Crazy for Love

by Victoria Dahl

  “What’s going to happen? What can be worse than finding out that your loving fiancé would rather give up everything in the world than marry you? He jumped out of a plane, Jenn. He abandoned his house and his family and his job and he jumped out of a fucking plane in hopes of never seeing me again.”

  “Chloe…” Jenn sounded like she might be crying.

  “Come on, sweetie. I’m sorry. It’s okay. Thomas was obviously a coward. I knew he was a mama’s boy, but I should’ve seen something more than that, right? I should’ve seen something long before he faked his own death. So part of this must have been my fault, too. I’ll get over it someday. And right now, I’ll just pretend that I’m great because this is a beautiful place and I’m happy.”

  “Are you? I’m so glad you like it here. And maybe, after we get back and the hearing’s over, things will get better.”

  “Yeah, the press can’t possibly be interested for much longer.” Chloe’s vision had fully adjusted to the dark, and now she could make out the pale, sugary circle in Jenn’s hand. “If you’re so upset that you can’t eat that doughnut, you should give it to me. I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

  “Here.”

  “Jenn—”

  “I’m awful company. I’m tired and the waves gave me a headache, so I’m going to bed. I’ll be more fun tomorrow, I promise. Why don’t you go see your new boyfriend?”

  The coyness in her friend’s voice pushed a hesitant smile onto Chloe’s face. “Come on. He hasn’t even pretended to accidentally touch me.”

  “I’ve seen him shoot you a few hot looks. And then there’s your lustful staring.”

  “There is that.”

  “Wander over and see him. He looked wide-awake when we got back.”

  Chloe shrugged. She was thinking of wandering over, but she couldn’t decide if she should go in the hopes of luring Max into a make-out session or solving a mystery. Maybe both? The light of his front window beckoned.

  Yeah, maybe both.

  Jenn stood. “I’m turning in. Go get some nookie for me.” She pressed a kiss to Chloe’s head.

  “Get your own nookie,” Chloe said, but Jenn just shook her head.

  It was only ten o’clock. The boys were going to be awake for a while yet. Taking a bite of the last doughnut, Chloe craned her neck, trying to see if they were on the porch or not. A slightly darker area of shadow on the porch might’ve been one of the men, or it could’ve just been a chair.

  She thought of Max frowning down at those dials, thought of the way he’d checked the hoses and tanks over for long minutes before any of them had splashed into the water.

  He was none of her business, really. She’d only been single for a few weeks. Even under normal circumstances, that would be too soon for anything, even a fling. But at least the puzzle of Max Sullivan was taking her mind off her own problems.

  Chloe dusted off her hands and headed for the men’s cabin.

  Aware of the crabs that scuttled frantically around from the moment the sun set, she stepped carefully across the sand, trying not to cringe every time her foot touched something hard.

  “Hi,” a deep voice said. Though she could only make out the outline of a man, she recognized Elliott’s voice. The clink of dishes drifted through the window behind him. “Max is inside.”

  “Thanks. I just wanted to ask you to keep an eye on the cabin for me. If Jenn comes looking for me, tell her I’m going for a little late-night swim.”

  Glass crashed inside the cabin, and before the last pieces had fallen to the floor, Max jerked the door open from inside. “Hey!” he said brightly.

  “Um, is everything all right?”

  Elliott started to stand up, but Max waved him down. “Everything’s fine.”

  Right. Fine. “Okay… I was just going to take a swim, so if you could—”

  “Care for company?”

  Despite her plan, Chloe couldn’t keep the doubt from her voice. “You want to go swimming? Right now?”

  Dish towel still in hand, Max leaned against the doorjamb, pretending casualness. “Sure,” he said, the straight line of his shoulders giving away his tension. “If you’re going to be there.” Enough light filtered from the living room that she could see his flirtatious smile. He aimed it right at her, oozing charm.

  Oh, my God, Max Sullivan was a total faker.

