Della cast a quick glance around Luke’s suite—one small microcosm of the ship she loved, its gold-and-maroon furnishings, the rich wood and curved walls. What would it take for her to sell her share of Patrick’s ship?
“It’s not that simple,” she said, shifting in her seat. “If I’d known Patrick was leaving me half the Cora Mae, naturally I would have told him not to. And in that conversation, he would have been able to explain why he was doing it. But I never had the chance to discuss it with him, so I’m not privy to his reasoning. And make no mistake, his reasoning faculties were sound till the end. How can I give it up if I don’t know why I have it in the first place?”
Luke’s shoulders tensed. This was obviously not the direction he wanted the conversation to be heading. “So, what—you’re holding out for a secret letter, or a clue to his intentions?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Now that he’d said it aloud, she realized she had been hoping a letter from Patrick would surface that explained his will, however unlikely that would be—if he’d written one, it would have been attached to his will, or in the papers the executor held. But there had to be some hint somewhere. “Surely we’ll work out why he left it this way?”
“It’s more likely that we’ll never find out,” Luke said, sounding as annoyed about that possibility as she was.
She crossed her ankles and smoothed her skirt over her knees. “I’m sorry, Luke. I can’t give you an answer yet.”
He rubbed his fingers across his forehead, as if he could smooth out the lines that had become embedded there. “Surely you can’t want to be a part-owner?”
“Since coming to work and live on the Cora Mae two years ago when my father was captain, I’ve developed a certain sense of...ownership. I became good friends with Patrick, partly through his close relationship with my parents, and because of our frequent discussions about the ship, I often thought about changes I’d love to see.”
“Your training is in medicine,” he said slowly, “not in business management.”
“That’s a fair point. But I have lifelong observations of shipboard life. With my inside knowledge of how a ship works, having been part of discussions about ships with my family since I was a child, and later with Patrick, my input into the Cora Mae’s future could be worthwhile. And I have to admit—” she allowed a small smile to slip out “—part of me relishes the chance to try.”
Luke tapped a finger on the table, his gaze not wavering from her face. “What about your medical career?”
“I always thought I wanted to follow in my mother’s footsteps as a ship’s doctor. But perhaps I’d like to follow closer to my father’s path and have a greater say in this ship’s future.”
Eyes searching, he took a long sip of his wine and swallowed, as if biding his time.
“So now we’ve explored my intentions,” she said, “how about you tell me what your plans would be for the ship. Would you keep the current Pacific route?”
He didn’t move, yet something changed. Luke was suddenly a businessman again, looking at her with all the assurance of a CEO delivering a business plan. “There are still some details to be ironed out, but I’m planning to anchor her in the Great Barrier Reef as Marlow Corporation’s first floating hotel.”
“What? Why?” She blurted out the words before she could stop herself, her entire body recoiling from Luke’s plan.
“Costs will be reduced by eliminating fuel and related expenses, and with the permanent location, guests would be able to get up close and personal with one of the seven wonders of the natural world. They’d have everyday access to excursions such as snorkeling the reef.”
She sucked in her bottom lip. The idea of the Cora Mae no longer cruising the oceans as she was meant to was devastating. “Why not just buy or build a hotel on one of the islands? Tourism is already a booming industry up there.”
“Land is limited,” he said, unfazed by her dismay. “Most of the islands are already owned by tourism operators or are in private hands. Anchoring the ship will, in effect, create my own piece of real estate in one of the most desirable locations in the world.”
“Wouldn’t it have a dreadful environmental impact on the reef?”
He waved a hand. “Not at all. With the technology and systems we’d have in place for waste management, water and power generation, there would be virtually no impact at all.”
“But, she’d be tethered to the one spot.” Della frowned, not hiding her distaste. “Robbed of her freedom.”
He smiled at that, then sobered. “It’s a business decision. I can’t let sentimentality trump financial factors.”
“So, you’d chain the Cora Mae down to make more money. She’d have—”
She was interrupted by a knock at the door. Luke pushed out of his armchair and strode to the door, probably pleased by the distraction. A steward with an in-suite dining trolley greeted him, and Luke stood back to let him pass.
As the steward entered the room, she recognized him and smiled. “Hi, Max.”
