by Zoe York
Will was a fast learner, that was for damn sure. It didn’t take long until she was throbbing for him, her clit a hard nub against his fingertips, and her legs spread wide on their own. Invitingly. Desperately.
He tugged the cotton aside and repeated the same gestures, spreading her slick wetness up and down her slit. Each roll against her clit make her gasp and each circling touch at her entrance made her want to beg for more.
Him inside her.
A reckless fuck.
Something, anything, that might prove they had a real connection. That she hadn’t lost him because of a dumb move a decade earlier.
But Will was stronger than her. He didn’t unbuckle, didn’t thrust into her and take what she was foolishly offering.
No, what he did was a million times better. And smarter. And hotter.
He kissed her mouth one more time, and then he dropped to his knees. With a last, fierce look up at her, he buried his head between her legs and drove her wild.
It didn’t take long for her to come. He knew exactly what she liked. He applied all that he had quickly learned on the rest of her body. That she liked to be nipped, that she gasped every time her clit was rubbed in a circle. That she really, really liked to be sucked on.
When he found the right rhythm, he kept it up until she grabbed his hair, ground her hips into his face, and came in spectacular fashion.
It took her a minute to regain her bearings. The spots in her vision faded, the jelly in her legs re-solidified into bones. And when she finally opened her eyes, Will was standing in front of her. Right up against her, in fact.
“Was that good?” He grinned.
She grabbed his face and pulled him in for a kiss. He tasted like her now. She could smell herself on his skin, taste herself on his lips, and this was not at all how any of this was supposed to go. Oh well.
This was better.
Aside from the whole she’d-accidentally-lied-to-her-husband thing. That was still a big fucking deal. She whimpered as the guilty feelings slammed back into her.
“Don’t freak out,” he said as he braced himself over her, his arm on the wall beside her head. He was breathing heavily.
So was she. “Too late.”
He kissed her. “You gotta know two things,” he said gruffly when he finally let her up for air again.
“What?”
“One, I made you promises. This doesn’t change that.”
She didn’t understand. “But it should,” she whispered.
“Well it doesn’t. And two, we’re going to fix this. Not you. Us. Together, okay? Get your passport. We’ll go to Vegas together and find out what we can do about this bullshit.”
Chapter Fifteen
Get her passport. Daphne had to laugh at the preposterousness of the entire situation. “It’s not that easy, you know.” Except Will wouldn’t know. He probably carried his passport on him at all times just in case he accidentally fell into a private jet. She dragged an unsteady breath into her lungs. “Maybe it would be better if I—”
But she didn’t know how to finish that promise. She’d what? Hire a lawyer? With money she didn’t have, on the off chance that she might be successful, and get some of Will’s money in the end?
No. She could let him manage this. If he still wanted her—and the look in his eyes promised that he did—then he could help her here.
The thought of relying on someone else for something so huge terrified Daphne. She did her damnedest to ignore the surge of panic that rose in her chest. She was pretty sure one couldn’t die from panic. It would be okay.
Will waited. He waited and watched her face, and as the beats passed between them—silent, expectant, open to her alternative ideas, which she didn’t have—the terror faded away and a new, unexpected truth solidified in her heart.
He had her back.
She didn’t know why.
He was offering to take her to Vegas and help her fix this problem that was not really his problem.
She could trust Will Parry. A man who a week ago she’d probably have called her nemesis. Huh.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. She blinked at him. He’d just gone down on her, after yelling at her, and finding out she’d kept a really big, bad secret from him. “Is it that easy? Get my passport and off we go? Because I have to be honest, I don’t understand what just happened.”
His response was careful. Slow and steady. “Neither do I. But it feels right, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her heart pounding in her chest.
“Good.” He kissed her hard on the mouth. “Now go and tell your boss you’ve come down with something incredibly contagious and you can’t work the rest of the week.”
She wanted to tell him that was obnoxiously privileged, and she didn’t want to leave her co-workers in a lurch. But on the other hand, she’d just received incredible ladyhead in the storage closet and she almost certainly looked like she was coming down with something awful.
Plus, there were a surplus of bartenders on the island. They’d be fine here.
And she really did need to find out if she had two husbands. Because she wanted to keep the new one, and it would be best to ditch the old one as soon as humanly possible.
She buried her face in his chest. “Okay. I’ll go do that—in a minute. After I fully recover from…”
He chuckled. “Sure thing.”
She took a long, sobering breath, then looked back up at him and asked the big, scary question that wouldn’t get out of her head. “What if I need to get a divorce?”
“Then it’s a good thing I keep a pit bull of a lawyer on retainer, isn’t it? We’ll turn her evil eye on whoever it is that stands in our way.”
“That’s not funny.” But she smiled anyway.
“I’m going back to the estate to talk to Gill. Can you come with me?”
She took a deep breath. “I’ll find out if someone can cover the rest of the shift.”
“I’ll wait.”
