‘Here.’ He handed her the tee-shirt and she slipped it on. Her hair was tousled, the shirt falling to mid-thigh. With a little sigh she sat on the edge of the bed, about as far away from him as possible.
‘Sorry about that.’
‘To which part of the evening are you referring?’ he quipped, parroting her own words from last night back to her.
Millie gave a tiny, tired smile and leaned her head against the wall. She closed her eyes and with a pang of remorse Chase saw how exhausted she looked. Today had been quite the rollercoaster.
‘To the part where I threw up in your bathroom a few minutes ago.’
‘On a boat it’s called a head.’
‘Whatever.’ She opened her eyes. ‘That was another buzz-kill, I suspect.’
‘To say the least.’ They stared at each other, unspeaking, but Chase was surprised at how un-awkward it seemed. Maybe you got to a point with a person where things didn’t seem so embarrassing or strange. If so, he’d got to that point pretty quickly with Millie. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’
‘Remember the no-talking clause?’
‘That clause was voided when you threw up. I was about six seconds from being inside you, Millie.’
She bit her lip and he reached over and gently touched those worry marks. ‘You’re going to get a scar from doing that if you don’t cut it out.’
She sighed and shook her head. ‘Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea, Chase.’
He felt a lurch of what could only be alarm. He didn’t like feeling it. At this point, he should be agreeing with her. This was a bad idea. Neither of them needed the kind of mind games this week seemed to play on them. He’d convinced himself he wanted intense, but this? This was way too much.
Yet even so he heard himself saying, ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I’m not ready.’
She’d felt pretty ready beneath him. With effort Chase yanked his thoughts from that unhelpful direction. ‘Ready?’ he repeated.
‘For this. A fling, an affair, whatever you want to call it. I wanted to be ready, I wanted to move on, but I don’t know if I can. I can’t stop thinking—’ She stopped abruptly, shook her head.
It was no more than he’d already guessed, yet he didn’t like hearing it. Didn’t like thinking that some guy still owned her heart and mind so much he couldn’t even get a toe-in. Jealousy. That was what he felt, pure and simple. Determinedly Chase pushed it away. ‘We went about this all wrong, Scary,’ he said. ‘And that was my fault. I’m sorry.’
Surprise flashed across her features, like the first beam of sunlight after a downpour. ‘For what?’
‘For getting angry. I didn’t like the fact that you were thinking of whatever guy did a number on you when I was kissing you.’ He smiled wryly. ‘It’s kind of an insult to, you know, my masculinity.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I should have got over it. Instead I pushed you—and myself—in a direction I had no intention of going.’
Her mouth curved in the faintest of smiles. ‘Angry sex, huh?’
‘It’s really not that great.’
‘Kind of like sex on a beach.’
‘Exactly. Both overrated.’ He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. ‘Look, let’s hit rewind on this evening. Go back on deck and forget this happened.’
‘Well,’ she said, sounding almost mischievous, ‘I don’t think I’m going to forget the sight of you naked in a hurry.’
Chase grinned. ‘Me neither, Scary. Me neither.’ Still smiling, he reached for her hand and felt a clean sweep of thankfulness when she took it. How bizarre that all that tension, anger and hurt had melted and reformed into something else. Something deeper and truer. Friendship.
‘I hope,’ Millie said as he led her from the cabin, ‘we’re not diving for dinner.’
‘Definitely not.’ He felt himself warm from the inside out, and he gave her hand a squeeze before helping her up the ladder.
* * *
Millie walked to the cushioned bench in the back of the boat on wobbly legs. She felt exhausted, both emotionally and physically, by the events of the day and especially the last hour. Chase Bryant was putting her through the wringer. Or maybe she was doing it to herself, by trying to have the desperate, mindless sex she’d thought she wanted until her body had rebelled and thrown up a whole lot of conch.
Chase was right, of course. It wasn’t the conch that had made her sick. It was the memories. She couldn’t turn her brain off, as much as she wanted to. Couldn’t stop remembering, regretting. She’d wanted to have this fling so she could forget, but it wasn’t happening that way at all. It was making things worse. Chase was opening up things inside her, stirring to life everything she’d wanted to be forgotten and buried, gone.
She watched as he set sail, part of her mind admiring the lean strength of his tanned, muscled body even as the rest whirled and spun in confusion. She hadn’t expected him to become so angry earlier. And she hadn’t expected him to be so understanding just then.
For a moment there on the bed, the cabin silent except for the draw and sigh of their own breathing, she’d actually wanted to tell him things. Confide all her confusion, sadness and guilt. But that would mean telling him about Rob. About Charlotte. And she never spoke about Charlotte. Even now the pain ripped through her, all too fresh even though it had been two years. Two years since the phone call that had torn her world apart, taken everyone she loved.
Shouldn’t two years be enough time for the scars to heal? To finally feel ready to move on?
She felt the cushion dip beneath her and blinked to see Chase sitting next to her. She’d been so lost in her own miserable thoughts she hadn’t seen him coming.
He touched her mouth and even now, after everything that had and hadn’t happened, she felt that quiver of awareness, the remnant of desire. ‘Scars, Scary. I’m serious.’
She let out a trembling little laugh. ‘It’s hard to stop something you’re not even aware you’re doing.’
‘What deep thoughts are making you bite your lip?’
‘They’re not particularly deep.’ She turned a little bit away from him, forcing him to drop his hand. ‘Are we heading back to the resort?’
‘No. To my villa.’
She turned back to him, felt a frisson of—what? Not fear. Not excitement. No, this felt strange and suddenly she knew why. She felt hope. Even after the absolute disaster below deck, Chase was giving her—them—a second chance.
‘What are we going to do there?’
He regarded her speculatively for a moment. ‘I’m going to cook for you while you soak in my jacuzzi. Then we’re going to eat the fantastic meal I’ve whipped up, watch a movie, maybe have a glass of wine. Or sparkling water, as the case may be.’
‘That sounds surprisingly relaxing.’
‘Glad you think so.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we’ll go to sleep in my very comfortable, king-sized bed and I’ll hold you all night long.’
He spoke breezily enough, yet Millie heard the heartfelt sincerity underneath the lightness, and she felt tears sting her eyes. She blinked hard.
‘Why are you being so nice to me?’
‘Hasn’t