“Good evening, Dr. Walsh,” the man replied with a flirtatious smile. Max had asked her out a couple of times in the past; she’d declined but he’d been cheerily optimistic about trying again in the future.
Luke looked sharply at Max, probably assessing the situation all too correctly. Then, as Luke’s gaze landed on her, a warm shiver flittered across her skin. There was something in his eyes, a heat, a thought she couldn’t quite read, but one she could tell involved her. The world around her faded as his silver-gray eyes held her spellbound. Then his jaw clenched and the connection vanished. He turned away and dismissed Max with the polite reply, “I’ll take it from here, thanks,” before wheeling the trolley to their table.
Della blinked, attempting to orient herself to the room again—the moment of connection they’d shared had been as intense as it had been brief and it had left her slightly breathless.
But it couldn’t happen again. Forming an attachment to any man—let alone the one she was in the midst of delicate negotiations with—was not in the cards. She folded her arms tightly over her chest, reminding herself of the scarred imperfection that lay beneath her blouse. The mugger who’d stolen the life of her husband and left her for dead had given her one last gift—a torso bearing the scars of his stabs and slashes. A torso that would never appeal to a man like Luke, who would be used to nothing less than perfection.
She had no intention of baring those scars to anyone—ever. Odd how her body seemed to have its own agenda, not caring that it was so undesirable, only wanting a man’s touch, a man’s caress. Luke’s caress.
Involuntarily, her muscles tensed. For two years, she’d lived a celibate life and preferred it that way. It was the only path open to her—even in the unlikely event that a man might see past her scars, she would never, never risk loving and losing again.
“You know,” she said with as much nonchalance she could muster to cover her lapse, “that’s part of Max’s job. To bring the food to the table and serve it.” She stood and moved across to the carved wood dining table, its glass top set lavishly for a dinner for two.
Luke looked up. “I prefer that we’re alone tonight,” he said.
“So we can argue in private?” she asked, tensing.
“No, not argue, discuss.” He gave her a crooked grin. “Maybe it will be a little heated at times, but it’s still a discussion.”
“Okay. A discussion.”
“And while we eat, I propose a truce.” He held her gaze a moment too long.
She nodded once and took her seat, her false casualness evaporating. Something had changed between them. And she didn’t have any idea how to undo it.
Luke served the two plates of eggplant parmigiana and refilled their glasses. Bending to place her glass before her emphasized the solid breadth of his shoulders, and she was struck by the disconcerting question of what it would feel like to touch the shape of the muscles that led from his neck to the tops of his arms. Shaking her head, she almost groaned—within seconds of wanting to undo the change that had happened between them, she was in danger of becoming carried away by a nice set of shoulders.
“Well, it smells good,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.
She looked down at her plate. This dish had become her comfort food. She sliced a piece of the meltingly soft eggplant coated in crispy golden bread crumbs and popped it in her mouth, savoring the textures and flavor.
“How much of your childhood did you spend on ships?” Luke asked.
“From when I was three.” She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “My father worked his way up to captain when he was quite young and with Mum being a ship’s doctor, they raised me on ships across the world. I feel more at home on a ship than on land.”
“What about your education?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“They homeschooled me, and after I finished high school, I went ashore and trained as a doctor.”
He cut a piece of eggplant, but held it on his fork as he regarded her. “You said you came to the Cora Mae two years ago, yet your father was captain here for six years. Did you stay ashore after qualifying in medicine?”
She hesitated. Talking about that time in her life made everything inside her clench tight, but she took a deep breath and steadied herself to answer him. It was time to start moving through the stranglehold those memories had kept on her.
She looked down at her food, gathering herself, then up at Luke. “While I was training, I met someone. We married and set ourselves up on shore.” How inadequate the words were to describe the love, the life that she’d shared with Shane.
“What happened?”
“He died,” she said, her voice not even wavering, perhaps for the first time. “After, my father offered me a job and I took it. I might not have been aboard this particular ship before that for more than a holiday, but I...it felt like I was coming home.” And that was more than enough said about her past. She took her last bite of eggplant and when she’d finished chewing, laid her cutlery on her plate.
