Barefoot by the Sea

Chapter Nineteen

We done here?” Marcus already had the first two buttons of his chef’s jacket open, one eye on the clock. “Everything’s cleaned, dining room is ready for tomorrow, and the cooler’s organized.”

Ian glanced around the kitchen, satisfied that they were finished, even though it was only ten-thirty. “I suppose,” he said. “But don’t get used to being through with dinner service this early. Once we get this place up to speed…”

What was he thinking? He wasn’t going to be around that long, was he?

The sickening feeling that had been eating away at him all evening settled low in his belly. He shook it off and settled his attention on the young man in front of him, who’d done a great job that night. He still reminded Ian a little of Kate’s brother, but he couldn’t hold that against the kid.

“You got a date, Marcus?”

He gave a hesitant smile and nod.

“The boss’s daughter, by any chance?” Ian pressed.

Another nod. “That’s cool, isn’t it?”

“Depends.” Ian unbuttoned his own coat, eyeing Marcus as he shook out of it. “Ever hear the expression ‘You don’t get your meat where you get your bread’?”

He laughed softly. “No, and neither have you, based on the news that you’re going to marry Ms. Galloway.”

“Not exactly,” he corrected, pushing away the bad feeling that gnawed.

“Yeah, but everyone’s starting to say it could be real. Waitstaff placed bets already.”

He smiled. Which side would he bet, if he were a gambling man?

“They’re telling the customers, too.”

Oh, man. Tessa would hate that. “Probably best if we keep the whole thing quiet.” That way, when it was all over, he could slip away with his kids and this would be a memory. And Tessa would still have her pride.

“Sorry, but Marcia had to do something, otherwise you’d have had unwanted company back here.”

Ian frowned, not following. Marcia was the head server, but who was this company? A quick stab of a worry pinched. “Someone was asking for me?”

“Grace Hartgrave.”

It took a second, but then he placed the name. “From the Fourway Motel?”

“Dude, you could totally do her.”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what Marcia figured, so she told Grace and her buddy that you’d gotten engaged this afternoon.”

He had no idea how to respond to that.

“Not that Mrs. G. ever let a man’s wife stop her. Or her own husband.” Marcus grinned. “Man, you got it goin’ on in the sack, don’t you?”

A little irritation flared at the disrespectful comment. “Not your business, Marc.”

He held up his hand. “Just talkin’ man to man, Chef. It’s cool. When you’re getting a piece, it’s nice to talk about it.”

The irritation did more than flare now; it sparked, and Ian took a step forward, eyes narrowing. “First of all, it’s not nice to talk about it. Second of all, you better not be getting a piece of Ashley Armstrong.”

“Dude.” Marcus laughed. “She’s hot.”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “You think that’s enough?”

“I dig her.” He put a hand on Ian’s shoulder and squeezed. “It’s all good, man. We’ll take care of business, if you know what I mean. Everything’s cool and there’s no reason not to take what the chick is offering.”

Ian fisted his hand, and only the soft echo of Henry’s warning kept him from taking a swing. “You want a reason? I’ll give you three. You work for her mother, she’s barely seventeen, and if you lay a fucking hand on her, I’ll kill you.”

Marcus backed up a little. “What’s your deal, man? Why does it matter?”

Because it mattered to Tessa. The thought scared him almost as much as his fisted hand.

“It just does. So fly straight.” Ian gave him a solid push out the back door. “I’m watching you, kid.”

With a nervous and pissed-off look over his shoulder, Marcus left. Still fuming over the conversation, Ian finished one last pass at the kitchen and grabbed the to-go box of the last two orders of stone crabs he’d kept in the cooler. He dug through the bag for his regular phone since the one he kept in his pocket could only call Henry. When he had it, he tapped in Tessa’s number to text a message, as he promised he would when he was on his way over for the late dinner they had planned.

Leaving the restaurant. His finger hovered over the screen, considering how to close the message. Can’t wait, he typed.

But how would these words on her phone make her feel when he was finished with this charade? Hollow and hurt.

He deleted those last two words, stepping outside, still debating how to sign off the text, if at all. Oh, hell, how to sign off a text was the last thing he should be worried about. As the evening had worn on and his outrageous plan took hold, he’d battled hope and guilt.

Hope that he’d somehow found an answer for Henry’s request that he have proof of marriage when he went to Canada to get his kids. But guilt pounded harder, because signing that piece of paper would mean something to Tessa Galloway. So how would he make that happen?

He still didn’t know, but he hadn’t talked to Henry yet. Maybe Henry would give him the go-ahead to be straight with her.