  Chloe smiled up at him, letting her expression melt a little. “Sure, Max. That’d be great.”

  His shoulders dropped half an inch on his next breath. He tossed the towel aside and jogged down the stairs to join her. Some of her analytical detachment faded as he drew closer. She remembered the way his thighs had flexed in those Speedos, as if the muscles were barely contained by his skin. Man.

  “It’s a little cool to swim, isn’t it?” he asked, pausing to wait for her to turn and start their walk. It had taken him all of one second to try to change her mind.

  “I like it. It feels…thrilling. Tossed around by the waves in the pitch-black.”

  “Mmm. Well, sure, I like to swim at night, but I have a special connection with the sharks who swim after dark, too. It comes with the profession, you know.”

  “Sharks?” she asked, just as he’d wanted her to.

  “Yeah. They like to hunt at night.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  He nodded. “As long as you’re a strong swimmer. The riptides can be a real bitch this time of night.”

  “Oh, sure. I’m pretty strong.”

  Her feet finally touched damp, packed sand. She turned and followed the waterline, watching Max’s large feet make hollows in the sand next to her.

  Max audibly sighed. “So tell me more about your job,” he said.

  She tossed him a smile. “I’m an accountant at a big accounting firm. What do you want me to talk about? Spreadsheets?”

  “Okay, then. Tell me about your family.”

  “I have a mom and a dad and a big sister. I grew up in Richmond in a house with an honest-to-God white picket fence.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep. It was perfectly boring. No scandals. No drama. My sister and I aren’t close, but we get along fine.”

  “Boring is nice.”

  “Hmm. I detect a not-pleasantly-boring childhood.”

  “Nah, it was fine. There was no white picket fence, but I was hardly Oliver Twist. So why did you decide to become an accountant?”

  So he didn’t want to talk about himself? Well, she didn’t particularly feel like talking, either. “I like numbers. And puzzles. I like figuring things out.” Turning to face him, she smiled and began to walk backward toward the water, wondering what he’d do. She pushed down her shorts and tossed them up to the dry sand.

  “Are you coming?” she called as she backed into the breaking waves and slipped her shirt off, as well. The wind touched her belly, warm air rubbing against her like a cat, and she hoped he was checking out her red bikini, since the blue one hadn’t thrilled him.

  “Of course.” Max’s voice oozed cheer.

  Chloe threw her shirt onto the sand and walked in deeper, smiling at the sound of Max’s splashing footsteps behind her. The water was up to her knees. She wasn’t the least bit surprised when he started talking.

  “In Greek mythology, Amphitrite was the wife of Poseidon and the queen of the sea.” He was beside her within two seconds. She kept walking. “But in the beginning, she wasn’t simply Poseidon’s wife. Amphitrite was the sea. The ruler and the goddess and the sea itself. One day Poseidon saw her playing in the water, and he was overwhelmed by her beauty and power.”

  “Oh?” The water lapped against her upper thighs. She stopped to gaze out at the beautiful moon reflecting off the water.

  “Chloe.” His fingertips touched the flat of her shoulder blade, tentative at first, then his touch grew heavier, fingers spreading, palm touching her skin. His hand curved around her shoulder, holding her and pressing his heat inside.

  She froze, afraid if she shi
vered, he’d move his hand.

  “You’re beautiful. You look like part of the sea itself tonight.” His hand kept her still as he circled around to stand in front of her. A wave pushed him closer. “Natural. Peaceful.”

  She knew he was going to kiss her, and she knew he was only kissing her to keep her from swimming, but she didn’t stop him. She wanted to be kissed. Only Thomas had kissed her in the past three years. She wanted those memories erased by someone new.

  Max’s mouth curved in a charming, crooked smile. His eyes fell to her lips and lingered as if he were savoring the moment. But…something was off. His gaze wasn’t heavy-lidded. It wasn’t soft. Sharp thoughts turned behind his eyes.

