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“Right.” She rolls her eyes. “The thirtieth birthday present. Everyone else gets a watch or a weekend away. You get an island.”
I take my now full cup of coffee and lean against the opposite counter, crossing my legs at the ankle. “It’s an investment.”
She laughs. “Are you going to build a rocket launcher there like a Bond villain?”
I smirk. “Do I detect some jealousy there, Ms. Harper? Don’t tell me you always wanted your own launch pad?”
She shakes her head with a sarcastic snort as she drinks her coffee.
“Do you want to see it?”
Her head jerks back. “Your island?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “It’s just off the coast. We could stop off on the way back home. Spend a day there. It might stop you needing to kick Chloe out early.”
Her brow furrows as she stares at me. I wait for her knockback. She’s made no secret of looking forward to getting home since the minute we boarded the jet in London. I know she can’t wait to get away from me.
“Do you… Does it have somewhere to sleep?”
I mask my amusement. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll manage.”
“You asshole.” Maddy shoves me in the chest as she walks inside the island’s main house.
I grin as she gazes around the open foyer. I love this house. It’s become my place for a retreat if I’ve ever needed one over the past couple of years. It’s designed like a small hotel with twenty rooms, all curving around a central open-air hallway. Each room is its own self-contained apartment, but it’s also got a main kitchen and a large dining hall on the ground floor for when guests want to dine together. My housekeeping team comes by boat from the mainland. But unless I ask them to be here overnight, they leave each day, and the place is monitored by a security system.
And it’s private. It’s what I love about it most. It’s away from the world. But as much as I love it, I haven’t been here in over six months.
“I can’t believe this.” Maddy spins around in a circle, her head tilted back as she looks up at the clear blue sky overhead the open entryway. “Why don’t you live here all the time?”
“You hate me that much you want me out of the country now too?”
She snaps her gaze to mine, her shoulders softening when she sees the smirk on my face. “Very funny.”
“You want a tour before dinner?” I incline my head toward the main staircase.
“Dinner?” She frowns as she gazes around the space again, noticing the large double doors that lead to the dining hall.
“I have a chef who comes over from the mainland when I visit.”
“I thought when the guy dropped us off on the boat that…” Maddy’s frown deepens. “He’d come over here tonight, just to cook for us?”
I lift one shoulder. “If I ask him to. Unless you’d rather it just be you and me? The kitchen will have been stocked when I said we were coming.”
Maddy looks between me and the double doors again. “Um. I…”
I step closer to her and take a gamble, reaching out and placing a finger underneath her chin to bring her eyes back to mine.
“I can cook, you know,” I say softly as she looks into my eyes, a hint of uncharacteristic nervousness held in her gaze.
“Okay.” She swallows, her pulse fluttering in her neck.
I let my eyes linger on her face a moment longer than I should, considering she’s trying to avoid eye contact with me again. But I can’t stop myself. She’s either fighting with me, clawing at me, or clamming up. I can’t work out what’s going on in her head. And fuck if I understand what’s going on in mine either.
I pick up our suitcases before I lead her to the stairs. She’s quiet as I show her around, except for the odd gasp as she looks out of the window and sees the view. Deep blue sea and a small stretch of sandy beach.
And no one else.
“I bet the girls you’ve brought here loved it,” she muses as she trails her fingertips over the white voiles of the four-poster bed in my master apartment. She looks at the plush, white bedding and then diverts her eyes around the room.