His finger still over the screen, he sucked in some of the cooler evening air, hoping for a clear head in the salty breeze but getting a douse of cloying perfume instead.

“I thought you’d never come out.”

Blinking into the darkness, he spied a woman standing next to his bike. Oh, hell. Apparently “He’s engaged” really didn’t mean anything to Grace Hartgrave.

“I had dinner with a girlfriend,” she said as he crossed the parking lot. “We asked the server to send our compliments to the chef.”

He reached the bike, averting his gaze from hers. “I got them, thanks.”

“We also asked that you visit the table.”

“It was the middle of a rush.” He shifted from foot to foot, keeping the bike between them. “Kinda late to be hanging out in the parking lot, Mrs.…” He pretended to search for a name he knew. “Sorry, I can’t remember your husband’s last name,” he added deliberately.

She gave a slow smile. “Don’t worry. I can’t remember his first name half the time.” She rounded the bike. “Want to walk the beach?”

“No.”

She peered up flirtatiously. “Want to take me for a ride?”

“No.”

She smiled, undeterred. “Want to skip the preliminaries and go back to your place for a nightcap and a—?”

He put his hand over her mouth. “No, Mrs. Hartgrave, I don’t want to do anything with you.”

Under his palm, her smile faltered. He dropped his hand and cocked his head toward the bike. “’Scuze me…”

She stepped closer, the perfume as offensively strong as she was. “I think you’re hot.”

“I think you’re married.”

That made her grin. “Nothin’ wrong with a little fun on the side.”

“Yes there is,” he said simply. “I need you to step out of the way so I can get on this bike.”

“I need you to think about what you’re missing.” She arched her back to press her breasts to his chest. “’Kay?”

He shifted to the side, smelling trouble as much as the cheap fragrance. Even if he was the least bit interested—which he wasn’t—he knew bad news when it batted over-made-up eyes at him. For years he’d trained himself to avoid anyone or anything like this.

“Bet your husband is worried about you,” he said, attempting for diplomacy.

“Bet my husband is on his ninth beer.” She splayed her fingers on his chest, hissing in a breath as she pressed against his pecs.

He closed his hand over her wrist and removed her hand.

She circled the other around his neck, pulling him down. “One kiss. I made a bet I could get one.” Up on her toes, she smashed her mouth against his the very second bright lights of a golf cart bathed them in yellow.

He jerked away, blinded by the lights and unable to see the driver. Instantly, the golf cart whirled around to head back up the path, and the moonlight shown on dark hair spread over narrow and familiar shoulders.

Damn it! “Tessa!” he called, practically tossing the woman in front of him to the side. “Wait!”

But she barreled the cart back up the path without even glancing back.

“Come on.” Grace put both arms around his waist. “Let’s—”

He gave her a gentle but solid push back, still watching the retreating golf cart. “Get the hell off me, lady.”

She stepped back, wiping the corner of her mouth, her eyes transforming from sultry to icy in an instant. But he barely noticed, his entire focus on that golf cart disappearing into the darkness of a winding path.

The second he had space, he threw one leg over the bike. He twisted the key and revved hard, not even looking at Grace as she dramatically threw herself backward.

He turned the wheel and shot out of the lot, his engine not quite loud enough to drown out Grace’s parting shot. “Fuck you, asshole!”

He hoped Tessa heard that, too.

Tessa parked the cart on the path, cursing her decision to go meet John at the restaurant and take that beach stroll he’d wanted. Marching across the grass toward the gardens, she heard the motorcycle engine rev, but the sound of her name called out in shock still reverberated in her head.

She slowed down when she reached the root-vegetable section, the burn of embarrassment finally subsiding.

Grace Hartgrave! How low can you go? Not that she thought for a minute he was interested in her, but did he take what any woman offered? Was that the thing he was hiding from her?

He’d certainly acted that way the night they’d met. Since then, he hadn’t shown any indication that he was a man whore, but she really didn’t know him.

She squeezed her eyes shut, the truth of that burning.

The motorcycle engine grew louder, coming up the path on the same route she’d taken. Maybe she shouldn’t have run, but she had. So now what? Hide in her own garden?

“Tessa!” His voice carried over the garden, more angry and frustrated than desperate.

Why had her instinct been to run?

She knew why. An image of another man in a parking lot flashed in her head, the memory of that moment when she saw Billy leaning against the yoga instructor’s car, reaching down to touch her possessively, and that very first twinge of disbelief and suspicion started to simmer in Tessa’s chest.

“Tessa!”

