“No, I emailed it to you too.”
Julien’s arms fell to his sides. “Great. Let’s order room service, and I’ll start reading it right now.” He started to walk forward when she reached out a hand to his arm.
“Not so fast.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I have some stipulations.”
His arms went back to creating an X in front of him. “I’m not sure if I want to ask what these stipulations are or remind you that we aren’t at the point of contract negotiations.”
She shrugged. “Maybestipulationwas the wrong word.” She looked down at her feet for a few seconds.
When her gaze rose to meet his again, there was a small shine of desperation in them. “Can we take the night off? Please? We’re in a tropical paradise, and you’ve barely stepped foot outside this hotel since we got here. You can’t even remember the last vacation you took, and you seriously need to work on your work-life balance. As for me, I don’t know when or if I’ll get to come back to Florida. I want to play tourist for the evening. The problems with Squire and whether or not my books are worth risking everything for will still be there tomorrow. Please?”
It wasn’t a good idea. He needed to start doing a better job at compartmentalizing Martha, and spending time with her outside a work setting wouldn’t help him keep those boundaries that were growing hazier by the second.
But how could he tell her no? All she wanted was a few hours away from the stress he’d dragged her into. And her heart was so pure, she wanted that as much for his benefit as hers.
A slow smirk formed on his lips. “You know, you gave your bargaining chip away too soon. You should’ve promised tosend me the manuscriptafteryou got what you were asking for.”
“Maybe. But I don’t want to manipulate you.” She looked him straight in his eyes. “It’s your choice. No ultimatum.”
Not like his dad. She didn’t say the words, might not even have been thinking them, but they rang in his head just the same. She hadn’t said,ifyou want this, you have to do this first. No, she’d just seen a need in him—in this instance, a need for a reprieve, to take a full breath—and she’d offered him an opportunity, no strings attached.
He kept his smirk in place so she wouldn’t see how much her offer had affected him. “I was just teasing. You’re a terrific negotiator.” He swallowed hard. “Let’s get out of here. Where did you want to go?”
“Really?” Her face brightened. “You’re really going to stop working for a little bit?”
“Am I that bad?” He winced.
She shrugged. “You have a lot on your plate right now, so it’s understandable. But I think you even called yourself a workaholic.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong there.
“What do you think about checking out a lighthouse?” she said. “I’ve never seen one in person, and I heard that the one south of here has a museum in the keeper’s cottage. They even let you climb to the top. Can you imagine what the view is like from up there?”
“Probably pretty spectacular.”
“I think so too. So, what do you say?”
“I say, let’s do it.”
There were two lighthouses nearby, one north and one south. The one north was located on a military base and required advanced reservations, but the one south was open to the public and only a ten-mile drive down the cape, so it didn’t take them long to reach it. The keeper’s cottage washidden behind a growth of trees, but the lighthouse itself spired straight and tall into the sky, the glass cylinder on top reflecting the sun’s rays.
Martha shaded her eyes with a hand to her brow and stared up at the beacon of maritime life as soon as she got out of the car. “I know this is stating the obvious, but it’s really tall.”
Julien chuckled. “Afraid of heights as well as flying?”
“Nope. You?” She looked over her shoulder at him.
He grinned. “I think I’ll be okay.”
They made their way across the parking lot and down a walkway shaded with scrub trees. On the other side, a small white house stood near the base of the lighthouse. An informational placard was posted at the front, and Martha stopped to read about the history of the lighthouse. Her lips moved silently as she read, her face taking on several interesting expressions from surprise to wonder as she ingested the information.
Julien told himself he shouldn’t stare, that he should read the placard too, but she was more interesting to watch than learning about a historical monument.
She looked up at him, her eyes bright. “It’s really interesting, isn’t it?”