  Chloe wanted to be kissed, but more than that, she wanted to be wanted. For real. With no lies to dilute that wanting.

  He lowered his head, edging his mouth close to her ear. “I can think of better things for a sea goddess to do on a dark beach than go swimming.”

  She put effort into keeping her voice light and coy. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He stepped forward, and the press of his leg moved her back a step. She knew she was being manipulated, but when his lips brushed her temple, the warmth still sent sparks racing down her neck. Not fair.

  When his hips nudged her, Chloe took a step back in frantic defense. Totally not fair. His mouth curved in triumph, as if he were thrilled he made her nervous, but Chloe was convinced his thrill had more to do with her migration toward the sand. When she planted her feet, sure enough, his eyes narrowed.

  “Come up to the beach,” he murmured. “I want to show you something.”

  “Really? Is it in your pocket? Because that sounds a little creepy.”

  “Oh,” he said. Then, “No!” as he started to laugh. “No, not that. Jesus. I was talking about the moon.” But even past his laughter, he was moving her backward. The waves only reached her knees now.

  “I just thought…” His hands slipped down her shoulders to her upper arms. “We’re finally alone….”

  God, this would be so lovely if he wasn’t faking it. She could just close her eyes and pretend…

  Max dipped his head, easing a centimeter closer to her mouth. “So I thought maybe…”

  “Oh, God, you’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”

  His chin jerked back a little before he eased back into his role. “I sure am,” he said with a slow drawl.

  “It’s not fair, Max.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re going to make out with me just to keep me from swimming!”

  This time his whole body jerked back when his chin drew in. Chloe gave him a disappointed push to help him along.

  “What?” he huffed.

  “You don’t want me to swim at night, so you’re pretending you want to make out!”

  Panic flashed in his eyes, but Max assumed an incredulous expression. “That’s ridiculous. What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you being a freak, Max.”

  “Hey!”

  Shaking her head in disgust, Chloe spun away from him and waded toward the sand. “I thought you liked me.”

  “Wait…” His splashing tossed water high, making her shiver when the drops struck the small of her back. She’d felt confident and playful a moment before, but now she was left vulnerable in her swimsuit, exposed to a man who didn’t find her attractive.

  She made it to the waterline and looked around for her shirt.

  “Chloe,” Max said behind her. She jerked away when his fingers curled around her elbow. “Chloe, I do like you. So why are you calling me a freak?”

  “Give it up, already. I’m on to you, okay? I see what you’re doing.”

  “What?” He threw his hands up. “What am I doing?”

  Though he tried to hold her gaze, Chloe turned away to search the beach for her shirt. Humiliation was a familiar enough feeling that it only stung a little when she realized how close she’d come to letting him distract her with his fake kisses. Even now she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Or just opened it for him, actually. She could be rolling around on the sand with her hands wrapped around those big biceps right now.

  “Last night, you weren’t interested in me or in Jenn, were you? You were checking on the fire. That’s why you came over.”

  “Chloe,” he said, his voice warm with indulgent laughter. “Come on.”

  “And the diving? You didn’t want to go diving. You didn’t even look at that wreck.”

  This time he didn’t respond. Finally spotting her shirt, Chloe sprinted over to grab it and shook it hard to be sure there were no crabs nesting in it. She jerked it over her head, then glanced back to find him standing five feet away, hands open as if he’d paused midgesture.

  He inclined his head, and his hands completed the circular motion. “Of course I wanted to go diving. I love diving. It’s what I do. Sorry, I must’ve gone into work mode. I guess I’m not used to diving on vacation anymore.”

  “Max.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a big fat liar! You didn’t want to have marshmallows, and you didn’t want to go diving, and you definitely didn’t want to make out on the beach tonight.”

  “I… It’s…” He looked dumbstruck. His big, sexy shoulders drooped. “It’s no fun to make out on the beach. The fucking sand is a hundred times worse than a rug burn.”

  “The sand? What’s the sand got to do with anything?”

