by Amy Knupp
“I can split my time between work and play,” she said, in a way compromising with herself. “But still no shark diving.”
“Phobia?”
“Ez went through a Jaws phase when I was maybe four or five years old. Still traumatized.”
“How about an hour of work tonight, and while you do that, I’ll see what we could do tomorrow,” Drake suggested.
“Deal.” She took a sip of her sweet, rum-heavy drink. “So I’ve been thinking about how best to handle Cole and Sierra’s honeymoon. Their engagement party is coming up, right?”
“In May sometime, I think.”
“So why don’t I put together three detailed options for them and you guys can present the choice to them at their party. They’ll still have plenty of time to choose one. That way, they have some control but not the burden of planning.”
“I like that. And I definitely think this place should be one of the three,” Drake said. “They would love it.”
“I agree. And I have ideas for the other two whenever you’re ready.”
“Let’s wait till we’re back home. My brothers will want to be in on that decision.”
“Fair enough. Speaking of your brothers, what ever happened with the home fitness idea for North Brothers? Are you still helping Mason with that?”
Drake leaned his elbows on the table and groaned. “I am, sort of. He’s trying to get me to come on board full-time.”
“That would be a perfect fit.”
His face didn’t say perfect fit.
“I thought you were excited about the possibility of North Brothers doing this.”
“Oh, I am,” he said. “North Brothers should absolutely dive into it. They’d be stupid not to.”
They. Not we, she noticed.
“You love your family’s company, right?”
“I do.” His voice was flat when he said it.
She watched him, but Drake diverted his attention to the dance floor, where another couple danced to another upbeat island song.
“It seems like that would be a really good opportunity for you,” she tried.
He pegged her with piercing eye contact then. “I can be supportive of you doing some work while we’re here, but for me personally, there will be no working on this vacation. Let’s talk about something else. Anything else. Please.”
“Okay,” she said without flinching, because she got it. All too well.
That right there illuminated the difference between them and highlighted the precise reason that she couldn’t have him in her life once they got back to the States. They were in different places in their lives. It remained to be seen whether Drake would ever be able to take responsibility and settle down. And that was the exact reminder she needed that, for them, temporary was the only way to do it.
She would enjoy every second of right-now Drake for the next three days, and then, as hard as it would be, she would move on. Just like she’d promised herself.
No regrets and no wavering.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mackenzie suspected, the second her phone rang with Ezra’s ringtone the next evening—Tuesday—she’d made a mistake.
“Crap.”
She and Drake had been back in her casita for ten minutes at most after an incredible afternoon on a neighboring island, where they’d gone swimming in a picturesque crater after a scenic horseback ride to get there. Afterward, they’d had dinner at a beachside shack, for lack of a better word, where the seafood had been simply prepared and some of the best food she’d ever tasted.
That was also where she’d uploaded a dozen photos from the day to Instagram, including a selfie of her and Drake overlooking the crater pool.
“You going to answer that?” Drake asked from the deck, where he was peering out at the sea, waiting for her to change her clothes so they could head out to the lounge for a drink and maybe some dancing if the band started up.
She headed to the chair, where she’d flung her purse and phone when they came in the door, her instincts telling her she’d be much better off not answering, but then Ez would worry.
“Hi, Ez,” she said into the phone after she pulled her casual short dress over her head and let it fall into place.
“What the hell is going on, Mackenzie?” her beloved brother bellowed into the phone, confirming her suspicion. She’d mistakenly thought he checked into social media close to never, and that’s what had given her the courage to post the pic of her and Drake. She’d buried it within a group of photos, just to be safe.
“Well, I’m just getting ready to go to the lounge for a cocktail,” she said, playing dumb.
“What is he doing there?” Ez said, his volume lower, his anger more intense.
Intense and unfounded and irritating her more by the second.
“He’s vacationing, as one does in the South Pacific.”
“Kenz, don’t play stupid with me.”
“I thought we already argued about this, Ezra. It wasn’t your business then, and it’s not your business now.”
“It is if you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie. We’re still just having fun. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“You said it was a one-time thing,” Ezra said.
Drake had come inside, obviously hearing everything on her end through the open door. “Let me talk to him,” Drake said, holding his hand out.
Maybe it was a stupid move, but she handed her phone over to him, because frankly, she didn’t have more to say to her brother on the topic, nothing new anyway, and he’d obviously not listened to it’s none of your business or I can make my own decisions the last time they’d had this argument.
“If you’re pissed, take it out on me, not your sister,” Drake said into the phone, and though Mackenzie didn’t catch the exact words, she couldn’t help but hear Ezra’s roar over the line. “She didn’t know I was coming. I showed up as a surprise, not that I need to explain myself to you.”
Ezra ranted some more, and Mackenzie squeezed her eyes shut as she wandered out onto the deck. She could still hear the argument, but she tried to block it out.
