Bad Business

by JC Harroway

  ‘So, if I say I’m sorry...’ his voice is low, intimate, as it was last night when he demanded another orgasm from me ‘introduce myself properly—Ryan Dempsey,’ he holds out his hand, ‘...will you come sailing this evening, after your class?’

  I draw a deep breath, my yes clogged in my throat, because I do want passion and adventure, but a hint of my usual caution will help me walk away at the end of the week without a backward glance of regret. ‘There are lots of things I haven’t told you about me, so I’d say we’re even.’

  Ryan frowns. ‘Well, perhaps I want to know those things. I also want more than one night. Don’t you?’

  I nod, my pulse picking up at his honesty. ‘Yes, I do.’ As long as I hold something back, remember that this is just for the next few days, what harm can it do? And it’s clarified one thing—the new Grace definitely wants a relationship for life.

  With a relieved smile, Ryan steps closer, slides his fingers across my cheek and into my hair. ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you.’

  It’s such a fine line between letting go and holding something back, I feel as if I’m being tossed by the waves. But isolated here on an island with a man who literally rocks my world, what choice do I have but to try and walk that precarious line?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ryan

  ‘I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE,’ I say above the sound of the outboard, sucking in the addictive scent of Grace’s hair carried on the warm breeze. I’ve given her the helm of the Blarney. It’s torture to watch her small frown of concentration as she steers us around the many scattered islands in the archipelago that forms Fiji, her delight at being in charge of a fifty-foot motor yacht obvious, although its spec is so high, it could probably sail itself.

  She narrows her eyes at me, a smile twitching her sensual mouth. ‘I didn’t want to miss this. Plus I’ll think up other ways to make you pay.’

  I laugh, but my stomach drops. How could I have been so stupid? This morning after an incredible night, all I wanted to do was kiss her awake and drag another orgasm from her beautiful, pliant body. I forced myself to leave, my spiel about casual boundaries fresh in my head, when in reality, I was the one craving more, craving everything she’s willing to give in the time we have left. A realisation that caused my chest to constrict with panic that propelled me out of the door.

  Is she the best form of distraction from my worries, or something more hazardous?

  ‘That’s a price I can’t wait to pay.’ I wink and fight the urge to kiss her.

  What the hell is happening to me?

  Despite her warning about her one sexual relationship, she blew me away. I can’t remember ever finding sex funny, but it was with her, and hot and so addictive I want to drop anchor and remind her of how well we fit together. Instead I console myself with the wide-eyed excitement lighting up her sun-kissed face.

  I feel her sigh as I bring my arms around her waist and allow my nose to linger in her hair. ‘It’s beautiful, here,’ she says. ‘Will you stay for ever?’

  I stiffen. It’s a thought that has never occurred to me. I could afford to retire here tomorrow, but ever since the day I had no choice but to sleep on a freezing concrete floor I’ve strived, hauling myself and my grandmother from relative hardship, single-handed. And settling in one place? When it’s easier to keep travelling, keep moving and forget the futility of craving a home, a constant.

  A vision of Grace and I exploring the islands together on the Blarney flashes through my mind, both the image and my reaction jaw-dropping. There’s so much we could do together, so much more I want to know about her if I indulged in relationships. And if she embraced everything with the abandonment, joy and determination I’m beginning to learn is her default setting, what a ride we’d have in store...

  But I don’t do that. I travel alone. I keep my casual relationships brief and superficial. I don’t ask too many questions. Because then I can walk away.

  I grow aware of that bloody concrete block crushing me. I know my grandmother would love to see me settled. But, am I ready to change? To re-evaluate my stance on love when I have first-hand evidence that love—if it is real—can end catastrophically and with collateral damage? Opening myself to the possibility of more with this woman also exposes me to the risk of loss.

  And I’m already maxed out where that fear is concerned.

  I try to exhale the tension gripping me. ‘I travel a lot, and when I’m not travelling I stay in London to be close to my grandmother. I try not to be away for longer than a few weeks, but you’re right. If ever there was a place to stop and smell the ocean, this is it.’