They needed to get back on track. Back to focusing on their shared ownership of the Cora Mae. She fidgeted with her napkin. Perhaps it would be better if she came at it from another direction.
“How many hotels do you own?” she asked.
“Twenty-three, across Australia and New Zealand.”
She might be responsible for people’s health but it was one person at a time. She couldn’t imagine the magnitude of making daily decisions for a company that large.
“Do you enjoy it?”
He stared at her for a moment as if he hadn’t comprehended the question, then shrugged one shoulder and reached for his drink. “It’s what I do.”
A little window of insight opened before her and she couldn’t resist peeking in. “But you must like working in the hotel industry?”
Luke toyed with the stem of his glass. “To an extent.”
Della found herself leaning infinitesimally forward, intrigued. “Then why go into it?”
“It was my father’s company, so I grew up working in it. From the kitchens and housekeeping when I was on school holidays, to the reception desk and the corporate headquarters when I was on university breaks.” A rueful smile tugged at his mouth, as if he hadn’t admitted this often. Or at all. “I don’t really know any other industry.”
It was sweet to hear of a father helping his son to get a leg up in the industry. “Was he teaching you at home, as well?” She could imagine his father talking about the business over the dinner table, explaining the decisions he’d made that day at work.
“I barely saw my parents,” he said with a voice that was too neutral, too deliberately even. “I went to boarding school when I was thirteen. And, unless I was with Patrick, I worked in the hotels during holidays.”
Della held her breath. Beneath his confident laid-back exterior, this man was covering a scar or two of his own. Patrick had never mentioned that Luke had been sent away to school, and now that seemed like a telling oversight.
“That must have been difficult. Lonely,” she said gently.
He dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. “I think it’s time we moved on to another topic.”
He was right. It was none of her business how he was raised. She took another long sip of her wine, then brought the conversation back to where it needed to be. “Were you serious about turning the Cora Mae into a floating hotel?”
“One hundred percent. I’ve looked into it in the past, so my staff has already done some of the background work and created a plan. Right now they’re hard at work hammering out the details.”
A sudden thought struck—was this the real reason Patrick had left her half the ship—he’d known what Luke intended and wanted Della to prevent it?
She laced her fingers together and took a breath. “Had you talked about this plan for the Cora Mae with Patrick?”
He blew out a dismissive breath. “I’d broached the subject.”
“And?”
Luke shrugged. “He could see the merits of a permanently anchored cruise ship as a hotel.”
“But what about the Cora Mae? Did you discuss her specifically with him?”
“Not in any depth. There was no need to. This was several years ago now and Patrick was still fit and healthy with no hint of the cancer that was going to kill him.”
“I see.” She dabbed the edges of her mouth with the napkin, then laid it carefully on the table. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Patrick would have wanted the ship to keep cruising. I think this is why he left me half the Cora Mae—so that I could stand as her advocate after he’d gone.”
Luke speared his fingers through his hair. “Much as I wish Patrick was still with us, he’s not,” he said, his voice a little rough around the edges. “We can’t run a business trying to second-guess what he wanted. We have to do the best we can at the present time.”
How simple that sounded. How convenient and neat. But it wasn’t the way she worked. She moistened her lips and lifted her chin a fraction. “I’ll do everything in my power as a half-share owner to keep the Cora Mae cruising.” It was her responsibility. She wouldn’t let Patrick down.
“Della, you can’t afford to buy me out, so your vision for the ship will be hard to implement. We’ll either need to agree, which is seemingly unlikely at this point, or you need to sell me a portion of your share.”
“But why does it need to change? The ship is profitable, isn’t it? You can appoint a manager. You can appoint me. I’ll carry on the work that Patrick did. There’s no reason for the Cora Mae to be tied down and her engines left to rot.”
“Except profit, Della. It will be much more profitable if she is tied down.”
“She’s special, Luke. If only you could look past the size of the black numbers on the accountant’s balance sheet, you’d see.”
“Profit is the bottom line,” he said patiently. “That’s the way the business world works.”
“And the way you work.”
“To me, it’s second nature.” Something in his expression flared to life as he spoke the words.
She lifted her wineglass and sipped as she considered him. She needed to understand him to have any chance of changing his mind. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?”
