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Pivoting in the sand, I stormed off toward Dad’s house. Leander was a grown-ass merman. He didn’t need a sendoff. I had only gone down to the shore with him to make sure no one had seen him and—
“Wait.”
A hand locked around my wrist, effortlessly pulling me back to him. Oh, now I wasreallypissed.
“Let go of me,” I growled, visualizing going back in time and chucking him into the ocean. Hindsight really was 20/20.
“Wait,” he repeated, his voice smoothing over like he was about to work some more of that merman charm of his. “I have to show you something before you leave, since you might not know yet.”
Leander padded down the shore, attempting to drag me with him, but I sank my heels into the sand. I couldn’t go to the water; I had shorts on, and my feet were bare! I—Icouldn’t.
Helplessness shattered me, bringing me down from my human pedestal and reducing me to a worthless nine-year-old mermaid.
“Let go of me, Lee!”
I struggled to pull back, but it was no use. He had the strength of a freaking bull shark.
“Please, I—I can’t.” My voice wavered as tears sprung to my lashes, but he kept pressing forward, determined to drag me closer to the tide. It wasn’t until an audible sob wrenched from my throat that he let go of my wrist, sending me crumbling in the sand.
“Youasshole!”I glared up at him through my tears. “I am not a mermaid! Whatever it is you want to show me, I—I don’t care about any of it.Go back by yourself, and leave me alone!”
When I noticed the damp sand clinging to my feet, my pulse raced, and I scrambled backward in the sand. I couldn’t change. Not now, not ever, and especially not in front of him!
I wasn’t a mermaid. I wasuselessas a mermaid. I was Claira, Dad’s precious daughter—nothing more and, more importantly, nothing less.
As the panic bubbled over, a hand came up under my chin. Warmth cupped my cheek as Leander tilted my face to the sky. He knelt in front of me, his eyes carefully searching mine, but I squeezed my eyes shut to sever our connection.
If I could have gone back in time, I would have never even gone out on the boat this morning. I would have traded anything if it meant I never had to worry about seeing him again.
“I’m sorry, Nera.”
For someone who had just tried to pull me into the water without my consent, his voice sounded gentler than it should have.
“Really, I am.” As he spoke, warm puffs of breath stroked over the front of my neck, kindling my outrage.
What gave him the right to lean in so close, comforting me with his soft words and stupid-pretty face? He was no better than a stranger to me, and yet he had the audacity to say we were thesameand pretend we were oncefriends.
“Could you sit right here for me, Nera?” I jerked as his thumb brushed across my cheek, but his wide palm eased back to my chin, letting the rough pad wipe away the trail of moisture a tear had left behind. “I need to show you this before I leave.”
Leander’s hand fell away as he ambled backward, taking blind steps toward the ocean. Without missing a beat, his hands went to the waistband of the flannel pajamas. My breath caught.
Two thumbs hooked underneath the fabric, and with a flick of his wrists, turquoise and black fell away from his hips.
My hands clenched fists of sand as he stepped free from the flannel.
Kicking them aside, he continued his backward walk to the ocean. I held his gaze, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing my eyes wander. Not that they would—I didn’t give a damn about him or his bloated sea cucumber.
“Just watch,” he called back as he spun around.
A wave crashed along the shore, the water barely reaching his ankles, and his entire body shuddered.
In the time it took my eyes to span from his ankles to the rounded globes of his bare ass, Leander vanished.
“What the—?” I scrambled up in the sand, searching the water in disbelief. Where was he? The water was so shallow here that there was no way he could have darted into deep water that fast. Surely I would have seen his tail.
My eyes caught a shimmer of movement near the place he’d stood, and I took a cautious step forward, wondering what it could mean. My toes gradually sank as the sand became damp, but I pressed forward, wrestling with the urge to turn back and forget about him.
Rising to my tiptoes, I saw it.