  In many ways Grace reminds me of Grandma. Both strong, practical women with enormous capacity for compassion.

  ‘So do you own other resorts?’ She takes her eye off the horizon to cast me a sidelong look. ‘Is this your only job? I’m determined to know more about you now. I won’t be distracted by all this.’ She waves her hand in my general direction, and I capture it, lift her hand to my mouth and press a kiss to her fingertips.

  ‘I guess my official title would be entrepreneur, but in recent years the resort side has taken centre stage. This is my tenth.’

  Her mouth hangs open. ‘You own ten resorts?’

  I nod. ‘Yes, all over the world—hence the travelling.’

  She pushes up her sunglasses, light dawning. ‘This is your yacht, isn’t it? You didn’t just charter it...’

  I shrug as if my lifestyle, the luxury of the Blarney, is no big deal, but I still have days when I wake up drenched in sweat, terrified because I’m seventeen again; alone, powerless and homeless.

  She laughs, the sound humourless, not her usual delighted, contagious chuckle. ‘Great. I thought you were the water-sports instructor when really you’re some sort of undercover boss billionaire.’

  ‘Well, hardly undercover...’ I say, aware I’m still on thin ice. ‘I’m just a normal bloke who worked hard and had some lucky breaks. Believe me—a smart, pretty girl like you wouldn’t have given seventeen-year-old me a second look if we were the same age.’

  I grow hot under her intelligent and inquisitive stare, aware I’ve revealed too much. ‘Why don’t we stop a while?’ I say, as we approach one of the smaller inhabited islands. ‘Drop anchor and grab a drink? Perhaps have a swim?’

  ‘Sure. And you can explain to me what you mean by that.’ She steps back, giving me the helm. I kill the engine and anchor us in place only metres from the shore, where a couple of local fishermen are dragging nets aboard their small fishing vessel.

  Grace saunters off towards the deck loungers. I prepare us both a cold drink and sit beside her while I work out how much of my tawdry past to reveal.

  ‘So tell me why I wouldn’t have given you a second look at seventeen,’ she says, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Because at that age, I had my own issues, believe me.’

  Every cell in my body wants to sidestep this topic with a distraction, to touch her, drag her into my lap and feel her warm, luscious body sprawled over mine. I’m usually past the infatuation stage by now and preparing to walk away but all I want to do is reconnect and resume the playful passion we discovered last night. Perhaps it’s because I can’t walk away. We’re literally marooned here. Temporarily. Or is it that she challenges me, her fearlessness nudging me to probe my own contentment? There’s something about this woman that makes me breathe a little easier, a calming presence that soothes the never far away urgency gripping my throat.

  And now I want to know about her, too. ‘I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours?’ I hedge.

  ‘Done.’ She places her glass on the side table and offers me her full attention.

  ‘Well, for a start, by seventeen, I’d left school. While you at the same age would have been studying hard to get into med school, I was working on a building site in the day and attending adult education classes in the e
venings.’

  If she’s surprised she hides it well, her sharp, probing stare flicking over my face. ‘What did a builder’s mate study to end up with all this?’ She spreads her hands to encompass the Blarney anchored in this idyllic place.

  ‘Anything and everything going free—bookkeeping, IT, business management. You name it, I’ve done it. I couldn’t afford to go to university until my mid-twenties, but I wanted more. So I worked hard, like you.’

  The impressed look on her face puffs out my chest. ‘You’re very driven, some would say an overachiever...’

  I incline my head in acknowledgement. ‘Aren’t you? Isn’t that what it takes to make it? It’s less about luck than most people believe. More about stubborn determination.’

  She nods. ‘Yes. But from night school to owning your own island is a lot of determination.’

  It’s not a question but it hangs there in the warm air demanding elaboration. And for once I trust this woman enough to know I won’t regret telling her about my past. What’s the worst that can happen? She has too much integrity to run to the press with my sad little sob story.