He nodded, conceding her point. “It’s life itself. My business is the only thing in my life that’s never let me down. The only constant and reliable aspect. People, on the other hand, shift their loyalties with a change in the wind. They can never be relied on in the tough times.” His gaze suddenly snapped back to hers as if only now realizing how much he’d revealed. Deep frown lines appeared across his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” she said. It wasn’t her place to pry. “I shouldn’t have—”
He shook his head, dismissing her concern. “If nothing else, I think we’ve established that we’re coming from two completely different places, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on certain aspects of our situation.”
He was right, of course, but there had to be another way. There was always another way.
“Tell me, what do you think of the ship so far?”
“She seems nice enough,” he said as he refilled their wineglasses.
“She is. You could live here full-time and never miss the land.”
His gaze sharpened. “You never miss the land?”
“Never. But I meant the guests,” she said before he could use her comment to focus back on her. “We have all the services you could possibly need, from hairdressers to a day spa to fine restaurants.” She ticked off amenities on her fingers as she went. “You’re already familiar with the business resources, the internet and cell phone access. And for recreation, the rock climbing wall, tennis courts and ice rink are hard to beat. There’s even half an acre of lawn on Deck Twelve if you miss the feel of land beneath your feet or want an on board picnic.”
Luke arched an eyebrow. “So you never yearn for a city or a town?”
“There are more facilities here per person than in a city, and every few days we stop at one of the world’s most exotic locations.” And that was the key. Sailing from port to port was the essence of cruising. Of the Cora Mae.
Luke put his knife and fork on his empty plate and pushed it to the side. “I can see the appeal, Della. But I won’t base a business decision on the idea that sailing is a charming lifestyle.”
Della rubbed a finger against her temple where the pressure was building from her mind whirling. Sailing was about more than charm—she had to find a way to show him. It seemed there was only one option left.
“Luke, I have a request. Give me one month aboard the Cora Mae to convince you of the merits of cruising, of changing ports regularly. Before you make any other decisions about its future or we make any agreement about ownership, give the ship a real chance.”
He drummed his fingers on the table and she wondered if she’d asked too much. A month for a businessman in Luke’s position was a long time, even with the resources the Cora Mae had at his disposal for keeping in touch with his office.
Then he steepled his fingers. “I’ll give you three weeks, but while I’m being open about the idea of a cruising ship, you need to be sincerely considering selling me a portion of your half-share, regardless of whether the ship is permanently anchored in the future or not.”
“I can do that,” she said, relieved. Convincing him in three weeks wouldn’t be easy, but this was a challenge she couldn’t back away from.
Luke raised his glass to make a toast and when she lifted hers, he clinked them together.
“Let the persuasions begin,” he said with a smile.
* * *
Della floated in the crystalline blue water off a secluded beach in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. Days ashore weren’t always something she took advantage of given that each location came around every four weeks, but the Bay of Islands was one place she always sneaked out to when she could. Cal Bateman was on call today, so Della was gloriously free.
Well, except for her Luke Marlow mission.
She glanced over at her mission a few body lengths away, swimming farther out in long, easy strokes, then back again. Did that man ever relax? Even when he was still, he was like a tightly coiled ball of energy.
He surfaced near her and wiped a hand across his face. His hair was much darker when it was wet, and slicked back it accentuated his gray eyes. Made them hard to look away from. Here, insulated from the real world by the blue, blue water and the powder-white crescent of beach, she could almost believe they were just two people spending time together because they enjoyed each other’s company. Where she could swim the short distance separating them and wrap her arms around his broad, bare chest.
He moved through the water with the ease of a seal, and when he surfaced again, closer this time, his bare torso was slick with water. Her fingers wanted to reach out. But that would be to fall into the delusion that they were just two people out for the day, together because they wanted to be.
Instead, she was here to sell him on the concept of South Pacific cruising.
“You really take those sun safe messages you give the passengers to heart, don’t you?” Luke said, indicating the long-sleeved Lycra shirt over her swimsuit.
She shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s the result of having very fair skin, combined with knowing too many medical facts about the skin cancer rates in Australia and New Zealand.” With the added advantage of making absolutely sure none of her scars peeked out.
