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She wants to be in a relationship with me, even if she’s not quite ready to admit it.
She turns away and shakes her head. “It’s a terrible idea. I need this job, and I need the guys on the crew to respect me. I don’t want them talking about us like that.”
“I’ll fire anyone who so much as whispers about us.”
She glances back with a smirk before rolling her eyes. “Very heroic of you, but it’s human nature to be curious. They’ll all talk and soon you’ll have no crew left at all.”
I shrug. “So I’ll build the resort myself.”
Her laugh is tinged with annoyance. “Can’t you be serious? This isn’t a joke to me.”
I walk toward her, grip her hips, and turn her around so I can bring her right up against me. We’re a perfect fit.
“Tell me what you need then.”
“No favors.”
“Define a favor,” I say, tone laced with desire.
She groans. “Ethan.”
“Fine. No favors.”
“That means I get paid the same amount, on the same day as everyone else. No more talk about money. After everything we’ve been through, I don’t want that to be a part of our relationship.”
Her attention is on my chest as if she doesn’t quite have the courage to meet my eyes. She obviously still feels guilty about the incident in the bar.
“Fair enough. Next.”
“I don’t want the crew to know we’re dating.”
I drag in a deep breath, trying to cool my urge to argue with her. That’s going to be a problem, but for now, I’m willing to concede that point if she thinks it’s for the best.
“Fine. Anything else?”
“I don’t know,” she says, her attention sliding up to my mouth. “I could probably come up with another fifty things but I’d really like to kiss you right now, and would you please stop doing that?”
She’s talking about how my hands are working up the bottom of her shirt so I can slide my palms up around her waist.
“I listened to your demands,” I taunt, leaning down so my lips barely hover over hers. “Now I think you should listen to mine.”“So you probably saw what happened last week when I asked Taylor out to dinner.”
I’m at my desk, trying to catch up on work. I have a million emails to read and respond to and I’m supposed to have a conference call with my partners in fifteen minutes.
“Hudson, I have work to do.”
“I know, I was just wondering, since you talked to Taylor right after I left…do you think she’s interested in me but just doesn’t want to make things complicated at work?”
Jesus Christ. If Taylor didn’t want to make things complicated at work, she’d let me tell everyone she’s off the market.
“You know what? I think you’re better off just focusing on the project. How’s that?”
He groans and turns back to his computer, temporarily silenced.
A few minutes later, Taylor comes in with my coffee and aims a warm smile at Hudson. “Hey Hudson! Did you have a good weekend?”
His eyes widen as he takes her in. She’s wearing jeans and her work boots. Her t-shirt shouldn’t be all that sexy, but it is. She has her hair pulled up in a wavy ponytail, making her feminine features shine. The guy has L-O-V-E written across his forehead in fat Sharpie.
“It was good. Yeah. Okay…well, honestly not all that exciting. Did you have a good weekend?”
A sweet little blush creeps up as her gaze sweeps over to me. “Yeah, it was really great.”
I arch a brow and accept my coffee, more than happy to listen to her describe her weekend to Hudson.
“Why don’t you tell him your favorite part?” I goad.
Sure, I have shit to do, but this beats the hell out of checking emails.
“Oh, well, I really liked swimming,” she says with a shy smile.
“Swimming?”
“Yes, swimming at night,” she continues, eyes on me.
“That’s dangerous,” Hudson says with a frown.
“I was careful,” she teases.
“Probably not careful enough,” I respond.
Jesus, my voice is husky, and I’m seconds away from sweeping everything off my desk and dragging her down onto it.
Hudson is completely oblivious. “Ethan’s right. I hope you don’t do that often. Truly, it’s much safer to swim during the day.”
After assuring Hudson she’ll be much more careful in the future, she turns to leave without any more private smiles in my direction. I’m left…wanting.
It gets worse at lunch, when I walk into the mess hall with Robert and find her sitting at a table with some of the crew. Her little puppy Max is in the seat beside her.
I remember what Hudson said about them—that they used to date way back when—and it has me tempted to make a fool of myself. I’ve never been a jealous monster, but then I’ve also never had to keep a secret like this. The fact is when the crew left on Friday, Taylor was fair game. Now, she’s not, and I’d prefer they all know that.