Of course, this was déjà vu. At least Billy picked someone worthy of Tessa’s jealousy. Grace Hartgrave wasn’t—

She spotted him rounding a live oak tree, pausing as if he’d picked up her scent, scanning the garden. Staying in the shadows of the citrus trees, she inhaled the sweet scent of orange and tried to erase both bad memories.

John wasn’t Billy, not by a long shot.

“Bloody hell.” The words floated over the garden, making Tessa draw back in surprise. “I could kill that fuckin’ woman.”

The words…spoken in a perfect English accent.

“What did you say?” Tessa’s question popped out at the same time she jumped from the shadow.

“Tessa!” He lunged toward her. “Holy crap, that was not what it looked like.”

But was that what it sounded like? “What did you say?”

He shook his head. “She threw herself at me, I swear.” He reached her, his hands out, a backpack hanging off his shoulder. “I’d just texted you that I was on the way.” He opened his hand and showed her his phone.

“I didn’t get a text.” Had she imagined that accent?

“I didn’t get to send it,” he said, stepping closer, his hair wavy from being pulled back in a ponytail, a shadow of whiskers darkening his cheeks, his eyes glittering shiny blue in the moonlight. “That woman freaking threw herself at me, I swear.”

Bloody hell. She shook her head as if she could make the words tumble out of her memory. Who said that? No one—in this country.

“Tessa.” He closed in on her, his large, masculine torso so close she could smell the scents of the kitchen. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s completely wrong.”

But now he sounded normal. American. Like someone from California and Nevada where they had zero accents and didn’t say things like bloody hell.

He stroked her cheek. “You were coming to meet me, weren’t you?”

She looked up at him, searching his face for a clue to any kind of secret. All she saw was perfection. Almost too perfect.

“To take a walk?” he asked.

He flipped the backpack over his shoulder and dropped it on the ground. “Let’s have a picnic right here in the garden. I brought stone crabs. I was going to take a shower, but…” He took her hand and pulled her down to the ground. “Sit down and please, please tell me you know me better than to think for one second I’d be attracted to that piece of trash.”

“John.” She refused to let him do this, steadfast in her determination not to be sweet-talked or coerced or lied to. In any accent. “I saw you.”

What she meant was I heard you, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that yet.

“What you saw was a pathetic woman throwing herself at a disinterested man.” He tugged her toward the ground. “C’mon, Tessa. Sit here. Talk to me.”

She let him pull her down. “I did see you kiss her,” she said softly as she let her backside hit the ground, a soft spot of orange-scented leaves.

“No, you saw her kiss me.” He settled right next to her, the backpack in front of his knees. “I have had exactly three conversations with the woman and hope that was the last.”

“She’s a…” She couldn’t quite think of anything bad enough.

“I know the word for what she is.”

“In what language?” she asked.

His eyes widened in surprise. “I only speak one.”

“Maybe I should say in what accent?” At his look of confusion, she took a breath and let her thoughts out in a rush. “I heard you when you were looking for me. You said ‘bloody hell’ and something in an English accent.”

“Did I?” For one second, one lightning flash of a millisecond that was so fast she almost missed it, she read a little fear in his eyes. Or guilt. Or…something. Damn it, there was something.

“That’s…odd.” He reached for the backpack, yanking the zipper. “I have everything we need for a moonlight picnic,” he said quickly. “Even a corkscrew. But no glasses. We have to drink from—” He finally looked at her, his expression changing as he took in hers. “Tessa, I swear I have no interest in that woman. She’s obviously the town slut, a complete—”

“You spoke with an English accent. I heard it. I know I did. Why?”

“I don’t know,” he finally said, so softly she almost didn’t catch it.

He pulled out a to-go white foam box, and then a bottle of wine. “I told you I lived in Singapore, and I picked up a lot of expressions from the Brits there.”

She didn’t answer, swallowing the temptation to remind him he said he’d lived there for such a short time it was more like a visit.

“Tess, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I need to trust you,” she finally said.

He set the box and wine on the ground, turning to put both hands on her face. His fingers were calloused and rough and so large that his palms covered her cheeks. “Listen to me, okay? I know what happened with your husband. I know that you saw what you think was me”—he searched for a word—“cheating on you.”

“Cheating? I barely know you.”

“We’re getting married,” he shot back. “Or did you forget?”

“We’re talking about a stunt on the beach to help build business,” she corrected, trying to ease out of his grasp. “So there’s no ‘cheating’ involved.”

“Then why did you turn and fly away into the night?”

“I didn’t want to…” Relive old pain. “Watch.”

