Page 26 of Grant’s Flame

She pulled back to look at my face before answering. Mentally I geared up for one of her zingers, but she surprised me with a smile instead. Rio simply said, “Thank you.” As I set her back on her feet, she asked, “Are you having a hard time without your usual selection?”

The crew began passing by with large serving trays of food. Rio stretched her neck to follow their progress before asking, “Where are they going?”

“I told you, I thought we’d eat on the bow tonight. Wait till you see the view from up there. Plus, it’s much more private than back here, where everyone goes in and out.” I motioned to the slider with my chin. “Leave your shoes here, though. It’s easier and safer to walk up barefoot.”

She looked nervously from the narrow walkway to me. “You go first. Then I’ll know where to step. I know you would never let me fall.”

If only she saw the truth in her words, we could really start to get somewhere.

Chapter Six

Rio

“That was fantastic. Just one big…fat…problem,” I said with a satisfied groan, suppressing the urge to stretch my arms overhead along with it. I’d already broken a number of my mother’s etiquette rules in the last hour. She’d be pinching her face in disgust at the moans and hums I’d let escape with each savory bite of our decadent dinner. I snickered at the thought and followed with an actual snort. All it took was thinking of the litter of kittens she’d birth if I gave in and let my arms actually have the long stretch overhead.

A chuckle from the stunning man to my left brought me back to the moment. “What’s that, baby?” His grin stayed in place as he waited for my answer. We’d been really enjoying the night, and I knew it was because I’d been so agreeable.

Guilt crept across the tops of my thighs, its icy fingers making me shiver. The unwelcomed emotion had a way of affecting me the exact same way every time. Even the glorious glow of my dinner mate couldn’t melt away the awful sensation.

Guilt. What a useless feeling.

I faked a smile to tamp down the demons lurking in the shadows of my heart. It didn’t help. They rose up, trying to take over, making it impossible to remember what I was talking about. I still came up empty, making it harder to resist the number one go-to move in my playbook. Verbally victimizing the nearest unsuspecting passerby. But it turned out guilt could serve a purpose after all. In this case, a reminder that not even four hours earlier, I promised myself to go easier on the guy waiting for my reply. He’d turned his life inside out for me, and I’d been nothing but surly and terribly unfair up to this point of our impromptu getaway. That’s how I was mentally rebranding it, anyhow. It lent everything a lighter feel, at least—and I vowed that would extend to my bad attitude, as well.

It wasn’t too late to correct that course.

“I completely forgot what I was going to say.” With a playful thump to the side of my head, I added, “I think I’m in a carb coma from that divine carbonara. Was that not the best ever?”

Grant smiled. Unlike mine, his was genuine—as they usually were. “It was definitely delicious. My guess, though? Yours would be better.”

I gave him a skeptical look out of the corner of my eye. “You really don’t have to suck up to me, Twombley.”

He frowned. “I usually save my sucking skills for other activities, Ms. Gibson.”

“Knock it off,” I chastised instead. “That dinner was amazing! You can admit it without my ego taking a hit. Trust me.”

Grabbing the bottle from the ice bucket, Grant offered, “Let’s kick back out here and finish this bottle of champagne under the stars. What do you think?” He stood from his chair at the small dining table and held his hand out to help me do the same. We’d already had more than half the bottle with dinner, and my head was a little fuzzy. The nighttime air was balmy and still, other than the sounds of the sleek hull cutting through the water. We were cruising at a much slower pace than we had in the daylight.

In a quiet, feminine voice that barely sounded like my own, I agreed. Shaped into the fiberglass structure of the boat was a large bed-sized cutout. A striped cushion padded the area, making the spot perfect for sunbathing by day and stargazing by night. Grant helped me get situated on the mattress and then handed me both our champagne flutes before climbing up to join me. When a few crew members came to clear the last of our dishes, Grant asked them to bring us a blanket and another bottle of champagne, and I opened my mouth to protest.

“Just in case. We don’t have to open it. But if we decide to indulge, we won’t have to go inside.”

I sighed and flopped back against the sumptuous pillows that lined what I considered the headboard of this perfect sunbed. Or moon bed—maybe? Why was I even arguing? We didn’t have to be at work the next morning. We wouldn’t have to drive home, and no one was around for hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles. Wouldn’t it be nice—no, amazing—to just let it all go for a while and relax? Exactly like Grant had proposed. When I had allowed myself to really turn it over in the shower that afternoon, I couldn’t come up with a logical reason why I was fighting his plan so stubbornly. Maybe it was precisely what my soul needed.

When Grant was finally situated beside me, he let out a long, contemplative breath.

“Penny for your thoughts, Tree.”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he said dismissively.

“Oh, I’m definitely calling bullshit with a sigh that heavy.” I kept my gaze trained on the glass in my hand, as to not add extra pressure on him to open up.

“I enjoyed dinner with you.” He paused, maybe a few beats too long, but I waited. Eventually, he added, “It felt like it used to between us, and I’ve missed that. Missed you. I guess I hadn’t realized just how much until having it again.”

Instead of responding right away, I stared out across the water. The moonlight cast a pale glow throughout the dark sky and equally dark water. There were so many things I wanted to say to this man. Needed to say. Letting my guard down never came naturally to me. Not even with Sean, and I had years to try to get it right with him.

Strangely though, Grant understood me on a level Sean never had. Allowing the cork out of that thought’s bottle made me feel terribly disrespectful to my late husband. The more the concept breathed and wafted around the room, the more scared I became about the man sitting beside me. It probably explained why I ran so hot and cold with Grant. I wanted to be close to him. Open up and bare my soul to him. Yet when I did that—in even the smallest degree—it felt like an awful betrayal to my husband. Well, my late husband. I constantly felt like I was being unfaithful to a dead man. And how foolish was that?

Already, I envisioned Sean himself laughing at the absurdity of my worries. Just thinking about how understanding he always had been made me smile.