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SAWYER
“You know, we're going to have to go back to real life soon.”
Willow lifts her head from my chest, and I brush a strand of hair from her eyes before nodding in grim acceptance of her unsolicited reminder. “I know. But not this very minute, right?”
“Right.” When she rests her head again, it's with a soft sigh I'm not sure I was supposed to hear.
I turn my gaze back out toward the marina beyond the window. I know it like the back of my own hand after spending most of my life with it spread out before me. Farther west, inland, sits a portion of the town, and now that darkness has begun to fall there's the glimmer of light from windows here and there. So many people going about their usual Monday routine while the two of us shut the world out.
But it's like an elephant in the room that only grows larger with every tick of the clock. The closer we get to the inevitable parting, the more painfully obvious it becomes, there is a very important, possibly uncomfortable, discussion in the near future.
I might have completely ruined my chances of sitting comfortably, securely in the chair in the CEO's office. The fact is, if Willow ends up being unhappy by the time we leave this hotel room, there's a solid possibility this could all go up in smoke. All the hard work she's put in, the work I've put in, could be for nothing if this ends badly. Never in my life have I been so acutely aware of my every word, my every decision. I can't hurt her—but I'm not sure there's any way out of this where she doesn't get hurt.
I'm not the relationship type. I don't have the time. Not with the yacht club needing my constant attention. It wouldn't be fair to her—to say nothing of the life she leads, a life miles away from here. I couldn't ask her to give that up for the sake of being with me, and I can't leave. This is where my life is.
It's impossible from every angle. There is simply no way for this to work out.
All this circular thinking is beginning to pick my brain to pieces. I can't even enjoy the welcome weight of Willow's body curled up against mine. She is so effortlessly sexy in her robe, pulled down over her tucked up legs until she's almost fully covered.
Something stirs in my chest and I want nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and hold her close. She's strong, yes, and brilliant. But she's also small, and beneath that tough as nails exterior there's someone soft and vulnerable. The fact that I want to shield her from the world when I caused her so much pain years ago is just one more of life's unpredictable twists. Here I am, wanting to protect her, when I'm probably part of the reason that hard exterior exists now.
Is she going to regret letting that exterior fall away?
A brief knock on the door startles us both, and she's quicker than I am to jump up. “Thank God. I'm starving,” she murmurs, belting her robe tighter on her way to accept our dinner order. I can't help but check out her ass as she hustles across the room. How it's possible for my dick to stir after all the work I've put it through in less than twenty-four hours is a mystery. I'm a healthy man who hasn't yet hit the age of thirty, but everybody has their limits. Maybe the limits don't matter when there's a woman like Willow involved.
I’m becoming a hopeless sap, in other words.
Once she begins to swing the door open, Willow offers a single word. “Oh.”
That's all she has the chance to say before the door swings open fully and a familiar voice rings out. “You had better have a damn good explanation for being shacked up with yet another strange woman while the fate of my club hangs in the balance.”
At first, my brain can't catch up with what's happening. It's all too surreal. Did I fall asleep somehow? Am I dreaming this? Because surely, only in the worst nightmare would my father suddenly appear out of nowhere when he's supposed to be thousands of miles from here.
“Dad.” No, the floor feels solid beneath my feet when I stand, and the once soft, luxurious robe now feels scratchy against my icy skin. This is real. My father, practically my mirror image, is glaring at me from the center of the room while Willow stands open mouthed, frozen in shock with the door still hanging open.
“You.” He glances over his shoulder, snorting derisively. “Make yourself busy someplace else. I need to talk with my son.”
From the corner of my eye I catch sight of her embarrassed flush. “No, don't talk to her that way,” I quickly insist.
He swings around, and the wrinkles around his eyes deepen when he blurts out a disbelieving laugh. “What, is she The One? Am I supposed to respect your latest conquest?”
Willow’s sharp gasp is a knife in my chest. “She is not a conquest,” I grit out. “You don't have the first idea what you're talking about.”
“Yes, I'm sure.” Looking me up and down, he folds his arms. I can't help but notice the fresh tan he sports. He must have been enjoying his trip before coming back unannounced.
“Fine,” he continues. “She can stick around if you don't mind being embarrassed in front of her. Because if you don't think I'm going to speak my mind after learning about that damn video and the fact that we are going to lose the city council vote because of it, you have another think coming.”
“We are not going to lose the vote. Maybe if you had, I don't know, made a simple phone call, you wouldn't have needed to take the trouble of coming back. I could have told you Willow here is helping me deal with the situation.”
“Oh, yes,” he mutters with a smirk. “It looks like she's helping you quite a bit. I see we've kept this business meeting extremely casual.”
“Excuse me.” Willow’s whisper is barely audible before she darts into the bathroom and closes, then locks the door. The urge to go after her is almost too much to resist, but she doesn't need to witness this if she doesn't want to. I'm afraid all I would do is hurt her, anyway, and there is no apologizing for the things someone else says. No matter how much you wish you could.
“You don't have the first idea of what's happening,” I hiss, and for once I don't bother hiding my ire out of respect. “I know what this looks like.”
The thin veneer of civility falls away, discarded on the floor by the time we’re almost nose-to-nose. “You're damn right, that's what it looks like.”
“If you would for once stop to listen to someone, you'd know we had a very successful dinner with most of the city council three nights ago, and everything went beautifully. Willow has been working on—”
