“Well, since no one has ever said those words to me before, I couldn't quite figure out what they meant. I thought about waking Sanders up so he could explain them to me, but that seemed silly, so I figured I should just sweep it all under a rug,” Jameson replied, strolling across the deck towards the back of the boat. She looked at the floor.
“Jameson. You don't have any rugs,” she called out.
“I know. So I kicked your shit overboard.”
Tate dashed to the railing and looked over the edge. Of course she couldn't see anything. She groaned and let her head fall forward. He had kicked her purse into the ocean. Of course. Stupid woman. She should've known better. She was lucky he had even bothered to save her passport. God, her keys, her money, her wallet, everything was now at the bottom of the harbor.
At the thought of her wallet, though, she perked up. Jameson's black American Express card was still in her wallet. Ha ha ha. And the day before she had bought three handbags, from three ridiculously expensive designers. The ocean could keep her Kate Spade knock off. Tate started laughing, and didn't stop till she was back in her bedroom.
A shower improved her attitude even more, and by the time she put on some new clothes and went upstairs, she felt human again. Better than human. She felt like herself, and she hadn't felt that way in a long time. She tried not to think about the fact that Jameson had something to do with it.
Like always.
He was sitting in the speed boat with the engine idling, leaning over the side to talk to their neighbor. Tate made her way down the plank thingy and then stood at the back of the smaller boat, waiting for Jameson to finish so he could help her on board. The man he was talking to finally noticed her and smiled, giving a tilt of his head before going back to his own boat. Jameson turned towards her, then stood still.
She was wearing a pair of extremely short denim cut-offs, paired with a slouchy, long sleeve, dolman style top. It draped off one shoulder and was cropped in the front, showing a slice of stomach. She had yanked her hair up in to a messy ponytail and then shoved on a pair of aviator sunglasses, but hadn't bothered with shoes.
“Welcome back,” Jameson blurted out. Tate raised her eyebrows.
“Excuse me?”
“You were hiding behind those Stepford-wife clothes. This is the real you. Welcome back,” he stressed as he walked towards her. She rolled her eyes.
“Clothes don't make a person, Jameson,” she pointed out. He held a hand out to her and she took it.
“No,” he agreed, and helped her down onto the back of the boat. He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her steady as the water rocked them. “But sometimes they can improve the scenery.”
Tate snorted and pushed away from him. She couldn't be physically close to him, not after what had happened the night before; two more minutes of kissing, and she would've been on her knees. Bent over a table. Laid out flat. All his. She had to stay strong. She would win this game.
“Where are we going?” she asked, plopping into the passenger seat. He cast off from the dock and sat down to her right, behind the wheel.
“Just around. Thought we'd take her out, really open her up,” he replied, easing the boat away from the yacht and slowly pulling away from the marina.
“Sounds oddly familiar,” Tate mumbled, and Jameson laughed.
“Someone decided to be feisty today. I like it.”
They were silent as he made his way around the marina and past the jetty. There were a couple of other boats out and about, some small ones zipping around, and a sailboat in the distance, but that was it. The water was actually pretty calm. It was Marbella's slow season, Jameson explained, that's why the harbor wasn't overflowing with people.
“How long have you been here?” Tate asked, talking louder as they picked up speed.
“About a month and a half,” he replied.
“Living on the boat?”
“No, I have an apartment in town. I was having the boat resealed. It got finished about a week before your birthday,” he said.
“Ah. That's when you planned all this.”
“I had a back up plan,” Jameson assured her. “If the boat wasn't going to be ready, Sanders was going to take you to Denmark.”
“I've been to Denmark. I wouldn't have been as impressed,” Tate replied.
“So you've been impressed. Good to know.”
Dammit.
“How did you talk Sanders into all this?” she changed the subject a little.
“When I left, I made him promise that he would help me. When I told him I wanted you brought to me, he jumped on the idea. Almost everything else was his planning, his doing. I would've just hired a private plane, but he insisted on flying commercial,” Jameson told her.
If they had flown private, Tate would have known Jameson was behind it. Sanders was clever.
“I'm still a little surprised by him, that he would trick me like that. We've ..., grown close,” she started to explain. Jameson snorted and the boat jumped in speed. They were going so fast, they were skipping across the ocean like a stone. Whump, whump, whump.
“Obviously.”
“Not like that. We're friends. He knows how I feel about you. I wouldn't have thought he'd pull something like this,” she tried to clarify.
“And how do you feel about me?” Jameson asked. Tate paused for a while.
“It's certainly not a good feeling,” she assured him. He laughed.