“You’re right, it’s not. Tell me about this man and why I shouldn’t be worried.”
“You’ll still be worried because that is in your nature. But you don’t need to be.” She looked at the gift box on the table and pulled out the candy bar. She could use a little snack while she talked about her boyfriend. That is what he was to her. “His name is Rowan Carlisle.”
“Okay. How old is he and what does he do?”
“He’s twenty-eight. He owns a surfboard company. Sixth Surf. You can look him up. You’ll see a picture of him too.”
“Let me get my iPad,” her grandmother said. She waited and bit into the peanut butter cup. “He’s very handsome. Looks like he belongs on the beach.”
Saylor grinned. She’d looked at that picture a lot to get a better idea of how he might live his life.
It wasn’t just the portrait of him in a T-shirt with his logo on the front, but pictures on the website of him surfing on his products, employees that he’d talked about. His close friend Logan who was also the Vice President of Operations.
A pro woman surfer that he sponsored and together they had a line of boards. Ava Leigh.
She was young and beautiful. Maybe the type of woman she’d see Rowan with if she hadn’t spent a week with him in the mountains.
But it was a working relationship from what she could see, along with many pictures of him and other pros.
“Yeah, he does.”
She liked the pictures of him on her phone more. The selfies of them playing pool, having a snowball fight, cooking. Even in bed, but covered by the sheets.
No doubt they clicked when they were naked.
He’d been true to his word and made sure he proved their compatibility, going through every condom in the place. He’d had some in his bag that she didn’t want to know about. If he didn’t have hookups and was single, why did he need them?
Then he found more condoms in the cabin, which he’d explained had been left over from his brothers. He’d bought more and replaced them. Probably the responsible thing to do and she wouldn’t worry that he’d sneak away there and use them with someone else.
She had to get those thoughts out of her head.
She never worried about those things in the past with another man, but Rowan wasn’t like any other man she’d ever dated.
“He seems very young to be so successful,” her grandmother said.
This was where things got interesting. She had to be honest because she knew her grandmother would look into Rowan and find out as much as she could about the guy her granddaughter was living with.
“His brother is West Carlisle and helped him get the business started.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
It wasn’t one said around that she was aware of. “Billionaire West Carlisle. He lives in Manhattan but is from North Carolina. That’s where Rowan is from. There are eight kids. You can find them all online, but few have much about them other than their jobs, except his one sister Laken.”
“Ohhhh, Jamie Wilde. That’s how I know,” her grandmother said, her voice rising.
Her grandmother was a big football fan. It’d been news that Jamie had married Laken, then a little side note about who Laken’s brother was.
“There you go. Now you know why I don’t want Mom or Sandy to find out.”
“I’ll keep my lips sealed. Your mother won’t ask much anyway. If you tell her where you are next, she won’t even know California isn’t part of NLC. She likes to know you’re settled and in a good spot, then doesn’t stress.”
“Nope. And that is how I’m playing it for now.”
“Why are you doing it?”
“Why not? I needed to move anyway. I normally only have six-month contracts and this last one was a year. They don’t like you there longer. I’ll be closer to you and can fly in for a visit. I think I’ll try to do that before I start, if it works out.”
“I’d like that,” her grandmother said. “I’d like it more if Rowan came with you.”
