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“I’m not. After we find her, he needs an overhaul.”
“You think we’ll find her?”
“We will.” He brokers no option for failure.
For the school year she lived with us, Cassandra had been like a sister to me. I’d looked up to her, shared my secrets with her. I keep thinking of Cassandra and imagining how she would react now and what she would want us to do. I imagine her combing the beaches, standing in front of a podium talking to the press, crying, pleading for her daughter to come home. But of course, if she were alive, this would’ve never happened. Last night, Jack came across like a fragile dam on the brink of collapse. Not too different from the man I remember at Cassandra’s funeral. Did he never recover from Cassandra’s death?
Back in our guest quarters, Ryan opens the refrigerator, and I peer over his shoulder.
“You think he keeps food in this refrigerator all the time?” This guest refrigerator is better stocked than my refrigerator at home.
“My guess is his so-called cleaning service is also a property management service, and they keep everything stocked. I doubt Sullivan has any idea we have coffee, much less food. He pays someone to think about those things.”
“Like a plush robe in the guest closet?”
“Exactly. I didn’t bring swim trunks. There were a variety of options in the drawers.”
“Same.” I untie the white sash, and the robe falls open, exposing a black one-piece designed for lap swimming. There had been three full drawers of brand-new suits with brand tags attached, no prices, and a cute card read, “Be our guest, we insist. The pool and ocean await.”
The bathing suit wasn’t sexy, but the generous cut would have been fantastic for swimming laps. The shocking bit had been that Jack stocked a size for long torsos. When I saw that, my first thought had been that Cassandra had thought of me when she stocked her guest drawers, but that was a silly, egocentric thought. Cassandra never lived here.
“What are you thinking about cooking?”
Ryan’s shoulder turns into mine. My thick robe is between us, but heat somehow permeates. I lift my chin. Icy blue eyes gaze down, but not into my eyes. His gaze falls lower, and his chest lifts as his lungs pull in air. I follow his gaze and blink in embarrassment at the sight of my perfectly outlined nipples through the smooth Lycra.
I step back, cross my legs, and tumble backward. My hand instinctively pushes back to catch my fall, but a steadfast arm swoops in. I blink again, pressed against his bare, brick-like chest. He smells of chlorine, and I lean closer as if that’s an attractive smell. Never before have I cared for it, but on his skin, I quite fancy the stiff, clean aroma.
An undercurrent flows between us, filling the mere inches between our chests and sucking the oxygen from my brain. I feel positively dainty next to his broad shoulders and height. My last boyfriend had been one inch shorter and about my width. He made me feel Amazonian.
Ryan’s close. An inch of space separates us. He’s close enough the tip of my nose could graze his jaw. And he’s only holding me because I am a klutz who tripped over her own oversized foot. I push away with so much force I can’t halt the forward movement and bang my knee into a cabinet.
“Fuck.”
“Jack mentioned you’re clumsy.” His gaze scans my body, and one knee reflexively bends over the other.
“He did what?” I mean, yes, I’m likely to have a bruise somewhere on my body, often on my thighs from the corners of tables, but why would Jack ever comment on it?
“I asked him if there was something going on between the two of you.”
My mouth gapes open. “Why?”
“Situation exploration.”
I wrap the robe over my torso as I piece together what he’s saying. “What does that mean?”
“Wanted to understand the lay of the land.” Those ice blues meet me head on. In other words, he wanted to know why Jack has me here. But…
“He said I’m clumsy?”Ouch.
“He said he’d known you since you were ten. Something about you haven’t changed much since then. I guess you were tall at ten?”
Compared to others my age, I’ve always been gangly, but… “And he said I’m a klutz?”
A low chuckle rumbles from his massive, sculpted chest. The funny bits warranting a chuckle elude me.
“I’m going to get a shower,” I tell him as I rush to my bedroom haven. I need distance. “Won’t be long.”
“I’ll shower, too.”
