Someone clears their throat beside the table. “Can I take your order?”
Vida pulls away from me with a squeak, fumbling with the menu.
“Ummm…” Her lip gloss is smudged down her chin, and I reach over, using my thumb to wipe it off, laughing when she smacks my hand away. “We’ll do the bouillabaisse pot. Thank you!”
She covers her face with her hands as the waiter walks away, but she lets me drag her onto my lap, staying there the rest of the meal.
It’s fucking heaven.
Vida. Is. Heaven.
SEVEN
Vida
“Holy shit.Those were the more incredible mussels I’ve ever had.” I’m walking beside Tripp on the beach, trying not to stare too hard at his regal profile in the moonlight. Even with a dumbfounded expression on his face, he is handsome in a way that defies description. “I mean, I’ve eaten in the best restaurants this world has to offer and that was somehow my best meal in years? I feel like I’ve been lied to.”
I bite my lip to trap a giggle. “Tell the truth. You were skeptical when you saw how it looked from the outside.”
“I’d prepared myself for food poisoning.”
I give him a playful shove, but he turns the tables by snagging my wrist and sweeping me off my feet, carrying me several feet in a bear hug with my legs dangling above the sand.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover next time, rich boy,” I squeal.
“I won’t,” he growls into my neck. “Just keep feeding me mussels.”
“You have to leave some for the rest of us.”
“No.”
I’m not sure how I ended up here, laughing in the moonlight with Tripp Sterling, but I’m having so much fun, my face hurts from smiling. He’s nothing I would assume a man like him would be. On paper, I would sum him up as a stuffy, out-of-touch trust fund brat. But he’s nothing like that. He’s open to new experiences. He’s funny. Curious. Asks interesting questions. He was kind to the waitstaff at the restaurant and insisted on leaving a tip that will probably pay the waiter’s rent for the month.
“You’re different outside Reserve,” he says to me, stopping at the edge of the lapping ocean. He settles me down onto my feet, keeping his much larger body curved around mine from behind, his hold warm and secure. “Free and relaxed. I like it.”
“I like it, too.” I lean my head back into the valley between his pecs. “It’s not the kind of job where you can let your guard down.”
A ribbon of tension moves through his frame. “I’m sorry again. About what happened in my room.”
“I know you’re sorry, Tripp, and I forgive you,” I say, squeezing the forearm he’s settling on top of my breasts. “I wasn’t referring to that. It’s more a sense of…powerlessness.” I think of the man who asked me to give his kid a swimming lesson that afternoon. How he leered at me. “Our livelihood could disappear if there’s one complaint. And some of the guests don’t really see us as human beings. We’re ghosts until they want something.”
Slowly, he props his chin on my head. “I hate knowing that.”
“I’m more than just a maid.”
“I know you are, angel.” He turns me around in his arms, gathering my hair in his fist to keep it from blowing into my face. “Start at the beginning. I want to know everything that happened since the day you were born.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “That might take a while. Why don’t we start with high school graduation a couple of weeks ago?”
“Fuck. I had a feeling you were only eighteen.” He closes his eyes and sighs through a pained smile. “I suppose it’s a good thing I caught you before college when a million dudes will want to scoop you right up.”
“I doubt that,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Are you crazy? It’s going to be a feeding frenzy on day one.” His frown is thunderous. “Where are you going in the fall, by the way? I’m suddenly feeling the need to be at your orientation.”
Tripp is speaking as though we’re going to be a couple come the beginning of the school year, but of course, I’m not taking him seriously. In what world would that be realistic? No, he’s just being romantic in the moonlight. On a quest to get me into bed. Whatever this is will run its course by the end of the week.
For him, at least. I’m not sure I’ll be able to forget him any time soon. He’s too charismatic. Poignant. Magnetic.