She hated that those two were at each other’s throats. It killed her that it was because of her. If they were girls having this disagreement, they’d fight it out and talk it out and then eventually make peace, but with these two hardheaded testosterone-laden males, she wasn’t sure if they’d ever work it out. Two decades of friendship could be out the door like yesterday’s trash, all because of Ezra’s misplaced concern, otherwise known as butting in. And yet she couldn’t fault him for wanting to “protect” her, even if she didn’t need to be protected from Drake.
Well, in theory.
But Ezra couldn’t pull off the kind of protection her heart might need after these few stolen days with Drake. Mackenzie had brought it on herself and she’d pull herself out of it when the time came. That just wasn’t yet.
Drake came back out on the deck and handed her the phone, which had gone dark.
“The fucker hung up on me,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“What? You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I shouldn’t have posted the picture of us. But Cora wanted to see one of us, and it’s a really good picture and—”
“You can post whatever pictures you want,” Drake said, his voice gentle and completely lacking the heat from when he’d talked to her brother. “We don’t have anything to hide. We’re not doing anything wrong. Come here.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she burrowed into his chest, closing her eyes again as she took a deep breath.
“Don’t let him ruin our time together,” Drake said. “We don’t have much of it as it is.”
“I know.” She wished she could let it slide off, but it wasn’t that easy.
“Even if I flew home right now—which I’m not about to—he’s still going to be pissed. So we might as well just go back to what we had planned and finish out a pretty fucking aw
esome day.”
She nodded, knowing he was right. She didn’t want him to leave. Yes, he’d had to work to convince her to spend these few days together, but once she’d made that decision, she was wholeheartedly in. She wanted every second she could get with Drake. It was just going to take a little while for her to shake off the call from Ezra. She held on to Drake for a good while, breathing in the security of him, the strength and the caring and the protection she felt in his arms.
“I’m not really in the mood to go to the lounge now,” she said. The lighthearted mood they’d been in when they’d returned from their excursion had vanished. Being social and friendly and around others no longer appealed.
“Me neither,” he admitted. “So how about a late-night swim instead?”
“We swam earlier.”
“But we had swimsuits on then. Have you ever swum naked in the ocean?”
She glanced toward the calm sea, her body coming alive at the thought, and shook her head.
“Me neither. You up for it?”
As their bodies were still aligned, she could feel he was quite up for it. She was emotionally spent and physically tired, but she couldn’t deny the lure of forgetting herself and her frustrating brother by losing herself in Drake. Their time together was ticking. She could deal with the backlash later.
She nodded with a flushed smile. “I’ll get some towels.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Drake didn’t do sitting still well—he never had. It gave a guy too much time to think, and he’d much rather do. But Mackenzie had been working half days, so he’d had lots of opportunities to do it, both the sitting and the thinking.
Drake was free to do what he wanted while she worked, but he’d chosen to stay on Jiva instead of going off island. It was tough to fit in travel time to and from another island and then some kind of activity before she was done working, and he didn’t want to miss any free time with Mackenzie.
There was only so much you could do to entertain yourself on an island no bigger than a city block. The resort had a state-of-the-art workout center that he’d taken full advantage of, and he’d finished the two books he’d brought with him and started a third on his phone. He’d run on the beach twice a day, swum a few laps, joined a beachball volleyball game in the sand, and tracked down Giovanni to hammer out a surprise for Mackenzie. Still, he’d had plenty of time left over to sit and admire the view, and he’d endeavored to do that, appreciating the beauty of it and trying to embrace the peace of it. That’s where the thinking came in, and he wasn’t sure he liked some of the conclusions that were staring him in the face.
It was just after nine p.m. Wednesday, and once again, he was waiting for his brunette beauty. They’d spent the afternoon and evening on a guided six-mile hike on one of the nearby islands, complete with a picnic dinner at the base of a stunning waterfall. When they’d returned to Jiva, she’d had one business call to make that she couldn’t take care of earlier due to the time zone difference, something about a Latvian castle that offered overnight stays. She’d said it would only take a few minutes, so he’d gone out to her deck and wandered down onto the sand to wait in one of the two teak lounge chairs.
It was dark and private out here, and the only sounds were the gentle surf, a breeze in the trees, and the occasional feminine laugh in the distance. His phone buzzed in his pocket with a notification of a message, and he pulled it out to see who it was.
Mason.
Shit.
Drake didn’t need to read it to have a pretty good idea of what it was about, but he opened the app anyway.
What the hell are you doing, Drake? You were supposed to give me an answer on Monday. Then I found out today, from Mom, no less, that you’re in the South Pacific? What is your hesitation? You’re the best person for the job. You would rock the hell out of it. I’ll pay you what you’re worth, probably more than you’re worth. All you have to do is accept.
Without responding, Drake clicked it closed and knocked his head into the wooden back of the lounger.
