9. Ryder

Damn, she was pretty.

Pretty self-centred.

Pretty hot.

Pretty annoying.

Pretty fucking fascinating.

And also pretty safe because she was the principal, and Ryder wouldn't do anything dumb when it came to work. Jeopardising the safety of a client would jeopardise his career, and his career was his life now.

And then there were the memories… He'd wanted to hate Luna Maara, but the more time he spent with her, the more she reminded him of pain from a past he'd tried hard to get over. Neve had been a tiny little handful, unapologetically larger than life but deeply scarred on the inside. For years, Ryder had thought love would be enough, but now he knew the truth. Love didn't conquer all.

And Luna Maara was firmly off limits.

"Why don't these people have a dishwasher?" she asked. "I thought everyone had a dishwasher."

"A quarter of the world doesn't even have access to safe drinking water. Didn't you sing at a fundraising concert for Water to the World last year?"

"I don't know. Probably? I sing at a lot of concerts when some pig of a judge doesn't mess with my schedule." She turned, and her sundress slipped off one shoulder. "You looked up my performances?"

"The support team did. I just read the report."

Once upon a time, someone had put money into the Valentine Cay Turtle Sanctuary. The buildings were sturdily constructed, and the stainless-steel appliances in the communal kitchen had been built to last. Power came from an array of solar panels and a small wind turbine, with a backup generator in a lean-to attached to Franklin Baptiste's modest home. The C-Dory tied up at the dock didn't come cheap either.

But at some point, the money had run out. The place was clean but tired, with weathered wood in need of a coat of paint and faded cushions on chairs nobody seemed to have time to sit on. Ryder was no expert, but he thought the shingles on the roof would need replacing soon too.

Luna stared at the old porcelain butler sink as if it contained radioactive material rather than dinnerware.

"Let me guess… You've never washed dishes before?"

"This is so unfair. I only had coffee for breakfast."

"The judge wasn't interested in fairness when he sent you here. He said it's meant to be a learning experience."

"Okay, fine. I've learned not to touch turtles. Why can't I go home now?" When she turned the faucet on full, water splashed everywhere, and she leaped back with a shriek. "Yuck!"

"You need to add dish soap."

"This is gross. Who eats curry for breakfast?"

"The good folks of San Gallicano."

Scrambled eggs, curried beans, and flatbread was a traditional island breakfast. Locals called it tres bocados, which translated from Spanish as "three bites," so Ryder figured intrepid explorers had come up with the dish.

"Aren't there any rubber gloves?"

"I doubt it. Those aren't sustainable. And don't leave the faucet turned on—water is a precious resource."

"You're not my boss."

"That's true. But I assume you'll want to take a shower later, and you won't be able to do that if you let all the water run down the sink."

Her mouth set in a hard line, and she didn't say a word, but she did turn off the faucet. Ryder leaned against the counter and watched as she scrubbed the dishes in silence and stacked them in the draining rack to the side. She didn't like being told what to do, but she also wasn't enough of a rebel that she'd refuse to follow orders altogether.

"There, are you happy now?"

She'd done a better job with the dishes than she had with the pool.

"Are you happy?"

Luna stared out the window at the tangle of trees beyond. The lack of maintenance extended to the foliage, but Ryder had to view that as a good thing right now because at least the paparazzi couldn't get any good shots. A long moment passed before Luna finally answered.

"How can I be happy?"

She couldn't have been expecting an answer because she stomped off to the refrigerator, leaving Ryder to ponder the question for a moment before he followed. Logic said she was talking about the enforced volunteering, but instinct told him that her words had a deeper meaning. Luna Maara had the world at her feet—or so everyone thought—but there was still something missing from her life.

It was a feeling Ryder understood all too well. He'd made it through SEAL training, spent nine years on the Teams, and then sidestepped into his dream job. That was everything he'd wanted, right? Everything he'd planned with Neve during those late-night heart-to-hearts in Jacksonville. Despite the mansion, the money, and the prestige of being Henry Fontaine's daughter, there'd been a darkness inside her, but she lit up when they were together. They'd made plans. Ryder wanted to see the world, and Neve simply wanted to get the hell away from home. He craved adventure; she needed stability. Marriage and the military would have given them that.

They'd kept their engagement quiet, a secret between the two of them. She wore the ring on a chain around her neck because her father hadn't been a fan of Ryder's. They'd planned to go to the courthouse, just the two of them, and tell him afterward.

But Neve hadn't been able to hold on.

He'd watched them bury her from the slope at the side of the cemetery, rain dripping down his face. His beautiful Neve. Not a day passed when he didn't whisper into the breeze, hoping that wherever she was, she'd hear his words.

She hadn't liked washing dishes either, and when she did, she'd always let the water run because floating bits of food made her gag. She'd been a vivacious pain in the ass, and he'd loved her with his whole heart.

"There's no ice." Luna's complaint broke Ryder out of his thoughts. "And no soda."

"Soda's bad for you."

"Now you sound like my mom."

Ryder peered over her head into the refrigerator. Fuck, she couldn't have been more than five feet one. A tiny porcelain dictator.

"What about OJ?"

"Do you know how many calories fruit juice has?"

"More than water, less than a milkshake? If you put your back into cleaning the pool, you'd burn the calories."

"I hate cleaning."

"Do you hate cleaning? Or do you just hate being told you have to do it?" Ryder opened cupboards, hunting for a glass. "You think it should be someone else's job? You're a perfectionist and you'd rather not do it at all than make an attempt and open yourself up to criticism?" He took two tumblers from a shelf. "All of the above?"

"Are you a psychologist now?"

"Nuh-uh, I'm just an asshole who asks too many questions. But you remind me of a girl I used to know, and she would have balked at cleaning the turtle pools as well."

