He scooped me off my feet. “I was hoping you’d go for a swim.”
“Well, actually, I was just planning to get my feet wet . . .”
David cut gracefully through the sand.“I don’t think so, honeybee. The water’s perfect.”
“But—” A squeal tore from my lips when he threw me into the sea. I popped up, gasping for air, and splashed him as I tried to run ashore.
He caught my waist and spun me into him. I breathed hard as he captured my lips in a quick kiss. “You look incredibly sexy, Mrs. Dylan.”
Ah, Mrs. Dylan. I was certain hearing my new name would never get old. “Thank you for this,” I said, motioning in the general direction of San Sebastián. “All of this.”
“Thankyoufor all ofthis,”he replied, running his hands greedily over my body. His fingers teased the straps of my bikini top. One hand skated down to my lower back and pulled me so close that my entire body warmed with his heat, even through the cold salt water.
“David Dylan, you scoundrel,” I teased.
“Olivia Dylan, you temptress.”
“Do you intend to take me in front of all of Spain?” I asked hopefully.
“Would a gentleman do that?” He smiled and then peered over my shoulder. “Remind me to find us a private beach next time.”
“I don’t care,” I said, kissing his briny neck and then working my way down to nibble on his shoulder.
“I know you don’t,” he said, shaking his head and pulling me off. “But I do.”
“Damn it,” I said under my breath, and he laughed. But I wasn’t ready to give up. “It’s our honeymoon—we’re supposed to do this sort of thing.”
“Oh, wewilldo this sort of thing, as much as possible, and as long as possible—in a place where I’m the only one who gets to see you naked.” He kissed me. “Oh, how I do love that pretty pout, though.”
I caught myself fingering the gold disk that hung between my breasts from its chain. I raised it toward him. “Read it to me again,” I said suddenly.
We’d spent the first week of our honeymoon in the South of France before making our way to Spain. I’d learned that my new husband spoke French, and he spoke it beautifully. He’d impulsively stopped in a small jewelry shop and unbeknownst to me, ordered a hand-engraved gold necklace that we’d later picked up on our way out of town. I’d never heard the famous quote by French poet Rosemonde Gérard and made David repeat her words often.
“Haven’t you memorized it by now?” David asked, bringing me back to the moment.
“No,” I lied.
“Car, vois-tu, chaque jour je t’aime davantage, aujourd’hui plus qu’hier et bien moins que demain.”
I smiled and looked at him, waiting.
He covered my hand that held the delicate disk. “For, you see, each day I love you more, today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.”
The honeymoon had been three weeks of espresso, navigating tiny streets, laughing until our faces hurt, and sex in cramped places. We learned even more about each other during the trip, and though we fought at times, the arguments always ended in either fits of laughter or steamy sex.
My heart began to race when Serena approached me in the backyard, her lips quirked into a small smile. During my time away, I’d given her a very special assignment, and I was as worried as I was excited to hear her feedback.
“Well?” I asked.
“Ilovedit,” she said. “Genuine, fluid, and actually quite funny. You first novel is going to be a smash hit.”
I exhaled a rush of air. I’d finished my first draft right before we’d left for the honeymoon, and I’d needed someone to look at it and tell me I wasn’t crazy to pursue an agent. “Thank you,” I said. “It still needs a lot of work, but it’s a start. Please tell me you have notes.”
“Meet for coffee next week to discuss?” she asked, swirling her margarita. “Tonight, I’m about to get drunkity-drunk.”
Once I’d begun to make real progress on the book, I’d quit my job at David’s urging. Since I was now Olivia Dylan—happily—I’d use that name to distance myself from my mother’s work.
In a final attempt to get my mother to accept our upcoming nuptials, David and I had stopped to see her as we’d driven my dad’s early wedding gift, the ’68 Shelby, from Dallas to Chicago. Despite telling her we were coming, or perhaps because of it, she’d been drinking when we’d arrived. I’d tried to convince her to let me take her to a fancy rehab facility David had found nearby, but she’d refused. She didn’t like David because of the affair, and whenever I’d used the wordalcoholic, she’d become more combative.
