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I reach across and put a hand on her thigh. I feel her intake of breath and look her in the eye to give her my truth.
“I want to be with you. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I can protect you and Orion too. Let me.”
She looks at me. “You can help with him, but you don’t need to be with me if you don’t want to.”
“I want to be with you.” I pause and decide I need to give her everything. “I pushed you away before because you were Rowan’s little sister. You are younger than me, and I felt you deserved to be with someone your own age. I didn’t realize you took it as I didn’t desire you. I think you’re sexy as hell,” I say, and she pulls her lip between her teeth.
“I didn’t know you were engaged.”
“I wasn’t. That was all a lie. It’s why I broke it off with Louise.” I lean over and carefully pull her split lip from her teeth. “Don’t hurt it any more than it is already.”
“I—”
We hear yelling and turn to look out. Orion is up on his board and taking a wave. I pull out my new cell phone in its waterproof pouch and snap a quick picture of him.
“He’s really talented.”
“He is, and smart too. He gets bored in his classes. They are going to have to advance his work again. I don’t want to push him into higher grade levels like I was, but I don’t want him to act out either. Hockey and other sports help ground him.”
I can’t stop the chuckle. “He’s the perfect blend of both of us. Your brains and my energy.”
“He really is.”
“Why?” I turn back to her, wanting to know.
“I told you. I tried.”
“But you didn’t really try hard enough. You could have told Chase, and he would have told me to come talk to you.”
“I tried to do that once. He was cut off before he even got out that it was me who wanted to talk to you. It was like Shelagh knew when we were coming.”
“Why did you go work with Elora?”
She turns away and goes to grab the tablet from her bag again. “It was best.” She won’t look at me.
“Did you introduce Yvonne and Elias to Elora? Is that how it all worked out?” I want to know why Yvonne would support a company in direct competition with mine. Yes, her company, Ryder Corporation, is a cybersecurity company, which I also provide. But I tend to build programs that can circumvent cybersecurity or that help run transportation. BUTEE does everything from cybersecurity, person security, and so much more that I don’t know about.
“I did, but it was after BUTEE was formed and started.”
“What does BUTEE stand for? No one knows.” I smile as I ask.
She still won’t look at me and fiddles with her tablet. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s hiding stuff from me. “I don’t know,” she answers.
“Okay.”
“Are you staying at the resort? How did you find us?”
“Yeah. Honestly, it was Remi who figured it out. I promised him I would be very careful. I even have a security guy pretending to be me and making it look like I’m still in Seattle. I drove to Vancouver and flew out from there on a private flight. How did you get away?”
“How did Remi figure it out?”
“Something about he heard Chase say one time that you called Kauai your solace, and something Elora said hit close to that.”
She folds over the tablet cover and leans back in her chair. She has a hat on her head now, shielding her face from the sun.
“Would you like to come over for dinner?”
“Yes.”
