Gentle Persuasion

by Cerella Sechrist

  “I assumed you were born and raised in New York,” he commented.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw her shrug. “My father was French but much older than my mother. We lived there until his death when I was seven. That’s when my mother returned with me to the States and opened the recruiting agency.”

  He sensed that her casual response blanketed a much deeper story but chose not to pursue it. Yet.

  “Do you speak French, then?” he asked.

  She responded by rattling off a long string of words in lyrical French and then shrugged. “I’m fluent. I spent summers in Paris as a teenager, staying with my cousins.”

  He recognized the nostalgia in her voice. “It sounds like you miss it.”

  She was silent for a long stretch.

  “It’s the only place I ever felt really at home. Like the Place of Refuge, it was my sanctuary.”

  She grew quiet once more, and though Dane wished to question her further, he didn’t know how to broach the subject. But he recognized that something unspoken weighed on her, some burden she hadn’t shared aloud.

  He longed to learn what she had kept hidden, but just then, they arrived at the Place of Refuge, and his opportunity passed.

  He determined that before the day was out, he would discover more about Ophelia’s need for a sanctuary.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OPHELIA BREATHED A sigh of relief as Dane pulled into the parking lot of Pu’uhonua O Hōnaunau. Their conversation had been trespassing on dangerously familiar ground, and she wasn’t sure how much personal information she should share with Dane.

  Not that she didn’t want to share with him. She found him amazingly easy to talk to, but she barely knew this man, and her objective here did not include creating any real intimacy between them—only gaining his trust and confidence so she could steer him toward the right decision.

  She put these thoughts aside, however, as she exited the vehicle and followed Dane to the entrance. By the time they paid the admission fee and entered the Refuge area, her attention was fully refocused by the historic views around her. She took in the sight of the wall bordering the Place of Refuge. It was an impressive display of the boundaries guarding the sanctuary.

  “It’s made of lava rock,” Dane informed as he stood beside her. “Something like twelve feet high and seventeen feet thick. It’s over one thousand feet long.”

  “Amazing to think this was all done before the invention of modern machinery. It must have taken forever to assemble.”

  “Well, if you think this is impressive, wait until you see the ki’i statues guarding the temple that overlooks the cove. They’re a fierce sight to behold. I can’t imagine swimming the bay only to encounter such monstrous images.”

  “Like the gargoyles of Notre Dame,” she observed.

  His eyes lit up. “Exactly!”

  The animation in Dane’s voice tugged at Ophelia somewhere deep inside. He loved this place—the islands with their rich history, beloved traditions and warm people. They drew him in the same way Paris had always drawn her. Just then, something in Ophelia shifted, and as she watched Dane, still highlighting the significance of sanctuary within the walls of the Refuge, she suddenly felt a kinship with him take root in her. Perhaps their dreams differed a bit, but this mutual passion for a place of belonging drew her a little closer to understanding his intense reaction to interlopers.

  She waited until he paused for breath before speaking once more. “Well, then, give me the grand tour of the place. It sounds like you’re the best guide I could have.”

  He positively beamed at these words, and before she quite realized it was happening, his palm was resting in the small of her back, gently guiding her along the wooden walkway toward the beach. At first, her muscles tensed at his touch, and then she gradually relaxed, even leaning in toward him to catch his every word as his voice fell hushed with reverence.

  It was the sacredness of the spot, she realized. The other tourists were equally soft in their conversations, immersed in the tranquility of the Refuge. Dane led her toward the beach where a young man worked at carving a log of koa wood into an outrigger canoe. Other tourists gathered around to watch until a little girl exclaimed and drew their attention several yards away to the presence of two sea turtles slowly making their way up the shore.

  Ophelia and Dane observed their steady progress for a bit before moving on toward the temple, which Dane pronounced as Hale o Keawe heiau in Hawaiian. He whispered in her ear that the bones of twenty-three ancient chiefs were once housed in the structure, and it was their ancestral power that gave the temple its honors of asylum.

  “The Refuge wasn’t just for those who broke kapu, either,” Dane elaborated. “When war broke out, it was neutral territory for anyone who sought safety within its walls. Your enemies could not come past the white tapa streamers. If you made it past those lines, you were safe. For the time being.”

  He turned his head in her direction, and she was confronted with the intense stare of his blue eyes before jerking back, realizing how close she had been leaning in toward him. He cleared his throat and looked away while she fought the blush she knew must be rising in her cheeks.

  Before she could say anything to dispel the awkwardness, a group of performers began filing out onto the platform before the heiau. They were dressed in full ancient tribal regalia complete with colorful feathered capes and headdresses that gave the impression of tropical birds. The women wore long-flowing grass skirts and swaths of fabric across their chests in colors of turquoise-blue and lava-red. Their thick, dark hair reached down their backs to touch the base of their hips as they began to rotate slowly into the beginnings of the hula dance.

