“Make the call to Jose, but you don’t have to join,” I reply, and he looks confused. “Jose doesn’t let anyone but us break the rules, and the pool is closed, plus it’s on the roof, so unless someone is in a helicopter, no one is going to know I’m up there or be able to get up there.”
If I say I go somewhere alone, I do. Nick will strongly suggest otherwise if he feels there’s a threat, and I will usually listen to him because he knows what he’s talking about. He nods. “My phone is on if you need anything.”
I lift my arm and point between my shoulder blades. “Can you get this?”
As I slip my key card into the lock on my door, Nick unzips the back of my dress.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Text me when you get back to your room so I know all is good.”
“Will do,” I let the door close behind me.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m staring at the luxurious, black-bottomed saltwater pool on top of the hotel. It’s magical at night, with the sound of waves crashing below and the stars sparkling above. I drop my robe and towel on a lounger as Jose, my father’s personal concierge at the hotel, puts the bottle of prosecco in an ice bucket on the side table next to a champagne flute then steps back into the elevator. Only then do I feel my shoulders relax. I didn’t realize they were tight.
I pour a glass of the fizzy wine, take a sip, and then put the flute down and take a deep, cleansing breath of warm, salty night air. I tie my hair up into that topknot I have been dreaming about for hours and walk over to the pool, point my left foot, and dip it into the water. It’s the perfect temperature. The perks of a black bottom pool is the water gets warmer faster and stays warmer longer, so it’s like bath water right now, despite the sun having been gone for hours.
I glide right down the steps and into the water up to my shoulders, and swim. Laps, breast stroke, for six lengths. Then I go through all the exercises I’ve been doing for almost two years since I started aqua therapy for the scoliosis that’s been plaguing me my whole life. And last year the doctor told me I can add degenerative disc disease to the list of issues with my spine. Tonight, it’s a battle to get through it all. I shave a couple reps off each exercise, because it’s so late and I’m exhausted, and then I prop my arms up against the side of the pool. I let my body float, tip my head back against the pool’s edge, and close my eyes.
Then and only then do I let myself absorb the fact that I am doing this. I am Team Principal of Mirabella Racing. My father’s baby. My mother’s legacy. It’s mine. I’m steering the ship. That little four year old girl with the ringlet pigtails is living her dream.
I smile.
And then I smell it…him.
“You lied to me.”
My eyes open and there he is, Billy James, standing on the edge of the pool deck looking down at me. There’s a towel around his waist. It’s the only thing he’s wearing. “How did you get up here?”
“You think you’re the only one who gets VIP treatment, Francesca?” He smiles. It’s lazy and confident, and between that and his scent dancing through the air, my nipples get hard.
“Jose knows not to let anyone up here when I’m up here. No one,” I say and push off the wall so I’m floating farther away from him and that damn scent.
He walks around the pool deck, one hand lazily holding the knot on his towel, to the row of loungers where my robe and towel are. He turns slowly to look at me, the pool, and the view beyond, which is the perfect horseshoe shapedPlaya de la Conchabeach. “Jose must not have told Maria you were up here. Maria’s my personal concierge.”
I roll my eyes because I’m annoyed by the way his incredibly hot Aussie accent makes every word sound like he’s flirting with me. “Well, I’ll be sure to tell Jose this Maria woman is breaking hotel policy so B-List guests can swim with their girlfriends.”
My eyes dart to the elevator because Clara is stepping off. She’s in leggings and a cropped tank top showing off her perfect posture and ripped abs. The dark hair is pulled up in a high, tight pony like Ariana Grande, which is typical Clara. She stutter steps in her bare feet when she spots me but only for half a second, and then she’s marching with the same easy confidence her boyfriend, or whatever he is, always has. I’m annoyed by her closeness to Billy and the tall, straight way she holds her back, something that I’ve never been able to do. I don’t slouch as badly as I used to, but my posture is visibly off. And people tend to bring it up on my social media posts. “Why so lazy?” and “stand up straight sexy girl” and “why is your hip always out? Find a new pose girlfriend” and all that crap. Anyway, Clara’s healthy spine is beyond the point. It would be petty to hate her because she’s never done one single out-of-line thing to me.
She drops a key card on the lounger next to my robe and looks up at Billy. “Here’s your new key card. See you tomorrow. If she doesn’t drown you.”
Without even a glance at me, she walks back to the waiting elevator. Billy ignores her and turns back to me. “You’re not going to get Maria fired. You’re not that type of girl.”
“Oh really? You think you know what type ofwomanI am?” I ask and swim to the other end of the pool. He walks along the edge, keeping pace with me. For some reason his constant attention makes me try harder to make my technique perfect.
“I know exactly who you are, Frankie, and it’s not a bitch who gets a hard-working concierge fired for placating her high-end customers,” Billy replies, and the smile is back. “Also, I’m not B-list, and I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Right, I’m the bimbo trust fund baby who has more followers than brains and will tank a race team and take your career with it,” I mutter.
“You could be that girl…woman, yeah.” Billy’s long fingers, the ones that wrap around the steering wheel every second Sunday and control a car with over a thousand horsepower, are still toying with the knot on that damn towel. My eyes dart there, hold a moment too long on the bulge under the front, and dart back to the pool. To be fair, it’s not my fault. He’s fidgeting, and he’s literally got a rock hard v made of muscle on either side of the knot acting like an arrow screaminglook down and center please! “But you aren’t going to be that girl.”
“You don’t know me at all. We’ve talked more today than we have in a decade,” I remind him as I fight the urge to look at his exposed torso again.
Shirtless Billy is a sight to behold. He’s lean, as all drivers are since their weight impacts the car’s performance, but he’s alsoripped. I lick my lips as I reach the other end of the pool and grab the edge. Remember what Nick said… Billy is part of the reason I ended up almost dying. He’s the reason I was at the party – because he ditched me. And for all I know, he was at that party too. There were hundreds of people there on the three level yacht. By the time Billy rounds the side of the pool to stand in front of me again, I no longer feel drunk on his presence.
“Not for lack of trying. You refuse to say more than two words to me. But that first night we talked for five hours straight,” he says. Does he really think I don’t remember? “You didn’t leave that beach until the sun was about to rise. You shared a lot. I know you.”
“We were children.”
