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“It would be our pleasure to have you on land for a little while,” Eleanor offered again. “How long has it been since you’ve stood on something that doesn’t move beneath your feet?”
Tasmin dropped her hand from Skittles’s feathers with a quick laugh. “We’ve been at sea so long that everything moves beneath my feet. My body believes everything is water, and I sway regardless of stability.”
“In that case, you have to join us. Just to remind your brain that sand is in fact sturdy.” Eleanor grinned.
I threw a look over my shoulder at Cal, who rolled his eyes. He didn’t want guests either, but decorum and niceties made me huff and be polite. “My wife is right, Prest. It would be a pleasure to share a drink. Come. We’ll drive you back to your yacht the moment it appears.”
Tasmin beamed as Skittles chirped. The girl’s eagerness glinted in her green eyes, wanting to explore a tropical island.
Not that I could blame her.
From here, Batari glittered with jewelled flowers, glossy forest, and the whitest, most dazzling beach in the world. If I didn’t own it, I’d be fucking jealous of the bastard who did.
Jealous enough to stage a coup and steal it—which is precisely what my brother, Drake, had tried to do and failed.
“You’ll be okay?” Prest asked Tasmin quietly. “We can just wait here for Phantom.”
Tasmin flicked a glance at Eleanor and Skittles then at Pika as he finished terrorising the yacht staff and returned to sit smugly on my shoulder. “Yes. It’ll be fun. One drink and then we’ll go.”
“Okay.” Prest smiled. “Anything you want.”
Tasmin popped onto her toes, kissing his cheek. “I can’t guarantee we won’t leave without a parrot or two, though.”
I bit my tongue that none of my creatures would be going anywhere, but Prest beat me to it.
“You have Spot.” He smiled. “That damn dog has taken over Phantom and our bed.”
“You can’t fool me, El.” Tasmin moved toward my speedboat. “You love that mutt, same as me.”
Prest grumbled something.
After starting the engine, I waited until Eleanor returned to my side and prepared to drive guests and family back to our beach.Chapter Six
“YOUR HOME IS INCREDIBLE,” TASMIN said, sighing in contentment as the sun slowly kissed the horizon in an indigo, tangerine, fire-glowing splash.
Jess, me, and Tasmin lay on loungers directed at the horizon, firmly planted into the sand, with tables between us holding three cocktails each instead of one. Empty glasses merged with fresh, delivered by kind staff who’d blended fruits from our gardens on Lebah with intoxicating liquors.
I didn’t know about the rest of the girls, but I felt a tingle in my blood, and would be heading toward tipsy if I kept drinking.
Tipsy meant loose-tongued. Tipsy meant being bolder than I probably should be about topics that should remain unspoken.
Cal, Sully, and Elder were off down the beach, standing in a cluster with beers in their hands and whatever topics men discussed keeping them occupied, leaving us to relax for the past couple of hours without their interference.
“It’s definitely special.” I smiled at Tasmin, removing my sunglasses to enjoy the final colours of a tropical sky. “It never gets old, either. I’m as much in awe today as I was the first day I arrived.”
Tasmin tucked her brown hair behind her ears, turning to face me on her lounger. “How long ago was that?”
I threw Jess a glance. We’d both enjoyed entertaining a woman who wasn’t a past goddess, but it also came with secrets that we had to hide. To Tasmin, this beach was just a beach and this island was just an island.
However...a part of me, during our polite conversations over the past two hours about climate, culture, and commerce, had picked up that Tasmin might not have been Sully’s captive like Jess and I had been but she’d been someone’s.
She’d been owned by a bastard who’d hurt her. A bastard who’d left silver scars on her body and self-protection like a physical aura around her. I didn’t know how I knew, but the knowledge was there, shimmering in the unspoken sentences between us.
She was too young to be as guarded as she was. Too jaded but also child-like in her appreciation of the outdoors, as if she’d been denied sun and air.
Jess cleared her throat, answering for me. “Jinx has been here for over six years now.” Swinging her feet to the sand, she buried her toes in silver sugar. “I’ve been here eight or so.”
“Wow, that’s a long time.” Tasmin smiled at each of us, her eyes warm but wary, picking up on the probing stare of Jess. “And Jinx is an interesting name.”
“A bit like yours, I suppose. Pimlico, was it?”
She nodded. “Pim, yes.”
“Jinx was given to me by my husband when we first met. Did yours call you Pim?”