Will stayed in the supply closet. He told Daphne to come back and get him when she was ready to go, and while she went and ditched her shift, he did his best to quickly process what the hell had happened. A fucking hot, completely unplanned obliteration of boundaries at the literal worst moment possible, that’s what.
He didn’t regret a single second of it.
He wanted to do it all again, as soon as possible.
But first, he had to make some calls.
The first one was to Brayden. “I need to head back to the States for a bit,” he said.
“We’ll try hard to miss you,” his friend said.
“It’s kind of complicated.”
“I wasn’t asking why. Do you want me to?”
Will laughed. “No. But I want you to know I’m not ditching work.”
“We’re spending your money, don’t worry. You don’t need to be here in the office for that.”
But the thing was, he wanted to be there, be more than just the silent investor. He wanted to make a difference. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Are you taking your lawyer with you? She’s taken over the verandah and I think Cara doesn’t like her.”
Damn it. Two for two. Gill wasn’t the enemy here, but if she was setting everyone’s nerves on edge, he needed to address that. “Yeah, I’ll come and fetch her soon.”
His next call was to his father’s secretary to find out where the family’s private jets were. She said the patriarch of the Parry clan was in Palm Beach, and if Will wanted to use his jet for the next twenty-four hours, it could be in Miralinda within two hours.
He only hesitated for a moment. He didn’t want to involve anyone in his family in this private matter, but on the other hand, to most in the Parry clan, summoning one of the private jets wouldn’t be cause for alarm.
Just because Will rarely used them himself, didn’t mean it would grab any unwanted attention. It would be the fastest way to get to Vegas. “Make it happen. Please, and tha
nk you.”
The last call he turned into a tweet at the last minute. A short message to Gill, telling her to pack her stuff and wait by the curb.
They were all taking a trip together.
Lord help them all.
Daphne had never been on a private plane before. She’d never been on a jet before, either. The only plane rides she’d ever taken were short, island-to-island trips in the air-equivalent of a Greyhound bus, complete with an uncomfortably persistent whiff of urine.
“This is ridiculous,” she whispered to Will. “I mean that in wow, look at all that bling kind of way.”
He nodded. “Yep. I don’t use it often.”
“I’ve never been on a plane this nice.” She kept her voice low, because Gill didn’t need to know that about her. Although if the woman had found out about Daphne’s stupid mistake of a marriage, she probably also had a complete flight log dating back to childhood.
Will gave her a soft smile. “This was the fastest way to get us to the west coast. Don’t worry about it.”
Easier said than done. There had been a super awkward discussion when they’d picked up Gill about what their destinations would be. Will had wanted to drop Gill off in Miami, where she’d flown in from, but she’d pushed back, saying it would be better if she flew to the west coast with them.
It would give her and Daphne a chance to get to know each other, she’d said.
Nothing had ever sounded less fun to Daphne. She wanted to poke Will in the side and demand he drop-kick his lawyer out of the plane as soon as they were over the continental US. But given the circumstances for their rush back stateside, she really didn’t have a strong leg to stand on.
Which is why she was being herded into an oversized leather captain’s chair on a private plane and she wasn’t planning to mainline as much champagne as humanly possible.
That would have to wait for the flight back, if Will was still speaking to her at that point.
Even if he wasn’t, she was tagging back for the ride. For better or for worse, they were besties of besties. He was stuck with her no matter what. But she’d only drink his champagne if she hadn’t irreparably fucked up. She had some reasonable limits.
Instead of looking at Gill, Daphne looked out the window. The tarmac was right there. Nope, didn’t want to look out the window. She glanced back at Will as he sat in the seat beside her.
Gill sat across the small aisle, her thumb going a mile a minute on her phone as she finished a message before they took off. She wasn’t paying them any attention right now, but that wouldn’t last long.
This plane was officially too fucking small. No amount of polished mahogany or extra-soft leather could make up for the fact the lone flight attendant was about to close the door and lock them into a very gilded cage.
Where was the executive bedroom? Didn’t all private planes have some sort of ridiculous California King in the back for orgies? She could hide in an orgy space. No shame. No judgment.
But this plane seemed to be orgy space free. Damn it.
Daphne’s chest pulled tight as she tried to breathe in.
Damn. It.
Will was watching her, so she gave him a tight, everything’s-fine smile.
His brows pulled into a tight furrow. He didn’t buy it.
Crap.
He leaned in and brushed his lips against the curve of her ear. “If it makes you feel better, we can exchange rough air travel stories.”
“I don’t think that’s how making a nervous flyer feel better works.”
“Maybe not. I come from the school of tough love training.”
She laughed nervously. “Suck it up, buttercup?”
“More like, it could be way worse. This is a top-of-the-line plane, piloted by a former fighter pilot.”
“Really?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
She poked his arm. “That’s not funny.”
He grinned. “I should tell you about the time I shared a flight to the Arctic with a bunch of chickens.”
“Let me guess. You had to jump out of the plane or something and they didn’t want to?”
