Chapter 15

Hart

I’m in so much fucking trouble.

Drowning, in way over my head, and it’s got nothing to do with the water surrounding us as we head back to Gem Island.

Sex has served me well. Uncomplicated, no strings, a release. That’s what this thing with Daisy is supposed to be but the reality is getting…complicated.

I’ll take all the earth-shattering blowjobs she cares to dish out, but I can’t deal with my irrational reaction whenever I’m near her.

Like a quickie isn’t enough.

The sex is mind-blowing and that’s part of the attraction, I get it. But her feistiness in not copping my bullshit arouses me as much as her hot curves, and that’s not a good thing. Indulging in mutually satisfying sex is one thing; wanting to know more about her is quite another.

I can’t believe she confronted me after my freak out when I comforted her in the cabin. Worse, she knows we’ve bonded beyond the physical today despite all protestations to the contrary.

I can’t let her get too close. My head’s in the game about this being just sex, but is hers? She’s saying all the right things but I’m wary. I need to re-establish distance. So I’ve turned mute.

She’s abandoned me on the bridge in favour of taking a seat in the shade starboard. She said she wanted a nana nap, determined to stay vertical to do it after her earlier hurl. But I know better. She got tired of my silence. Hell, I’m sick of myself in this kind of mood.

Pa knew to leave me alone when I was like this. He never pushed or questioned, he respected my need for quiet. I should be thankful Daisy is the same, but I can’t help wonder what’s going on in that pretty head of hers.

Is she regretting hooking up with me?

Is she really okay with this casual arrangement?

Is she expecting more of today: more talk, more revelations, just more?

I need to maintain my distance for a while. Regain perspective. Ensure I’m hardened against the riot of uncharacteristic emotions whirling through me like a cyclone.

I usually don’t feel much of anything. I’m not emotionally stunted, I’m dead inside. I had to be, to cope with the horrors of my past. Feigning lack of interest worked with my first foster father, a sadistic bastard who forced me to call him Dad; when enduring a beating with a metal rod or being flayed with a whip and the only way to survive was to detach myself. It soon became a habit.

My next foster family was uninterested rather than nasty and my last was great, but by then I was thirteen and already closed off.

Only Pa got through to me and that was because he was as bull-headed as me: he never gave up. He pushed until I had no option but to let him in. But now he’s gone and it’s all too easy to revert to what I know best: disengaging.

As we dock at Gem Island’s marina, it has to start now. I ignore Daisy as I kill the engine and tie up, only acknowledging her presence when I give her a hand up onto the dock.

‘Thanks.’ She shoots me a tentative smile and I glimpse confusion in her eyes.

She must think I’m crazy, my moods swing that erratically. I don’t care. I need to do this. Self-preservation has always come first for me.

‘Will I see you tonight?’

I hate how my first response is ‘hell yeah’ so I say the exact opposite. ‘Sorry, I’ve got a shitload of work to do after skiving today.’

‘Understood.’ She pins me with an astute stare. ‘Before I set up the online media profiles, I need to clarify one thing.’

Relieved she’s reverted to professional, I say, ‘What’s that?’

‘What to include in your bio.’ She hesitates, before tilting her chin up. ‘You didn’t respond earlier when I mentioned your charity work with kids—’

‘I don’t want any of that mentioned,’ I snap, feeling like a bastard when she recoils. ‘Focus on the hotels, that’s it. My work with foster kids is off-limits, got it?’

‘Fine.’ But it’s not. Her jaw clenches and her eyes shoot daggers. ‘I’ll get the staff profiles done and I’ll organise the photographer to get across to that island tomorrow.’

‘You do that.’

I feign lack of interest to prevent her asking further questions I’d rather not answer and predictably, she draws her shoulders back like she’s preparing for battle. But I don’t want to fight. I want to be left the hell alone so I don’t do something I’ll regret—like blurt exactly how much I want her but without all the accompanying complications.

‘I get that you’re not a people person.’ She folds her arms and glares at me with contempt. ‘But if my research is correct and you do spend time with kids, they smell bullshit a mile away. So that means you’re just rude and tetchy around me. And you know what my response to that is?’

Before I can berate her for mentioning the kids again, she flips me the middle finger and stalks away, leaving me filled with admiration and clamping down on the urge to run after her.