  Two of the men began singing in soft cadences of the Hawaiian tongue, their voices growing louder as they progressed and the women’s hips undulating in time to the music. As it had been since she and Dane arrived, the atmosphere remained reverent, the grounds bathed in hushed respect for the holiness of the place. Ophelia relaxed once more as she observed the graceful swaying of the dancers’ hips, the fluid movement of their arms as they weaved them through the air. She felt rather envious of their elegant, easy gestures, their arms gliding through the movements in an expression of culture and tradition.

  As the hula dance concluded, the small crowd of tourists dispersed, and Dane led her away farther down the beach. They strolled in silence for a few minutes, and Ophelia breathed in the clean, crisp scent of the salty air.

  “This place is amazing,” Ophelia confessed, turning her attention to Dane and finding him watching her closely. “How reassuring to have such a safe haven—the opportunity to escape your mistakes by seeking refuge here.”

  “After swimming past the sharks in the bay and finding your way over the lava-rock flats of the shore,” Dane reminded her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, there’s that, yes.” She paused. “But it had to be a comfort of sorts, didn’t it? To know that if you messed up and broke kapu or if someone had it out for you...you could always try to reach this place and be sheltered from whatever pursued you. To have a refuge like that, in the midst of any crisis—the Hawaiians were brilliant to think it up.”

  She thought maybe Dane would laugh at this, but he nodded seriously. “I always liked the idea of a clean slate—coming here and having your sin absolved, for whatever law you’d broken. It makes the thought of slipping up a little less...dramatic.”

  She nudged him slightly. “Dane Montgomery? Make mistakes? I don’t believe it.”

  The teasing tone in her voice caused him to smile but only slightly. “When the world puts you on a pedestal, one mistake is a very long way to fall.”

  This statement sobered her. “Is that why you left? Stopped doing what you did? Were you afraid you’d take a fall?”

  He shrugged and looked out over the water.
“I stopped because...I didn’t enjoy it anymore. Any of it. I had no one to tell me the truth, to bounce ideas off without receiving some sort of worshipful response. The challenges became the same, day in and day out, and the people who surrounded me...they were all the same, too.”

  He looked at her, and she felt a swell of sympathy.

  “I left because it wasn’t worth it anymore.”

  She knew now was the time to highlight all the reasons he should return, under this particular assignment. She considered saying how Towers Resorts International was a unique situation, requiring his specific skills and how he’d be working among those who challenged his vision, as well as complemented it....

  But seeing the weary expression on Dane’s face, the haggard look in his eyes when he talked about his life before this one—the words died before they could reach her lips.

  Dane began walking along the shore, just beyond reach of the waves stretching across it. Ophelia followed.

  “So how about you?” he asked. “What made you decide to follow in your mother’s footsteps?”

  Ophelia hesitated, but when Dane looked back at her, she shrugged. “I never really considered doing anything else. Except...”

  “Except?”

  “For photography. I used to love taking pictures, and I had this crazy dream to become a Parisian photographer, live in an artist’s studio and sell postcards of the Eiffel Tower featuring my own photos.” She laughed softly to dispel the regret in her words. “But Ms. Reid, um...Mother soon convinced me of the impossibility of such a plan.”

  Dane didn’t reply immediately, but they walked side by side in the direction of the visitor’s center.

  “Were you any good?” he asked at last.

  “I won a few awards in high school, took photographs for the school newspaper. That sort of thing.”

  “So is that what you were referring to, concerning the conversation with Masters? When you said no one should be bullied into giving up on their dream?”

  She frowned. “Something like that, I guess.”

  She was relieved when Dane didn’t pursue the topic further.

  Instead, he suggested they head the short distance to Honaunau Bay to do some snorkeling. The idea both intrigued and intimidated her. She had been raised in the city, after all, and most of her underwater adventures had taken place at her mother’s upscale gym. When she told Dane this after arriving at the bay, he laughed and thrust a mask into her hands.

  She turned her back as she slipped out of her borrowed outfit to reveal the swimsuit beneath. Though she was grateful for Holly’s insistence in offering her a suit, she wished her assistant’s tastes were a bit more modest. The bikini left little to the imagination.

  Her fears were confirmed as she turned and caught Dane drinking in an eyeful of her figure. To his credit, he quickly turned away and directed her toward the gear he had brought.

  She and Dane settled on the lava-rock flats fronting the bay to don their snorkeling equipment before stepping into the waves. She had been reluctant when they first entered the bay and more than a little distracted by the sight of Dane’s chiseled chest and shoulders as he treaded water beside her. His instructions had been simple enough on how to clear the snorkel’s tube and comfortably position the mask and mouthpiece to look at her reassuringly.

  Her hesitation must have been evident on her face because Dane removed his own mask and mouthpiece to smile at her.

  “You’ll be fine, Ophelia. I’m right here, okay? It’s only a depth of about ten feet this close to shore, and I’ll be right next to you the entire time.”

  She nodded and suddenly relaxed, as if her body simply needed the reassurance that Dane wasn’t going anywhere. He repositioned his snorkel and mask and waited until she gave a nod before leading the way and ducking into the water ahead of her. With a deep breath, she followed.