He stroked her chin with his thumbs, a sure, warm touch that sent a thousand sparks to every nerve ending in her body. “Like I was saying, I know that your husband ended your marriage by cheating on you. So I’m taking a wild guess that you had a little flashback and a very understandable moment when you doubted me.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“No, I’m that keen.”

Keen. Another word spoken more in England than the US. Had she ever noticed that before?

“And you are not transparent.” He came an inch closer, erasing space and doubts and common sense. “You’re beautiful and sweet and smart and good.” His voice got so soft it almost sounded pained. But Tessa’s eyes were closed and she couldn’t read his expression. All she could do was feel his hands, his breath, his…lips.

He kissed her so tenderly she could barely feel it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And he sounded truly sorry. Really sorry. Like—she pulled back from the kiss to study the misery on his face.

“You’re too sorry,” she said. “If that was as innocent as you say, you wouldn’t look quite that sorry.” Or was he sorry for something else? God, he confused her.

“I’m apologizing in advance for all the stupid things I’ll do in a clumsy effort to”—he closed his eyes—“get what I want.” Another kiss, this one slower, deeper, and hotter. “And what I want, woman, is you.”

She barely heard those last words, the blood rushing through her veins, pulsing in her head and a whole lot of other places. Everything felt so good, so alive, so real.

But was everything real? Was he? Here in the moonlight, the smell of oranges and oak, the touch of salt air and sweet lips, was anything real? His tongue traced her lips and he finally let go of her face, dragging his hands down her throat, onto her chest. She bowed her back into the kiss, dropping her head back to offer him whatever he wanted to touch.

He kissed his way down her throat, lingering there to suck gently, tangling one hand in her hair and letting the other slide lower until his palm grazed her breast.

More nerves tingled, tightening every inch of skin, twirling a ribbon of desire through her body until she had to moan with the need for him to untie every bit of her.

Who cared if he was real? She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted everything.

As he caressed her breast, she dropped back and he came with her, both of them falling to the soft earth as they kissed. Her nipple budded under his palm, drawing a moan from her throat, or maybe it was his. Everything was connected.

He slid on top of her, a solid, huge erection pressing on her stomach and stealing her breath.

“Tessa,” he whispered into the kiss.

“Mmmm.”

“I’m still waiting for an answer.”

What the heck was the question? She turned her head, letting him nibble at her neck and ear, squeezing his mighty biceps and finally giving in to the urge to rock her hips into his.

“Do I believe you?” she asked.

He slipped his hand under her T-shirt, up her belly, and onto the thin silk of her bra. “The other question.”

She rocked again, the knot between her legs twisting tighter with need to ride his long, hard ridge. What other question? Did it matter? “Just…don’t stop.”

He chuckled softly, purposely holding still. She rolled against him anyway, the shock of arousal electrifying her whole body.

“I need an answer.”

“Ask again.”

He laughed once more, lifting his head to look into her eyes. “Are you going to marry me?”

She held his gaze for so long, it felt like the world shifted on its axis. If only this were real, she thought. If only this were love and not pretend. If only…

He ground against her, harder this time, giving her full access to his hard-on, grunting as the pleasure hit him, too. “Come on, say yes.” He pounded into her, torturing her with the exquisite feeling.

“Well, not for real.”

“Then for pretend.”

She finally held him still, grabbing his shoulders, looking into his eyes. “I’m lost,” she admitted. “I don’t know what’s real or right or pretend or play. I don’t know what to say except…”

Harder and faster he rolled against her, pulling her right into a vortex. She couldn’t think. All she could do was slide against him, sounds of sex and need whimpering in her throat.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes and gave in to the first helpless hitch of pure pleasure, an orgasm building so fast she knew it couldn’t be stopped.

A delicious heat coiled through her, spinning at the most tender spot as she rubbed and rode and rocked against the sexiest body she’d ever held. “I…want…you…to…be…”

She came fast and hard, biting her lip to keep the word from slipping out. But as she fell over the edge of pure, raw, crazy pleasure, she lost control, one word tumbling helplessly from her lips. “Real.”

“It can be real.” His voice was rough in her ear.

What did he mean? Sex? Love? This farce of a wedding? What did he mean by that? She closed her eyes as he rocked again, relentless and rhythmic, firing arousal through her, letting that orgasm flow and then subside.

“I said I want you to be real.”

She felt him sigh. “I’m real enough, Tess.”

Real enough. Real enough. And once again, he’d deflected her questions and probing with kisses and heat. And she let him. So maybe, deep inside, deflected questions and nonanswers were what she really wanted.