“Hey,” Mackenzie said as she came down the steps into the sand, her voice melodic and cheerful and in contrast with the tempest that was gathering strength in his head. “That was worth the late-night call. It sounds like exactly what my client is looking for, so thanks for being patient.”
Instead of taking the lounger next to him, she lowered herself to his and sat sideways on it next to his thigh, half facing him. Her smile disappeared as she got a closer look at his face. “You doing okay?”
“Let’s go on a walk,” he said, bolting up off the chair on the opposite side, not because he wanted away from her but because he couldn’t handle sitting any longer.
“We walked all day…”
He was already halfway to the waterline, aiming for the outer reaches of the beach, where they could make a full circuit of the island. At least one.
Mackenzie caught up with him and grasped his forearm as he slowed his pace for her benefit. “What’s going on, Drake?”
He glanced down at her bare feet, knowing she’d likely slipped her shoes off the second they got in the door, as she always did, regardless of where they were. “Want to put shoes on?”
“That depends. Are we doing some kind of a race or a leisurely moonlight stroll in the sand?”
“No race.”
“I’m fine without shoes then.”
She moved to the water side of him, where the very edge of the waves teased her feet. He was still wearing his hiking shoes and stayed just out of the water’s reach.
He took her hand, thinking that if there was anything that could settle him a bit, it was her. They walked in silence for a few minutes, past his casita and the others on this side of the island. As they angled around to the next side, he felt her scrutinizing him from the side. Before she could question him again, he spoke up. “Did you get everything done that you needed to?”
“Most of it. I need to do some more research for Jackson Lowell, but I can do that tomorrow.”
“What do you think about working on the plane the day after tomorrow instead?” he said. He’d booked the same flight as her so they could travel together. “I’ll even help you if I can. I’ve set up a surprise for you tomorrow that will take most of the day. I was hoping you could afford to take our last day here off completely.”
“Oh.” He could practically see the gears working to change directions in her head, and he waited with bated breath to see how hard he was going to have to work to persuade her. Because he’d put a lot of effort into this idea, and he was determined to get her to agree. “I was going to finish up the Bradley proposal and then do research, but I guess I could do it all on the plane. We’ll have plenty of time to kill then, huh?”
“And how often are you going to be on a private island in the South Pacific? You deserve one full day off.” What he didn’t want to tell her yet was that his surprise would help her with her job, even though he wouldn’t consider what they’d be doing work at all.
“You’re right,” she said, and she reached up and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “Yes to the whole day off. You’re sweet.”
“You deserve something special. You work hard.” They were halfway down the second side of the island, most of the casitas dark but not necessarily unoccupied, but the one they were passing now had the deck lights on low, and a man and a woman were in the plunge pool. Once they passed the trees between casitas, Drake said, “I admire your dedication to your job.”
“Really? I was afraid you’d been privately cussing out my dedication with all the hanging around and waiting you’ve had to do.” Her tone was light, verging on teasing, but there was a thread of concern there too.
He shook his head, unable to throw out a flippant response. “I suspect it’s time for me to be more like you in that way. Past time. I’m not sure how though.”
“How to work too much?” she said with a grin.
“I’ve heard when you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like
work.”
She considered that for a second. “It’s work, but you don’t mind it.” They reached the end of the row of casitas and curved left to the next side just as the island band at the lounge started up, adding an unobtrusive mellow accompaniment to the evening. “Is this about the job with North Brothers?”
He hated to get into it, didn’t really want to talk about it, but he’d been pushing it aside for days now, and it wasn’t going to go away. A part of him didn’t want it to go away. “I must seem like a pretty big idiot to you. To everyone. The ideal position for me, handed to me on a silver platter, and what do I do? I skip out on giving my brother an answer.”
“What is the position exactly?” she asked, and he noticed she didn’t argue with his stupidity.
“I’d head the new home gym division, which will offer everything from designing home workout rooms to custom outfitting them to personal training. We’ll eventually have a staff of personal trainers who become specialists in gym design, not so much the architecture and construction of it, but from the workout side of it. Just like what I’m doing for Ellie, essentially, but with the training element as well.”
Mackenzie blew out an impressed breath. “That’s exciting. It is ideal for you, Drake.”
He silently counted the seconds until the next words came out of her mouth, knowing what they would be. It took less than three.
“So why are you so unsure?”
Boom.
It was his turn to let out a loud breath, but it wasn’t one of being impressed but rather overwhelmed, confused, frustrated with himself. As they neared the end of this row of casitas, he realized he’d picked up speed at some point and was going too fast for a leisurely beach stroll. He made a point of slowing his steps, taking in the scene around him, which he’d mostly not noticed for the past ten minutes.
The pier came into view as well as the open beach, the “public” side, where the resort sometimes organized beach activities like volleyball and cookouts and bonfires. Tonight it was deserted and offered a refuge.