“Among the highest rates in the world,” he said, drifting closer. “I saw the information in the passenger briefing notes. In fact, I paid attention and applied a generous layer of sunscreen, Dr. Walsh.”
“Very good,” she said, trying to sound professional. Because she’d noticed. And despite making herself look away from his hand rubbing over his chest and shoulders as he stood on the sand, she’d still managed to watch from the corner of her eye.
“This place is great,” he said, taking in the scenery that surrounded them. “I’ve been to New Zealand more times than I can remember but never this spot.”
“I’m guessing you usually fly over for meetings?”
“And there aren’t too many of them on the beach,” he said, acknowledging her point. “Though, much as I’m enjoying myself, why exactly are we here?”
She arched an eyebrow. At 7:00 a.m. she’d left him a message to meet her in the lobby and bring his swim trunks, and he’d been there, ready and waiting. She’d assumed the reason for their excursion had been self-evident.
“You’ve forgotten our agreement already?” she said sweetly. “Too much sun, Mr. Marlow?”
“The agreement was about the Cora Mae. Unless you’re on the payroll for New Zealand tourism on the side?”
“Cruising is about so much more than the ship. It’s also about the locations you can access, like this place.” She swept her arm in an arc. “You spend a day or two in the luxury of the ship, then you arrive at another exotic destination. That’s something a floating hotel can’t offer.”
“Fair point,” he said, but she couldn’t tell if he was humoring her or not. “So, what’s in that basket I carried here?”
“Picnic lunch courtesy of the restaurant.” The lunch baskets were one of the ship’s specialties and passengers were invariably impressed with the quality of food as well as the small touches.
“I was hoping you’d say that. Is eleven too early for lunch?”
She smiled widely. “The beauty of life on a cruise is it’s never too early or late for anything. The day is ours to order how we want. It’s a step further removed from the everyday than a vacation at a hotel.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to waste the opportunity.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the shore. His fingers were strong and warm and they sent a spray of champagne fizz through her blood, from her fingertips, to her arms and out to every cell in her body. There was no stopping it, so she dived under the water, using the action as an excuse to break the skin contact with Luke, then slicked back her hair when she emerged.
As she walked up the white sand to the shade where they’d left their things, she kept a respectable distance from the man walking beside her. This was not the time nor the man to allow herself to indulge in flights of fancy over. Especially when she had no idea if the charm he was displaying today was genuine or if it was part of his not-so-subtle plan of convincing her to sell her 50 percent. Tricky man, Luke Marlow. One not to underestimate.
She pulled the Lycra sun-shirt off over her head, and rubbed herself down with the large beach towel. As she grabbed her T-shirt she saw Luke’s gaze land on her collarbone. She glanced down and saw the shoulder straps of her conservative swimsuit had moved enough to show the edges of her scars. Hands moving quickly, panic flaring in her belly, she adjusted the straps and pulled the T-shirt over her head.
* * *
Luke watched Della and frowned. The way she tracked his eyes and shied away told him something was wrong and for some reason, he wasn’t prepared to let it go. She’d pulled the T-shirt on to cover any trace of the marks that marred her skin, but he stepped closer and gently pulled the neckline to one side to expose them. To prove to himself they hadn’t been his imagination.
“Della, what happened?” he whispered.
“It was nothing.” She turned but he moved with her, his fingers still brushing her collarbone.
“Scars like that don’t come from nothing.”
She didn’t move. Not a single muscle. “I meant nothing important.”
“It looks important. Della, won’t you tell me?”
She winced. “You could find out how I got them with a simple internet search. It was in all the papers at the time.”
A sense of foreboding filled the air, surrounded him, almost choked him. He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to read impersonal newspaper articles. I want you to tell me.”
She looked out to sea, her face too pale, her features pinched tight. “It was two years ago. There was a woman,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Walking through Melbourne late at night, my husband and I heard her screams. Shane was a doctor, too, so we went to see if we could help.”
Luke picked up her hand and gently stroked the creamy skin from her knuckles to her wrist. “Of course you would.”
“She was down a laneway, where it was dark and deserted.” She paused. Swallowed hard. “Alone except for the four men who surrounded her.”
