment because of—’ she caught herself, turned back and changed tack ‘—because I’m at my best when it’s just me and the ocean.’
He snorted. ‘What’s the point of being your best when no one’s around to see it?’
He didn’t mean to be dismissive, but he saw her reaction in the flash behind her eyes.
‘I’m around.’ She shrugged, almost embarrassed. ‘I’ll know.’
‘And you reserve the best of yourself for yourself?’ he asked, knowing any hope of a congenial day with her was probably already sunk.
Her curious gaze suggested he was more alien to her than some of the creatures they’d just been studying. ‘Why would I give it to someone else?’
She crossed to their piled-up belongings and began to shove her snorkelling equipment into the canvas bag.
Rich pressed the beach towel she’d supplied to his chest as he watched her go, and disguised the full-body shiver that followed. But he couldn’t blame it on the chilly water alone—there was something else at play here, something more...disquieting.
He patted his face dry with the sun-warmed fabric to buy himself a moment to identify the uncomfortable sensation.
For all his success—for all his professional renown—Rich suddenly had the most unsettling suspicion that he might have missed something fundamental about life.
Why would anyone give the best of themselves to someone else?
MILA NEVER LIKED to see any creature suffer—even one as cocky as Richard Grundy—but, somehow, suffering brought him closer to her level than he’d yet been. More likeable and relatable Clark Kent, less fortress of solitude Superman. He’d taken the drop-off experience hard, and he’d been finding any feasible excuse not to make eye contact with her ever since.
Most people got no phone reception out of town but Richard somehow did and he’d busied himself with a few business calls, including arranging for the boat he knew of to meet them at Bill’s Bay marina. It was indisputably the quickest way to get to the gorges he wanted to see. All they had to do was putter out of the State and Federal-protected marine park, then turn north in open, deregulated waters and power up the coast at full speed, before heading back into the marine park again. They could be there in an hour instead of the three it would take by road. And the three back again.
It looked as if Richard would use every moment of that hour to focus on business.
Still, his distraction gave her time to study him. His hair had only needed a few strategic arrangements to get it back to a perfectly barbered shape, whereas hers was a tangled, salt-crusted mess. Side on, she could see behind his expensive sunglasses and knew just how blue those eyes were. The glasses sat comfortably on high cheekbones, which was where the designer stubble also happened to begin. It ran down his defined jaw and met its mirror image at a slightly cleft chin. As nice as all of that was—and it was; just the thought of how that stubble might feel under her fingers was causing a flurry of kettledrums, of all things—clearly its primary role in life was to frame what had to be his best asset. A killer pair of lips. Not too thin, not too full, perfectly symmetrical. Not at their best right now while he was still so tense, but earlier, when they’d broken out that smile...
Ugh...murder.
The car filled with the scent of spun sugar again.
‘Something you need?’
He spoke without turning his eyes off the road ahead or prising the phone from his ear, but the twist of the mouth she’d just been admiring told her he was talking to her.
She’d meant to be subtle, glancing sideways, studying him in her periphery, yet apparently those lips were more magnetic than she realised because she was turned almost fully towards him. She snapped her gaze forward.
‘No. Just...um...’
Just obsessing on your body parts, Mr Grundy...
Just wondering how I could get you to smile again, sir...
‘We’re nearly at the boat launch,’ she fabricated. ‘Just wanted you to know.’
If he believed her, she couldn’t tell. He simply nodded, returned to his call and then took his sweet time finishing it.
Mila forced her mind back on the job.
‘This is the main road in and out of Coral Bay,’ she said as soon as he disconnected his call, turning her four-wheel drive at a cluster of towering solar panels that powered streetlights at the only intersection in the district. ‘It’s base camp for everyone wanting access to the southern part of the World Heritage area.’
To her, Coral Bay was a sweet, green little oasis existing in the middle of almost nowhere. No other town for two hundred kilometres in any direction. Just boundless, rust-coloured outback on one side and a quarter of a planet of ocean on the other.
Next stop, Africa.
Richard’s eyes narrowed as they entered town and he saw all the caravans, RVs, four-by-fours and tour buses parked all along the main street. ‘It’s thriving.’
His interest reminded her of a cartoon she’d seen once where a rumpled-suited businessman’s eyes had spun and rolled and turned into dollar signs. It was as if he was counting the potential.
‘It’s whale shark season. Come back in forty-degree February and it will be a ghost town. Summer is brutal up here.’
If he wanted to build some ritzy development, he might as well know it wasn’t going to be a year-round goldmine.
‘I guess that’s what air-conditioning is for,’ he murmured.
‘Until the power station goes down in a cyclone, then you’re on your own.’
His lips twisted, just slightly. ‘You’re not really selling the virtues of the region, you know.’
No. This wasn’t her job. This was personal. She forced herself back on a professional footing.
‘Did you want to stop in town? For something to eat, maybe? Snorkelling always makes me hungry.’
Plus, Coral Bay had the best bakery in the district, regardless of the fact it also had the only bakery in the district.
‘We’ll have lunch on the Portus,’ he said absently.
The Portus? Not one of the boats that frequented Coral Bay. She knew them all by sight. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have access to a vessel from outside the region. Especially given he’d only called to make arrangements half an hour ago.
‘Okay—’ she shrugged, resigning herself to a long wait ‘—straight to Bill’s Bay, then.’
They parked up on arrival at the newly appointed mini-marina and wandered down to where three others launched boats for a midday run. Compared to the elaborate ‘tinnies’ of the locals, getting their hulls wet on the ramp, the white Zodiac idling at the end of the single