  For an hour, they explored the underwater landscape of Honaunau Bay, and Dane kept his word, always staying near enough that she could reach out and touch him, if necessary. Gradually, she relaxed so completely that the experience became one of wonder rather than worry. She frequently swept her hand through the water to brush Dane, drawing his attention to her latest discovery: a unique formation of coral, the flick of a tang’s tale, the slithering departure of a moray eel, and the ever-present sea turtles gliding through the water with a grace they simply could not replicate on land.

  Ophelia and Dane surfaced repeatedly to purge their snorkel tubes but did little speaking before returning underwater. Finally, they looked at each other and with unspoken, mutual agreement, surfaced and swam for the shore. Dane helped Ophelia stand and guided her back to a shelf of lava rock where she could sit and catch her breath.

  “That was...amazing!” she gushed. “Did you see how close the turtles came? They swam right by me! One even brushed my arm!”

  Dane grinned as he shook the water out of his hair. “I noticed. I was there.”

  She laughed and reached up a hand to wring the water from her own hair. “Oh, of course. You must be used to this by now.”

  “What? Never. It’s a new experience every time I do something like this. You never know what you’ll see. Of course—” he eyed her “—it’s fun seeing it for the first time through someone else’s eyes. Besides, you did pretty good for a city girl.”

  His words were teasing, but she felt a flush of pleasure nonetheless. “Thanks. Guess those lessons at Mother’s gym paid off.”

  His laughter warmed her even more.

  “So...you grew up in Paris?” he asked.

  She spread her palms across the sun-warmed surface of the rock beneath them, letting the heat soak into her water-wrinkled fingers. “Until I was seven,” she reminded.

  “Right, when your father died.”

  “Mmm.”

  He leaned back, his weight leveraged by his arms as he supported himself on the stone plateau. “That must have been difficult, losing your father so young.”

  She released a sigh. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Did you miss it? When you moved back to the States?”

  Ophelia wasn’t sure why she didn’t mind these questions from him. Generally, she shied away from speaking about her childhood, her father’s death and the bitter changes in her mother’s personality once she moved them to New York. Perhaps it was the water, which had washed away her inhibitions, or the comforting warmth of the sun, heating the rocks beneath her, but she felt completely at ease as she answered him.

  “I missed it so much that it became my dream to move back there one day. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I’ve wanted to return there for good. It was home. No place since has ever felt so inviting to me.”

  “I take it your mother didn’t feel the same way?”

  Ophelia cringed involuntarily. “It was more difficult for her. She had lost her husband, was saddled with a young daughter to raise. I don’t think she saw beyond the basic need to provide for us after my father died.”

  “Your father had no means in place in the event of his death?”

  “Some,” she confessed. “Enough for the initial capital to get Reid Recruiting off the ground. My mother worked very hard to see that it paid off.”

  She tilted her head back, allowing the sun to saturate her skin and send waves of warmth across her body. After a time, she realized Dane had fallen silent. She opened her eyes and turned her head to find him studying her intently. She felt the first twinge of self-consciousness since she had begun speaking.

  His stare lingered for a moment longer before he turned his attention away.

  “It must be difficult,” he ventured after a brief silence, “to live in her shadow.”

  “Not so much her shadow as her very aura.”

  “Mmm.” His silence following this nettled her, so that sh
e looked at him.

  “Don’t pretend to know what it’s like. I bet your parents are wonderful people—a mom who baked apple pies and welcomed you home from school, and a father who worked hard but took the time to help you with your homework at night.”

  “You’re not that far off,” he agreed. “But my father’s gone now. He died of a massive heart attack two years ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” She felt a swell of sympathy for his loss, especially so soon after his retirement. She wondered if his father had ever had the chance to visit the inn and plantation to see what his son was trying to accomplish. “And your mother?”

  “I tried to convince her to move here after his death, but she didn’t want to leave her life in Ohio behind. My sister lives about two hours from her, so she keeps an eye on things. Mom loves having her grandkids visit, and yes, it just so happens that her specialty is apple pie.”

  Ophelia felt a swell of resentment, perhaps even jealousy. “My mother’s just not that kind of woman. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me or anything like that. She does. I know she does.” Ophelia hated how defensive she sounded.

  “I never said she didn’t.” Dane paused. “It must have been difficult for her, raising you alone.” He paused again, then said, “So how about dating? Anyone special?”

  “Not...currently.”

  He raised an eyebrow with interest. “I sense a story.”

  “No, no story.” She spoke a little too quickly, and his second eyebrow rose. “Okay, well, there was someone, but we recently...decided to take a break.”

  “We? A mutual parting?”

  “Um...”

  He rose up from where he’d been leaning on the rocks. She did the same.

  “Was it a long-term relationship?”

  “Four years.”

  He whistled low. “So why the break, as you called it?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  He folded his arms across his chest, and she forced herself not to stare at the sight. “Come on, I’m curious.”