“Haven’t you figured it out yet, Violet?” he asks, those beautiful, dark eyes peering over at me, making me feel more seen than I have in my entire life. “I’d do anything for you. Take a bullet, walk through hellfire, even eat at the infamous Crab Shack. What’s a little sand?”
I push up to my knees, hovering over his long, lean body, studying every inch of his perfect, sincere face. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it, notever,and when I lean down to kiss him, he pushes up to meet me halfway. His hand cradles the back of my head, fingers threading through the tangled strands of my hair as our lips brush lightly, the kiss soft and sweet.
We kiss like that, slow, careful, passionate, until my body comes alive, and my brain turns to mush, and when we break apart, I lay back down beside him, curling into the heat of his body, burying my face in the warm crook of his neck. I inhale deeply. His scent centers me, calms me to my core, and I press closer, reveling in the safety I feel in his arms. There’s nothing like it. There’s nothing like him.
I let my past melt away and focus on the person who lifts me up rather than the one who tears me down, and I realize that it was all worth it just to be here with him.
FORTY-THREE
THREE MONTHS LATER
Floating on my back, I stare up at the fluffy clouds scattered across the sky, a sense of total calm washing over me. Landon says the pool needs to be re-tiled and the tree on the front lawn ripped out and the kitchen completely redone, but I kind of like the tile and the tree and the kitchen. I kind of love it all, actually.
It’s been a whirlwind three months. Since the incident with Mel, I haven’t seen or heard from her, though it’s not like I expected to. Landon’s not so lucky. The divorce proceedings have been rigorous and painful, and whenever I see him, there’s a tightness to his jaw and a pain in his eyes I’m not sure will ever go away.
As if that wasn’t enough stress for one person to carry, the day after Landon broke the news of his marriage to his parents, they cut him out of their life. Nathan pulled out of the company, Sunday brunch was canceled indefinitely, and they wasted no time reclaiming his house on West Palm Lane. It’s not like either of us wanted to live there, anyway. Landon could barely stand the place to begin with, what with the memory of Mel lingering like an unwelcome ghost and his parents’ influence evident in every door, window, and room. We decided to start fresh somewhere new. Somewhere we could both call home.
This house isn’t as big or as newly constructed as the old one, but I don’t care. It doesn’t overlook the canal or reside in an upscale community, but I don’t care about that either. Most of the rooms are empty now—we haven’t had a chance to shop for furniture—but I’d rather sleep on hard, wooden floorboards with Landon than anywhere else without him.
I love it here.
Closing my eyes, I shut out the world and just…breathe.
“Already making yourself comfortable, I see,” comes the familiar, deep voice that simultaneously speeds up my pulse and calms my racing heart. “That didn’t take long.”
My eyes snap open, and I grin at the man before me, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the raft to tread water. Shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand, I squint up at Landon, who’s standing at the edge of the shallow end, looking impeccable as always. White button-up with the sleeves rolled up. Grey slacks. Black, shiny dress shoes.
“Of course,” I say. “Why let a perfectly good pool go to waste?”
“The pool needs to be resurfaced,” he says with a frown, his eyes roaming over the tile, his mind constantly churning with a never-ending to-do list.
I shrug and glide my fingertips through the warm water. “So? That doesn’t mean I can’t use it until then. Plus, I’m a hero.”
He stops studying the pool’s deficiencies for a second to quirk a brow at me. “Violet James? A hero?”
“I saved a frog from drowning. If I hadn’t gone for a swim, he would have died in here.”
Landon’s nose wrinkles in disgust. “You actually touched it?”
“Oh yeah,” I say, nodding. “Rubbed my fingers all over its slimy skin.” Slipping off the raft, I wade through the pool toward the shallow end, extending my hand toward him and wiggling my fingers. “Come here. Let me give you a hug.”
“I’d almost let you do it in that bathing suit,” he says, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, though he backs away as I reach out to snatch his ankle with my frog hands. I glance down at my bikini, vivid blue with shiny fabric that sparkles in the sunlight. I posted a picture in it earlier and got nearly a thousand likes in just a few hours. “It’s new. You like?”
His eyes sweep over my chest and shoulders before refocusing on my face with heavy lids and a heated gaze that sends a shiver down my spine. “You should buy five more.”
“Noted,” I say, my smile widening as I rest my elbows on the edge of the pool. “Want to come in?”
Landon shakes his head and takes another step away from the edge, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, but you should come out so I can show you something.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Show me what? The house is empty.”
“Can you just trust me for once?” he asks with a sigh. “Do you always have to ask a million questions?”
“I wouldn’t ask a million questions if you didn’t act suspicious.” When he only smirks, I roll my eyes and do as he says. I pull myself out of the pool—less gracefully than imagined, I might add—and get to my feet. As I stand there dripping, I don’t miss the way his eyes glance over me. Holding. Catching. Lingering. I open my mouth to call him out on his blatant appraisal of my body, but he wraps me in a towel and unexpectedly lifts me up and over his shoulder, making me squeal.
“Landon! What are you doing? You know I’m getting your billion-dollar shirt soaked, don’t you? Think of the chlorine! The frog slime!”
He doesn’t respond, but his chest vibrates with answering laughter. He marches me through the scarcely furnished house and up the staircase to the master bedroom. Passing by the big bed—the one piece of furniture hedidbuy—he heads straight for the bathroom.
