“After a first dinner date?”
“A lot can manifest on a first date. After eating a five-course dinner, I’d rather be laid out in comfort and a stretchy waistband than being intimate with someone new and thinking about how I look naked. But not everyone shares that view.”
Sterling barks out a rich chuckle. “You’d look beautiful, I have no doubt.” His eyes roam over my fitted pant suit before he clears his throat.
My phone buzzes on his mahogany desk. He tilts his head to the side, reading the upside-down screen.
“Rory’s calling you.”
I reach forward and send the call to voicemail.
“I’ll meet you in the restaurant bar half an hour before, and we can?—”
My phone chimes with an incoming text.
Call me.
I ignore the message lighting up the screen.
“We can have a drink and talk about?—”
My phone chimes again.
Atlantic Airways has an offer on. I could come next weekend.
Dread slithers up my spine.
“If you need to call Rory?—”
“I don’t need to call him.” I place my phone on silent before tossing it into my purse.
Sterling’s studying me as I look back up.
“Halliday,” he says softly. “As you said yourself, I’m doing this for my daughter. So yes, I will meet you tomorrow night and go on the date you’ve arranged. But…” He spreads his palms out before clasping them back together and sighing. “… I’m making no promises.”
It’s already better than“I’m not looking for love.”
“You don’t have to promise anything. Just leave it all to me. I’ll take care of you.”
He holds my eyes, his words rolling over his tongue like velvet.
“In that case, tomorrow night, I’m all yours.”
6
STERLING
“I thoughtwhen we dissolved the company, we might have gotten some answers.” I clench my fist, cursing under my breath. “None of the employees had anything to say?”
Denver shakes his head.
“Nothing?” Mal scoffs. “You don’t manufacture yachts for more than four decades and not amass some disgruntled employees who are happy to slate the company. Especially when it folds and leaves them unemployed.”
“Boss, we’ve been back and forth since it happened.” Denver meets my gaze.
He’s right. I’ve been sending him and his security team on a wild chase around Cape Town for two years, refusing to allow myself to believe there isn’t an explanation for what happened.
The report into the yacht fire was inconclusive. But I was convinced someone was to blame for losing my wife and son. Because if it wasn’t someone else’s fault they died, then that leaves me.
