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“Consider me warned,” he said solemnly.
“I know, right? My brother’s never kicked anyone’s ass.”
“It’s a thing big brothers do,” he told her. “Or...threaten to do. Vivienne’s brother did that to Matt and it made for some wild times for them in the beginning.”
“I get it,” she said as she got more comfortable. “It still made me laugh a little because he’s done nothing like that before; not the ass kicking, but the overall stepping in to defend my honor. He’s never had to. I always dated very unassuming guys.”
“To be fair, I probably should have called him, but...”
“It’s only been like three days, Mick. He really needs to calm down.”
He thought about his earlier conversation with the guys and realized how all their friends and family must be feeling the same way.
“Are we crazy?” he quietly asked her.
“In what way?”
“In what we’re doing. Is it wrong that we’re taking this trip? Or that we’re spending all this time together after not seeing one another for over twenty years?”
She sat up a bit. “Honestly? I don’t think we’re crazy and it’s none of anybody’s business. What are we supposed to be waiting for? Neither of us is getting any younger and if we sit around playing the let’s take things slow approach, we’ll eventually be too damn old to enjoy ourselves. We’ve both given our lives to our careers, aren’t we entitled to a little happiness?”
“We are,” he said gruffly. “We definitely are.”
“You make me happy, Michael. I’m loving the things we’re doing together and I’m excited for everything that’s to come.” She shrugged. “So I let my brother make his little speech and I’m not letting it bother me.”
Wow, she was way more logical about the whole thing than he’d been with the guys after lunch. He was seriously impressed.
“So let's just forget about Jason and anyone else who thinks they have a right to an opinion about what we’re doing and simply focus on us.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Good.” She leaned back against the sofa cushions again. “Okay, so what’s on the agenda for tonight?”
“Anything you want, princess. I think I interrupted our time enough with the band, so tonight we’re going to do anything you want.”
“How about we go see that fountain show and then ride a gondola?” She smiled sweetly at him. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since you mentioned it.”
“I wish we were in Italy and I was taking you on a real gondola ride around Venice.”
“Mmm...maybe our next vacation,” she said with a wink, and Mick’s mind already started making plans.
****
“This is not my life... this is not my life... this is not my life...”
It didn’t matter how many times Sienna muttered that to herself, it didn’t change the fact that this was indeed her life. They were on day six of their trip, and she was still finding the need to pinch herself.
She didn’t live like this. Her life back in Durham was fairly uneventful. Her townhome was somewhat basic. She got Chinese takeout every Friday night and ate salads every day for lunch. Her go-to snack was chocolate chip cookies, and she tended to be curled up in bed reading on her tablet by ten every night. So the fact that there was no routine, no real schedule, and she was staying at five-star hotels and eating some of the most outrageously delicious food three times a day was just overwhelming.
Mick had pretty much hit the nail on the head that day on the plane when he talked about some people getting freaked out about changes to their itinerary. And while she didn’t mind the change he made, because it just made sense, it was the change to her everyday life that was freaking her out.
It was early. The sun was barely up, and Mick was still sound asleep. They had gotten to his place in Malibu late last night after spending the day driving around Hollywood. He had shown her all the sights she had wanted to see—the Hollywood sign, the Sunset Strip, Hollywood Boulevard, they’d driven by the Capital Records building, she got to see the famous Chinese Theater, and walked along part of the Walk of Fame - and then they had stopped to eat dinner. By the time they had arrived at his home, she had been dead on her feet.
Today, they had vowed to just be lazy and enjoy a day on the beach. As she stepped out onto the back deck, she realized that wouldn’t be hard to do, considering the house was literally ten feet from the sand.
The air was brisk, and she pulled her robe tighter against her as she sat on a chaise lounge and stared out at the ocean. The view was spectacular, but then again, everything about this trip fit in that category. She felt way out of her league when she was alone like this, but when Mick was at her side, it all felt... natural.
Well, sort of natural. It still boggled her mind that people lived like this, that the boy she grew up with owned luxury houses all over the world and could have whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.