  ‘My drivers were more...basic than yours, I suspect. I was driven to be safe, warm and not hungry.’ My voice is harsher than I intended, rough with the emotion that’s never far from the surface when I think about my haphazard childhood and ad hoc parenting.

  She sobers, her fingers flexing as if she’s stopped herself from reaching out to touch me. ‘We don’t have to talk about this, although you should know I can relate—not to the hunger, but most of us have demons.’

  I sigh, fighting the memories of having nothing but my own self-belief and a drive to provide for the one person who cared enough about me to stick around. Grandma. Until diabetes and her first stroke meant she could no longer cope with a teenaged grandson.

  I haul in a deep breath. ‘I’m close to my grandmother because I lived with her. She raised me until she had her first stroke and moved into a nursing home. That’s when I began caring for her.’

  ‘At seventeen?’ There’s no pity in her expression, just the concerned look of understanding.

  The rest of the story sticks in my throat. Do I spit it out or swallow it back, the way I have so many times in the past, whenever anyone strays too close?

  But Grace is different. Or, with her, I’m different.

  ‘Yeah. That’s why I dropped out of school. Her house was sold to fund her nursing-home care.’ I swallow the bitterness that comes with the memories—a solicitor’s letter from my mother informing me that, as Grandma’s next of kin, she’d made the arrangements without thought of what would happen to her inconvenient son. ‘I spent a week or so homeless, dossing at the building site until my pay cheque came through and I could afford hostel accommodation.’

  Too proud to hunt down the parents who’d made it clear my whole life where I came in their list of priorities.

  ‘Those freezing-cold nights sleeping on a concrete floor under a tarpaulin galvanised me. So yes, I’m driven.’ And more, it confirmed what I’d always known, what I’d grown up fighting but finally came to terms with on that first soul-destroying night, when I’d spent my last pound calling my mother to tell her about Grandma’s progress, for all the difference it made—that I was alone. That my mother, a woman who dipped back into my life whenever it suited her, usually after her latest break-up, really did care more about herself than her son and even her mother. And that I’d never give anyone that power over me again.

  ‘Where were your parents?’ Grace whispers.

  I gaze out at the ocean so I can’t see her expression. Pity is hardly conducive to attraction, and right now I need to know I can lose myself in the passion we share and the way she makes me forget that I’m alone.

  By circumstance and by design.

  I shake my head, shake away the memories of a scared, confused twelve-year-old being abandoned in London while his mother went back to Ireland indefinitely. ‘I never knew my father. My mother was around for a while, but she’d always disappear to chase after him, to try and get him back, I guess. She’d leave me with my grandmother for longer and longer periods.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ryan. That must have been so hard on you.’

  My body is too rigid to even shrug. ‘I never knew if she’d show up again so I existed in a state of limbo. Hoping. Waiting. Powerless.’ My voice drops, so tight is my throat. ‘One day she disappeared for good, and I stopped waiting.’

  I swallow, trying to regain my composure. I want to have sex with her, not freak her out.

  ‘So you never had a chance to properly grieve, constantly reliving the feelings of loss?’ she says with astounding insight. ‘When did you last see her?’

  Too restless to relax, I move to sit on the edge of the lounger, my arms braced on my thighs. ‘Years ago. She crawled out of hiding when I graduated from business school with my first company. I made it clear I wasn’t interested in a tender reunion. She didn’t stick around.’ And part of me never learns my lesson, a sliver of my psyche clinging to the hope that this time she’ll be different. She won’t let me down. She’ll care.

  ‘And now you’re worried about your grandmother’s health?’ Grace’s hushed voice has taken on a soothing tone she must use on her patients. It grates at my eardrums, even as I suck comfort from her concern.

  I nod, the worry tightening my chest eclipsing the pathetic wasted regret for my relationship with my mother, feelings I should have outgrown years ago.

  ‘No wonder you’re very close,’ she says, the gentle back and forth swipe of her thumb on my arm registering.

