“Is he bringing champagne and oysters and calling youdarling?”
“God, I hope not,” I snort, staring at the message. “He does call meprincess,though.”
Her eyes roll so hard I can’t see her irises. “Of course he does.”
“I think I’ve got to go,” I say, and my stomach is already flipping in anticipation. “Might be being kidnapped by my boss.”
Nicky groans dramatically and falls back into the cushions. “Fine.”
————
The boat isridiculous.It’s massive. Sleek. Gleaming white, with sharp lines and polished wood. The name is stenciled in an elegant black font at the stern:The Voss. Of course he named his boat, The Voss.
When I climb aboard, Anthony is already there, barefoot in navy linen pants and a thin grey shirt. He looks so casually comfortable and calm. The wind tousles his silver hair,sunglasses pushed up onto his head, hands braced casually against the rail. For a second, I forget how to breathe.
“I thought you weren’t in the mood,” he says as I step up onto the deck.
“I’m not,” I reply. “I’m just here to make sure you don’t die of loneliness.”
He snorts. “Touching.”
The boat pulls away from the dock, slow and smooth. We glide out into open water, and the city shrinks behind us. The air is surprisingly warm and smells like salt and sunscreen. There’s something woodsy and clean beneath it too…it’s him. He smells delicious. I take a seat on a lounger beneath the sun, letting my dress billow in the breeze, and try to relax. It’s peaceful.
Anthony doesn’t bark orders at the crew. Instead, he lounges back on a cushioned bench beside me and watches the horizon like he’s remembering how to breathe, his phone in hand like it usually is, his scowl softening for once. He pours me a sparkling water without asking and bats away my request for something alcoholic, but offers me fruit. He makes some sarcastic comment about being “on vacation from my scowl” for the day. I laugh. More than once.
Time passes strangely. I brought a book because I had no idea what his plans were, and I spend most of it reading while he types away at a laptop he pulled out from his bag. We just exist…together. It’s easy and calm, and it’s odd. It doesn’t feel tense like it can in the office or heated like it can in the bedroom. It justis.
An hour or so into our sail, I break the silence when I can’t stop staring at him. “You’re not nearly this tolerable in Manhattan.” He quirks a brow, slowly pulling his gaze from the screen. “Didn’t know you considered me tolerable in any location.”
I snort. “Don’t ruin it.”
He watches me for a moment, his smirk softening into something almost charming. “There’s something you should know,” he says softly, a bit more serious now. “Since Karen’s putting her nose in places it doesn’t belong.”
I blink. “Okay. Hit me with it.”
“My ex-wife was Karen’s sister.” His gaze doesn’t waver. “She died six years ago in a helicopter crash.”
The words land heavy, sitting like a stone in my chest. “Oh. I’m—I’m sorry?—”
“She was with herlover,” he adds, but his voice is flat and even as he leans back in his seat. “The man she was in the process of leaving me for. The one she’d been seeing behind my back for two years. So don’t be sorry.”
Oh god.I swallow, suddenly wildly uncomfortable in my lounger. “She was cheating on you?”
He nods once. “Yes. The crash was in the papers, but we managed to keep the rest quiet.”
“Jesus.”
“I’d already asked for a divorce,” he continues, jaw flexing as he forces an unnatural shrug. “But she didn’t want it. Her place at Voss and Bartley hinged on her marriage to me, and she didn’t want to give that up. Karen didn’t want her to either. She blamed me for the whole thing, said I humiliated the family. Ironic, considering how it ended, and considering she tried to fucking sleep with me the night her sister died.”
I stare at him in complete shock, no idea what to say, so I don’t say anything at all, just let the silence stretch. I can’t fixthat. I can’t even try.
“I don’t do relationships,” he adds, quieter now. “That’s why.”
“Right,” I breathe. “Makes sense.”
The sun is sinking, and neither of us knows what to say after that.
————
