Page 34 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“That is a yacht.”

I looked at it through the windshield. It was—it was a lot of boat. It sat at the dock long, white, and lit up. The kind of vessel that had its own geometry, multiple levels visible even from the car, portholes and railings, and a deck I could see even from here that clearly had furniture on it.

“How big is that?”

“Big enough.”

“That is not an answer.”

“One hundred and ten feet,” he said. Not showing off. Just answering.

I sat with that for a second.

The car stopped. Our security opened my door again. I stepped out onto the pier, looked up at the hull, and then up further toward the upper deck and the sky above it. The stars were doing something unreasonable—the kind of bright and spread you didn’t get in the city proper, where the light competed. But out here, the air was clearer, and the sky had room.

“Come on,” Amai said.

He offered his hand, and I took it.

The gangway was shorter than I expected, or maybe I was just distracted. We stepped on board, and I stopped in the middle of the main deck and looked around.

Roses. Not a wedding’s worth, not a spectacle, but arrangements of them—dark red, a few cream-colored, set on tables at intervals in glass vases that caught the candlelight. Actual candles, the tall taper kind in heavy holders that weren’t going to blow over in the harbor wind. The music was already going, coming from somewhere I couldn’t quite locate—speakers built into the deck structure, maybe, because it sounded like it was everywhere and nowhere, exactly the right volume for conversation.

There was a table set near the front of the deck. Real plates. Real glasses. A bottle of something sparkling next to a pitcher of what I suspected was non-alcoholic, because Amai had learned to think ahead.

I looked back at him.

“When did you have time to do all this?”

“I have people,” he said.

“Must be nice.”

“I told someone what I wanted. They made it happen.” He shrugged, the way he shrugged things off that were actually significant. “None of this was hard.”

“It’s a little hard,” I said. “You did not grow up knowing to do this.”

He laughed—actually laughed, not the controlled version. “No,” he said. “I did not. But I love doing things for you that I’ve never done for other women.”

“Hmph.”

The captain was at the helm, visible through the window of the wheelhouse. I saw one or two crew members moving at the far end of the deck. Minimal was right. Nobody hovered. Nobody was going to stand three feet away, asking if I needed anything every five minutes.

We sat at the table.

And then the boat started moving.

The city pulled back from us, slow and quiet, the pier receding until it was just a line of lights in the distance. The water was dark and easy. The stars stayed.

“Okay,” I said and picked up the sparkling grape juice—which was indeed what it was—and held it up. “First date.”

Amai picked up his glass and touched it to mine.

“First date,” he said.

We drank.

Then, I said, “Tell me something that has absolutely nothing to do with any of this.”