  I shrug, my chest burning because, in reality, I try not to be close to anyone. Closeness brings pain. Loss. Loneliness.

  Better to be self-reliant. To avoid feeling. Except somewhere between Grandma and Grace that can of worms seems to have been cracked open.

  ‘When I travel, I speak to her every day. Sometimes twice a day.’ I close my eyes, numbing my mind to what happens the next time she has a stroke, or if she can’t shake this chest infection. I can’t contemplate my life without her keeping me grounded with her sharp wit and her shrewd wisdom and quiet, unconditional acceptance.

  Grace falls silent for a long time, so when she starts talking again in that soothing, calm way, I’m thrown, as I have been since the minute we met.

  ‘I had a sister,’ she says, everything about her stilling, even her breaths. ‘The one who loved romance novels and wanted to learn to paddleboard. She was younger than me. She was born with a heart condition.’

  My own breathing stops; I’m desperate for the secret part of herself she’s offering, and she’s using past tense to describe her sister.

  ‘She had lots of surgeries, lots of illness while we were growing up, always in and out of hospital. She missed out on things because she’d pick up germs easier than you or I, and they’d knock her sideways. She died three years ago waiting for a transplant.’

  I stare at her profile, mute, my heart thudding. She’s re-donned her sunglasses, perhaps as a shield. I find her hand, squeeze her fingers, suck the comfort from her touch. This caring, fearless woman is comforting me. Sharing her own pain to try and lessen mine.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I lift her hand, kiss the backs of her knuckles. ‘You’re amazing. Brave. So strong.’

  She shakes her head, laughs a humourless laugh she conceals with a bright smile. ‘This isn’t the real me. This is the holiday me. People always present their best selves on holiday.’

  She’s right, but she can’t hide the vulnerability in her tense mouth and rigid posture. ‘I’m sure everything about you is incredible and real. And I’ve seen your bravery. Don’t demean yourself.’

  She shakes her head, growing serious once more. ‘You know, it’s funny. We never really had a normal relationship, Bryony and I. I don’t remember a Christmas where she wouldn’t get sick wit
h pneumonia and wind up in hospital for a week. We couldn’t go on foreign holidays because my parents wanted to be close to hospitals that knew her history. They didn’t like to leave her home alone, so we spent a lot more time together than regular sisters. But when she’d gone, all I could think was of all the living she had left to do—amazing things she dreamed of wasted—and how I could have been a better sibling.’

  ‘That’s not true—’

  ‘It is.’ She cuts me off. ‘As a kid I realised pretty early on that my parents had enough to deal with, so I tried to be perfect. Not rock the boat. But that didn’t stop me feeling resentment. Towards my own sister. My very sick sister.’ She looks down at our clasped hands, her fingers gripping tighter. ‘I resented that she always came first, that our parents became consumed with her care, that I always had to be good and quiet and sensible.’

  I wrap my arm around her shoulders, tug her close and murmur into her hair, ‘You were a child too. That’s normal. Understandable. I’m an only child, but I’m pretty certain most kids resent their siblings for something. You were just trying to deal with a stressful situation the best way you knew how.’ Violent protective urges rush through me. We have more in common than I realised. We were both vulnerable, both struggling with things we were too young to handle.

  I tighten my grip on her narrow shoulders, the thud of her heart against my chest grounding me.

  She shifts, grunts as if she doesn’t believe me.

  ‘So you kept your head down?’ I say, seeing a young Grace in my head. ‘Worked hard, tried your best to please? Hid your true feelings, your wants and needs to spare your family?’

  She sits up, stares, looking close to tears, swallowing in between sniffs. When she takes off her sunglasses revealing her impassioned eyes, I spy a sheen of tell-tale moisture. ‘Yes, I guess. And because all of my troubles seemed trivial next to what my sister went through. What about you?’

  Tension coils in my muscles—I want to drag her close, engulf her in a hug so fierce, it will reset us both away from the vulnerable places we’ve exposed. Instead I answer her stark honesty with my own.