I looked at the tattoo again. He wasn’t attempting to hide it but he didn’t say anything when I studied it, either.
“Are you ready to go?” he said.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He led us on deck to the ladder that took us down to the waterline. He shot me a boyish grin and then dove in headfirst. I hung my feet off the side and dipped my toes in, the shock of cold shooting up my legs. I squealed when he splashed me.
“Come in. Just jump in fast. Get it over with. It feels great after a minute.”
“I’m not diving. How do you know there are no sharks out here?”
He laughed, watching me as he treaded water. “I don’t. Come on.”
And we swam for the next hour or so and it was wonderful fun. Adam pointed out the distant spouts of humpback whales. I saw a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water in the distance. When it grew too cold to stay in the water, my entire body shivering uncontrollably, Adam shot up the ladder first and, still dripping himself, reached into a cabinet where a stack of towels were warming and extracted one, holding it for me to walk into when I climbed the ladder.
It felt wonderful and I thanked him while he stooped to grab one for himself. “Let’s go warm up in the Jacuzzi.”
On the back of the middle deck, open to the sky, we soaked in the warmth of massaging bubbles while the chef brought us champagne and appetizers. The captain turned the boat around so that we could watch the sunset over the ocean.
We talked and stuffed ourselves on Chef’s amazing appetizers: bacon-wrapped scallops, baked brie, and all kinds of great munchies. So much so that our appetites were ruined for dinner. Graciously, Chef told us she would pack a cold picnic for us to take up to the top deck when we were hungry.
And then we were alone watching the sunset paint the sky in deep reds and oranges reflecting out onto the ocean. “So this is what you do in your copious amounts of spare time?”
He smiled. “I’d like to take the boat out at least once a month. Maybe over to Catalina, down to Mexico or just out on the water.”
“Taking your work with you, of course.”
He kept his gaze on the horizon “Perhaps.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Uh huh. With your satellite Internet—I saw that big old office you have belowdecks. It’s not for bringing women out here.”
“I told you I don’t bring women out here.”
“You brought me.”
He glanced at me. “Yes, but you are an exception.”
“Have you ever had a long-term relationship?” I asked.
His dark eyes darted to the ocean once again. “No. I never had the time.”
“Ah. So you just have…fuck buddies.”
He was amused. “If you want to call them that. And what about you? No fuck buddies obviously, but you don’t date, either.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Tried it. Didn’t like it.” I shrugged.
He watched me carefully. “How old were you when you made that decision?”
“Sixteen.”
He cursed under his breath.
“Anyway, let’s talk about something else!” I said brightly.
He shook his head. “No, I want to talk about this for a few moments longer.” I shook my head right back. His gaze hardened. “Don’t get like that, Emilia. I think it important that I know if anything painful happened to you. I want to do everything I can to make you comfortable. What happened in Amsterdam—”
“It won’t happen again—no need to worry. I did a lot of therapy.”
“I disagree. I should worry.”
I sighed and glanced off to the side. “I had a boyfriend in high school. He was a football star, a senior, and I was a stupid little sophomore with stars in my eyes. He treated me like shit. One night he got drunk and assaulted me. I broke up with him. The end.”
Now his face was grim. “He assaulted you…sexually?”
My breathing froze. I had never talked to many people about this. Heath knew it all. So did my therapist. Mom knew some of it but I refused to say any more about it after she started talking about going to the police. It was dropped and she got me the therapist to talk to instead.
I took a deep breath and took a leap. For some reason, those dark eyes compelled me to do so. Sometimes I was a coward—most of the time I was. But I could be brave today. Just for today. And speaking of this took pretty much all the courage I had.
“He wanted to have sex and I said no. He got pissed and slammed my head into the steering wheel—we were parked up on the Ridge—up in the foothills. I’d been driving because he was hammered from the party we’d gone to. I got out of the car and took off running. He caught me and—”