He poured two glasses of juice and handed one to Luna. She stared at it for a moment but finally took a sip.

"Ugh, there's pulp."

"That's the best part."

"Bits get stuck in my teeth, and then someone takes a photo, and suddenly I'm the girl who doesn't know how to floss."

"Nobody's gonna take a photo of you here."

"Oh, they'll find a way. They always do." For a media darling, she sounded surprisingly resigned. "They never give up."

"Do you want them to take pictures?"

A shrug. "What I want doesn't matter."

"I thought you liked being the centre of attention?"

"It's better to be famous than to be forgotten."

"And it's better to be nice than to be notorious."

"You're really annoying."

"So I've heard." Ryder drained his glass and rinsed it. "What if I told you I could sneak out to one of those boats and remove the drain plug?"

He meant it as a joke, but when he thought about it, was sinking a boat the worst idea? Luna deserved privacy, and the coastguard had already warned the reporters off once, but as soon as the patrol boat left, the paparazzi reappeared. Perhaps they needed a little help to get the message? If Caro was right about the amount of money the captains were raking in from their "tours," then they'd be able to afford the insurance excess. All San Gallician boats taking paying passengers were required to have comprehensive insurance coverage—there was a notice stating that in the main harbour.

Maybe Ryder would feel a touch of guilt for ruining someone's day, but only a mild twinge. Those assholes didn't give a shit if they ran roughshod over Luna's privacy.

"What's a drain plug?" she asked.

"The thing that keeps the water out."

"They'd get a hundred pictures of you doing it."

Ryder laughed. "My life doesn't go on Instagram. Are you ready to take on the turtles again?"

Luna stood there for the longest time, staring into her glass of juice as if it held the answers to life. Finally, she spoke, her whisper barely audible.

"All of the above."

"Huh?"

"That's why I don't want to clean the turtle pools. All of the above, but mostly the last one. People never stop judging. Caro hates me, and Knox thinks I'm just a dumb, shallow blonde."

"Caro hates that you dressed a turtle in sunglasses. And when you hired Knox, you asked for the hot guy with the snake tattoo."

"Well, I didn't know his name. I only knew that he was fierce when he protected Lady Petronella, and someone told me what company he worked for."

"It's an eel."

"What's an eel?"

"Knox's tattoo. Plus you picked me out of a photo line-up and told me to shave off my beard. You have to understand why we might have preconceptions."

Luna's haughty expression vanished, and for the briefest second, her eyes turned haunted. Ryder had seen that look before, usually before Neve had spilled the details of some other fucked-up thing a family member had done.

"You…you have kind eyes." Luna swallowed hard. "And the beard thing… I had a bad experience, and even though I try to block it out, I still remember the scratch of his beard against my skin." A pause, and her fire returned. "But fine, just label me as unreasonable the way everyone else does."

Fuck.

"I didn't realise."

"Believe it or not, there are parts of my life that I don't share with the public." She finished the juice and put the glass on the counter, then picked it up again and rinsed it.

"What kind of bad experience?"

"None of your business. Just know that finding out you're gay took a weight off my mind."

Double fuck.

Now what? Ryder could hardly confess he was as straight as the trajectory of a 7.62 sniper round. And what harm would it do for her to carry on believing the lie? It wasn't as if he intended to make any inappropriate moves around her. Instead, he took a step back and leaned on the counter.

"Let me tell you a little about my boss. She never mentions her childhood, but I know she wasn't born into money. No trust fund, no silver spoon. She clawed her way up the ladder in a man's world, smashed through the glass ceiling, and managed to marry a billionaire along the way."

"She married a billionaire, but she still has a job?"

"Last week, she climbed onto the roof at the office to remove a dead bird that was interfering with one of the satellite dishes. Sure, she could have called a maintenance team, but she figured it would be quicker to fix the problem herself."

"She climbed onto the roof? Is she crazy?"

"Yeah, she is. And if she was here, she'd tell you that the surest way to fail is to never fucking try."

"When I fail, everybody knows about it."

"Define ‘everybody.' There are only six of us here today." A strand of hair hung over Luna's eye, and Ryder's fingers itched to tuck it behind her ear. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "As long as a mistake isn't fatal, you can use it as a foundation for future success."

"If the bodyguard thing doesn't work out, you could always get a job as a therapist."

"The bodyguard thing will work out just fine. You don't need to worry about that."

"Ryder?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't want those photographers taking pictures of me here."

"Then keep your head down, don't do anything wild, and Knox and I will make sure they stay out of the way."

"Do turtles bite?"

"They can, but Caro said they won't unless they feel threatened. You didn't ask that question before the sunglasses photo?"

"That one seemed real docile, and it was Kory who picked it up."

"The same Kory who hightailed it out of the harbour yesterday? You didn't tell the cops he was a part of Turtlegate."

"I didn't want to get him into trouble" Luna sighed. "He can be annoying sometimes, but he'd never hurt me."

There was a glimpse of the protectiveness Jubilee had spoken about. Luna Maara did have a heart, even if she hid it under a veneer of entitlement and glossy photoshoots. And Ryder had seen hints of her fragility too. She wasn't as strong as she wanted everyone to believe.

This time when he suggested going back to the turtle pools, she walked ahead of him to the door, head held high. Even if Knox and Caro thought she was a lost cause, Ryder had hope that this month would turn Luna into a better person. By avoiding the public gaze, she'd have time to reflect on her past and consider her future, to decide on the type of person she wanted to become. He had a feeling she was a better actress than people gave her credit for, that she'd been hiding her true feelings for far too long.

Later, he'd wish he was wrong.

If he'd realised just how much pain would come spilling out of the cracks, he'd have grabbed a roll of duct tape, sealed up the flaws as best he could, and cleaned the damn turtle pools himself.