  “You said I didn’t want to make out with you. That’s not true. I just didn’t want to do it here.”

  She ignored the stab of ugly hope that hit her belly. Slick talk. “So why’d you follow me out here?”

  He snapped his mouth shut.

  “Why did you want to come with me?”

  “It seemed like a fun idea.” There was a tiny note of question in the last word, as if she finally had him on shaky ground, but he clearly didn’t mean to give up the truth. She’d had enough of lying men.

  Chloe shook her head in disgust. “I need to find my shorts,” she growled, bitterly aware that a phrase like that should be uttered under much happier circumstances. “Good night. I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Wishing she’d brought a flashlight, Chloe walked along the waterline, squinting into the darkness. Where the hell could her shorts have gone? Had she missed the sand completely and they were even now floating toward Europe? The perfect end to a shitty evening.

  She finally spotted the shorts and hurried to grab them. No wonder they’d been hard to spot. The pale gray material blended right into the sand. As she checked them over carefully for clawed animals, Max’s voice emerged from the darkness.

  “I didn’t want you to drown.”

  Chloe frowned and turned toward him, shorts clutched to her stomach. “What?” She couldn’t make out his features in the ten feet of darkness between them, but she could see that he’d stopped walking and stood with his hands shoved into his pockets.

  “I didn’t want you to drown. Or get eaten by a shark.”

  “Okay.” He was talking, at least, but she couldn’t see the logic. “So you came along to keep me from drowning. Why couldn’t you just say that?”

  The edge of his jaw looked hard as rock now. “Because people don’t like to be told what to do.”

  “Max—”

  “People don’t want to hear that swimming at night is idiotic. In fact, if you tell someone they’ve got a really stupid idea, they become determined to prove you wrong.”

  “So you made it seem like a great idea instead?”

  “I just thought I’d find a way to distract you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at his words and took a step forward. Now she could see his mouth set in a flat line. “What about the beach fire? You didn’t really come over just to flirt, did you?”

  “Your pit was too close to the sea grass. It needed to be deeper, and I wanted to be sure you didn’t build it so high it would stay hot all night long.”

 
“I see. I suppose I can understand being haunted by Smokey the Bear. Lots of people have a fear of fire.” She crossed her arms. “So what about the diving?”

  He took his hands out of his pockets, then put them back in before rocking back and forth on his heels.

  “Max?”

  “What about it?”

  “You didn’t want to go.”

  His mouth tilted at an incredulous angle. “I asked to go.”

  “Jesus, Max!”

  “What do you want me to say? I’m a professional diver. You actually think I don’t like diving?”

  “You did not want to dive with us, so why did you go?”

  “Because diving is incredibly dangerous,” he bit out. “And you were diving with a guy with unknown credentials. Who picks a dive guide off the grocery store bulletin board?”

  Whoa. Well, he wasn’t being charming anymore. Chloe told herself that was progress.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, kicking at a clump of wet sand. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I don’t know what got into me.”

  Chloe suspected she knew what had gotten into him. Panic. But now she was getting truly angry. “So you didn’t want to dive?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t want to toast marshmallows?”

  “No.”

  Great. Another guy pretending to like her. Just fucking great. She was cursed. “Well,” she snapped, “I’m not going swimming, so you can go now.”

  “It’s dark out here. I wouldn’t want to—”

  “Just go! I absolve you of any responsibility, okay?” Wrapped up in her righteous anger, Chloe wasn’t expecting any response from him. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to shout again.

  “It doesn’t work like that, damn it!” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “You can’t absolve me of responsibility, Chloe. If I leave you out here alone in the dark and something happens to you, it’ll be on me, because I left knowing it wasn’t right.”

  She shook her head. “I’m an adult. You’re not responsible for me. I can do whatever I want.”

  “That’s the problem!” His hands flew wide, gesturing around him, as if drawing attention to the whole world. “You can do anything you want, so I have to make you want something else.”