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“You like the beach,” she said, “You have a coastal property, it’s a good fit and a good investment. Rarely lose with property in Sydney. You should keep it.”
That sounded a lot like praise. “You’re fattening me up before the kill.”
She looked at him over the top of his mirrored shades. “These are only my preliminary thoughts. The horse has to go. You could sue over the tea-tree plantation. It was a scam, but it will tie you up with legal fees without certainty, so cutting your losses is a decent outcome.”
Yeah, he’d guessed that. “Now what.”
“I’d like to see more property in your portfolio, and I’ll suggest an adjustment to your share investment plan. I want you to stop giving great swabs of your money away to charity and individuals.”
Oh fuck no. “That’s not going to fly.” Why had he thought a change of scene was going to make this easier? That a bike ride to the beach had helped them bond.
She started talking facts and figures. He only half listened, turning his head to look out at the line of surfers waiting for a set to roll in. He paid attention again when she touched his thigh.
“Grip, I’m not saying you can’t have a giving program, but it needs to be better organized and there are tax advantages you’re not . . .” and that was all he heard because her featherlight touch felt like a hot spark that burned through denim and singed his skin.
She cut herself off, taking her fingers back and clasping her own knee. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
He spoke over her. “It’s fine. I’m not radioactive and you were holding me on the bike.”
“I wasn’t holding you.”
She had more of his jacket than she’d had of his body. “Then you should’ve been.” What was it about her that made him feel a kick at the idea she might enjoy touching him? You need to get laid, dude, it’s been too long. You need to get laid by a woman who is not your money witch.
She sighed. “I find you very distracting.”
“In a good way?” In the rockpool he could see the group assembling. This is what he’d brought her here to see.
She made a mock sobbing sound. “I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. You are not like any of my other clients.”
“Is that going to cause you a problem?” Better put that on the plate with the fish and chips because when he added the cocktail sauce with what he was about to show her, it was going to blow her taste buds.
“Not at all. We’ve bonded now for better or worse.”
A marriage made in his fiscal failures and her numerical talents. “Have you ever heard of water music?”
She pulled a face. “Is it some kind of sex thing?”
His barked laugh caused people to look their way. What would make her ask that? “It’s a music thing, Mena.”
She definitely blushed. He pointed to the group of women assembling in the calm of the pool. “They’re a touring music group from Vanuatu. They’re water drummers, only their drum kit is still water and their stick and pedals are splashes and slaps and drips. They’re giving a free performance.”
He inclined his head towards the growing audience, and Mena moved with him onto the sand and closer to the rockpool.
“Water music makes you happy?” she asked when they were on the shore, their pants rolled up their shins so they could stand in the shallows.
He dumped their helmets, jackets, her shoes and his boots on the dry sand and waved an acknowledgement to the group leader. “Water music gives me ideas.”
He hoped it might inspire Mena too and he consciously didn’t think about it inspiring her to a sex thing—after a good five minutes of imagining exactly that.
SEVEN
Mena had never seen or heard anything like water music. She stood at the edge of the pool in her beach-unfriendly work suit with a small crowd in their wet swimwear and watched as the women sang in their own language and made the salt water into their instrument.
The sight and sound was almost enough to help her get over her “sex thing” gaffe. It was hard to imagine what Grip thought of that. She felt her face heat thinking about it. She knew exactly where that had come from and it was no place good for business. Her hand still tingled from touching his thigh. He made her brain splinter and her thoughts head to the bedroom even when that destination wasn’t on the map.
The vibration of the bike between her legs and the nearness of him, his muscled body right up against hers, his outer thighs against her inner ones, had been a peculiar type of torture. She’d wanted to wrap her arms around him and hang on tight and pretend she never had to let go. Instead she touched him only enough not to fall off like an amateur and become roadkill.
She hadn’t been on a bike for years and his was a glorious throbbing chrome monster. She hadn’t been to the beach in years. She was on edge around him, oddly nervous, prone to blurt out inappropriate things. She hadn’t ever been with another man who excited her like Grip did. That seemed like a terrible oversight. Vera would shout I told you so. Mena suddenly saw what Vera meant about becoming conservative. It was a grown-up word for boring.