He laughed. “No, not human chickens. Chicken chickens.” He flapped his arms. “Bok bok bwak kind of chickens. Noisy little fuckers. They don’t like takeoff.”
Oh. “That’s less fancy than this.”
“Just a bit.”
He was interrupted by the pilot coming back to introduce himself. He looked like a former fighter pilot. Daphne was going to pretend that was the case. The flight attendant did a quick safety run through, shorter and more personable than on a commercial flight, and then they were off, taxiing down the small runway just outside Petite Ciotat.
As they soared into the air, the island shrinking behind them, Daphne took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This was going to be whatever it was going to be.
“Daphne?”
That wasn’t Will’s voice.
She swallowed hard, opened her eyes, and looked over at Gill. “Yes?”
“Can I ask you some questions?”
The plane leveled off and Will unbuckled. “I’ll move back a row.”
She wanted to cling to his arm. No, don’t move. But it would be weird having a conversation over him, too. She shifted into the seat he’d just vacated, leaving an aisle between her and the lawyer.
The flight attendant brought them coffee and orange juice, and then there was no more delaying to be done.
“Ask away,” Daphne said.
Gill nodded, then glanced at her phone. “First of all, this young man you married. Adrian Carter. We can’t find him. He disappeared a year later, and his social security number hasn’t been used in nine years.” She gave Daphne a searching look.
“Oh. That’s…” She made a face. That was sad, really. “Not what I was expecting to hear, I guess. That’s too bad.”
“You’ve never spoken to him since?”
“No. Never.” Daphne rubbed her chest. “Does that mean he’s presumed dead? What would that mean for me?” Was she a widow from a marriage she’d never really experienced?
“There’s literally no paper trail. So that may be something we can petition for, or find a way for his family to do it without involving you, but you’d want a copy of that death certificate. But no, right now, he’s not presumed dead. He’s not presumed anything, because he disappeared into thin air.”
“Oh.” Jesus.
“When you knew him, was he involved in anything criminal?”
“He used drugs recreationally.” Daphne was painfully aware of Will sitting behind her now. “I didn’t do that with him. I mean, I’ve smoked pot a few times, but I never did anything else.”
Gill nodded without any significant reaction. “What was his gambling habit like?”
“He didn’t really have a gambling habit. The trip to Vegas was the first time…” Daphne trailed off. “I thought it was the first time he’d really gambled. But he played poker weekly. And he…”
Gill looked up. “And he what?”
“He knew his way around the casino,” Daphne whispered. “I didn’t see it at the time.”
The lawyer nodded. “So he had secrets from you.”
They’d been kids. She hadn’t known anything. “I guess so.”
Gill gave her a polite smile. “I’ll get someone on that angle.”
“What angle?” She felt dumb. “Gambling debts?”
“Maybe. Won’t know until we dig into it.” Gill looked past her to Will. “It’ll be end of business by the time you get to Vegas. You could stay in San Diego tonight and fly the last leg in the morning. Show Daphne your place.”
What? Daphne swung her head around, banging her cheek on the side of the leather headrest.
Will was smiling. “That’s a great plan.”
Was it?
Daphne didn’t know what to think. This morning, she’d woken up on her boat. Sure, Will had been in his boxer-briefs and that had been disorienting and hard to ignor
e, but she’d gotten used to that normal.
Now she was going to end the day at his place in California.
And he thought it was a great plan.
Even though she had another husband, who was missing, and may have been a serious gambler at twenty.
The flight attendant returned, and as she picked up Daphne’s coffee mug, she handed over a small menu. “This is what we’re serving for lunch today. Would you like a drink with that?”
“Do you have tequila?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll take a double.” When she finished that, she’d probably want another.
What a fucking day. And it was only half over.
Chapter Sixteen
Will wasn’t about to tell Daphne not to drink, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to be pulling the women apart at ten thousand feet.
His concern was misplaced, however. After his wife tipped back her double shot of tequila, neat, she took a long, careful breath, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
She didn’t wake up until they started their descent to the San Diego airport.
After jolting awake and giving him a wide-eyed look, she crossed her arms and attempted to look casually awake. “So, anything fun happen while I napped?”
He chuckled. “Nothing. We did some work.”
She raised her eyebrows in silent acknowledgment, then turned to look out the window. “Oh!”
The city was right there. They would descend through it, nearly grazing apartment buildings on their way down. It took some getting used to.
“The airport’s right in the heart of the city,” Will said, taking her hand. “Short drive home.”
“Great,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
It was straining the truth to say they’d done work while she slept. Gill had briefed him on a few things, but for the most part he’d read a book and watched Daphne sleep.
Yeah, his first reaction had been anger. But ever since he told her that he knew about the first marriage, and he saw the look of shock and horror on her face, his only concern had been for the impact this was all having on Daphne. Maybe if he hadn’t rushed her, if she’d met a guy and fallen in love, started talking about marriage, it would have slid back into her memories. Maybe if they’d applied for a wedding license like normal people instead of invoking some island workaround that avoided extra effort and paperwork…
