9. Alyssa

He led me up to the master suite but didn't make any moves. Like, what the hell, bro! "Well?"

"Well, what? You asked to see my bedroom; this is it."

"Don't play cute; you know exactly what I mean."

"Oh? Were you expecting me to fuck you? I'm sorry, you can't see that until after we're married, either."

Good for him that he didn't take me up on it. Why do I get the feeling that he knows exactly what I am doing? Had he jumped at the idea I'd have known my body was more important to him than anything else, which wouldn't have been the first time.

Though I didn't get that vibe from him, there was no harm in making sure. Still, I couldn't let him win this one, so I looked down at his crotch. "Oh, small is it?" The smile that came across his face made my ovaries tremble.

I drew in my breath and held it when he walked close to me, and when he leaned in to whisper, his lips touched my ear, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. "It's more than enough, little Alyssa."

I think he's trying to call me small because he has me by about a foot and a half, but so what? His soft ass sits behind a desk all day; I could probably take him. "Let's go for a swim."

"I don't have a suit."

"That's not a problem; you have a whole closet over there." He inclined his chin towards a wall of French doors.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? Size six, right?" I kept my eyes on him as I walked to those doors and opened them. The closet was huge, like department store first floor huge, and was divided down the middle by an island that held drawers on either side.

I slid one of the drawers open on a whim, and it was filled with lady's underwear, all still with the tags on. I didn't recognize the brands, but the prices were insane. Hundreds of dollars for one panty was nuts.

I walked down the line of clothes on the female side, all still with their tags as well and all designer brands, until I got to the very end, where the wedding dress hung. I knew it was the dress because this fool had a lock on it.

I turned to see him lounging in the doorway, just watching me. "Your swimsuits are behind that door over there." He pointed to a little half door behind glass that, once pulled back, revealed an array of swimwear, from bikinis to one-pieces, including coverups.

I wasn't sure how to feel about all this. No one had ever done anything like this for me except my brothers, and never on this scale, of course. I wanted to say something snarky, but there were no words.

He knew my favorite colors because they were all throughout the clothes he'd chosen. There were shoes on their own shelves, but what caught my attention was the line of designer bags behind a glass showcase.

I looked over at him again. "Those are for me?" He just nodded his head at me like this was normal. Now, my family has money, lots of money, but there's no way I could buy more than ten designer bags of this caliber at once.

Not only that, but he'd obviously bought the top-of-the-line of each designer. Think the difference between regular leather and crocodile or alligator, which, for some reason, is ten times more expensive.

But the thing about it was that this was my favorite bag, and there was no way he could know about it. "You don't like, have my computer hacked or something like that do you?"

"That's not my deal, love, it's yours." And the hits just keep on coming.

"Let's swim!" He left so I could choose my own suit, and I used the special app on my phone to make sure there were no recording devices in the room before changing into it. I chose an ivory crochet cover-up to go over the hot red bikini that was nothing more than some strings held together with a crotch sling and barely enough material left over to cover my nipples.

I know he threw that in there to throw me off because, like I said, everything else was in my favorite yellows and oranges with lots of white thrown in, which are my favorite colors. The red bikini was the only really risqué one in the bunch. His own little red herring.

GARRETT

I knew she would choose the red one and was getting a kick out of her trying her very best to push my buttons. I know she's scared shitless because she can find no fault in anything I've done so far, and she's not pedantic enough to find my actions creepy since I've been upfront and straightforward with her since I picked her up from the resort.

She knows exactly what kind of person I am, and that's the problem. I'm who she sees in the mirror every day, without the childhood trauma. I'm who she wants to be but is too afraid to try. Though she's got a pretty good head start with that attitude of hers.

I could tell her that the world I want to give her will release her from that, but she needs to see it and come to that conclusion on her own. I want her to step out on that limb, knowing that I will catch her if it breaks. It's too soon for that yet, and she's going to need to take the first step. Only then will I hold her hand the rest of the way.

"Nice suit. The body's not bad either." I kept walking, and she followed behind, down the stairs, past the closed-off wine cellar, and through the seventeenth-century door that led to an underground cave where pirates used to hide their loot, then out to the water's edge.

Before I could drop the shorts I wore over my swim trunks, she dropped the coverup and dove into the water. I followed not far behind and kept up with her so she didn't get swept out to sea.

We stayed in the water for a while since it was warm and the night was cool beneath the stars. "So, how many houses do you own?"

"Including the historical mansion in your town, there's my primary home in the Marina District in the San Francisco Bay, then there's one in Vail, one in Bermuda, this one, one in Florence, another one in Versailles, and you get to choose the next one. I know you like New Zealand, but since I've never been, I wouldn't know where to start."

I could feel her watching me as I treaded water. "Stop showing off that you know me so well. Give me twenty-four hours, and I bet I will know you as well."

"But why would you bother if you're not going to say yes to the dress?"

"You knew I was going to say yes before you started all this, didn't you?" Until she said it, I really hadn't been sure, but her words made my heart skip a beat.

"Of course, I knew. We were made for each other."

"So, when should we do it?" She sounded like she was making a business deal. Scared little girl!

"The sooner the better. You've already got a wedding planned, haven't you? Only, I think we should go to New Zealand for our honeymoon since that is your favorite place." She didn't say anything, so I carried on.

"We'll stay here the first night so you can spend time with your family before they go back home as you'd planned if that's what you want." Personally, I think she wanted her family here on the first day of her honeymoon because she wasn't looking forward to being alone with the idiot who'd cheated on her. I don't expect to have that problem.

ALYSSA

I can't believe I'm actually talking about doing this; this is nuts. I had no intention of giving in to him, but Mom had gotten into my head. Simply put, since I was willing to marry someone I wasn't in love with and was barely attracted to in the last year or so, what was wrong with marrying someone I had more of an interest in since the day we met?

My inner voice wanted me to take things slow and not put myself in a position to get hurt, but there was another part of me, the part that I had fought so hard to tame during my many years of meditation, that was screaming to do it.

He knew everything about me. That's the one thing that keeps sticking out to me. He knew, and he wasn't running scared. He knew, and there was no judgment from his end. He knew, and he still wanted to marry me. Yeah, with our genes, our kids ought to be a delightful bunch. Nuts!