His heart thudded hard against his ribs, as if ready to physically leap to her defense. But he was several years too late, so he stood silently instead.
“We couldn’t leave her,” she said urgently, finding his gaze.
Squeezing her hands, he held her eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to leave her, either.”
She nodded. “Shane started down the laneway, calling out, hoping to distract them. I pulled out my mobile phone and rang the police. Before I could give my location, one of them grabbed the phone from me and smashed it on the wall. They’d left the girl and were heading for us.”
“Oh, Della,” he said on a long breath. His whole body was too tense, wanting to stave off what had already happened.
“When I looked past the men, the woman was gone, which was the good news.” She smiled, but it was the saddest expression he’d ever seen.
His eyes flicked to the scar peeking out from under the collar of her T-shirt. “The bad news being that now there were four men focused on you and Shane.”
She was silent for a long time, and Luke waited. His fingers stroked the back of her hand, his other hand rubbing up and down her back. Inside he was burning with anger, with the injustice of it. But Della didn’t need his anger. She needed strength, comfort and support, so he stuffed it all down as well as he could and kept rubbing her back.
“I woke up in the hospital. Thankfully, the woman had run for help. They were too late for Shane. He’d been stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade had pierced his heart.”
Her hand felt cold, so he reached for her other one, too, and held them between his, as if he could will heat and strength into them. “I’m sorry.”
Tears slipped over her cheeks and she looked out to sea.
“What did they do to you?”
“The same. Left me for dead, but they weren’t as thorough and the surgeons repaired the damage.”
There was nothing he could say, so he pulled her close and held her against his chest, hoping that he could soothe the tiny tremors, and that, as she relived the memory, she at least felt safe in the present moment. What had he been thinking? He was ten kinds of stupid for making her tell him the story.
Part of him wanted to distract her so she didn’t have those images in her head. Kissing her senseless was the option of choice—she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, and it would satisfy the clawing need inside him. But that would be taking advantage of her at her most vulnerable. So instead, he continued to hold her.
One thing finally made sense—her aloofness with men, whether it was the flirtatious steward who’d delivered their dinner or, not least of all, Luke himself. The reason she’d pulled away when he’d noticed her scars had been embarrassment, possibly even shame. Della Walsh was unsure of her desirability. He could tell her how ridiculous that was, how she affected him, but she wouldn’t believe him. And it was definitely the wrong time to show her. No matter that his pulse had spiked the moment he’d felt her soft curves against him as he held her and that it had yet to settle.
Finally she stirred and pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she swiped at her face.
“No, Della, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. You should have told me to go to hell.”
One corner of her mouth twitched and his chest expanded with satisfaction that he could relieve her darkness even a little. “In fact, you can tell me to go to hell now.”
Her lashes lifted as she looked up, checking to see if he was serious. “I’m supposed to be on a mission to convince you of the merits of cruising. So I don’t think I’ll be saying that.”
But there was a spark returning to her features, and her face wasn’t as pale.
“To be honest,” he said, running with the idea, “you’d be doing me a favor. If we leave it like this, I’ll be weighed down with more guilt than I’ll know what to do with. At first it will affect my mood, but eventually it’ll affect my interactions with people and my work. I could lose my friends. My company could go bankrupt.”
“Is that right?” she asked, amusement beginning to dance in her eyes again.
“It would be devastating. The only way I can see to avoid total destruction is if you retrospectively pull me into line.”
She ran a hand over her damp hair. “I don’t—”
“Make sure you use my name when you do it. I’d be very grateful.”
She chuckled and, after her desolation minutes before, it was a sound sweeter than any he could imagine.
“Go on,” he urged and nudged her shoulder with his. “You know you want to.”
She broke into a proper laugh and held up a hand. “Okay. Just give me a moment.” Her expression turned somber but her eyes still danced. “Go to hell, Luke.”
“That was good, but I didn’t believe you. Try again.”
Her mouth fell open in amused outrage then she took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. “Go to hell, Luke.”
There had been more heat in her words this time, but as soon as she finished, it all fell away and she bit down on a smile, as if surprised at her own daring. “Better,” he said softly.
“You should be careful,” she said with an arched eyebrow, “or that might become my new favorite phrase.”
He’d thought he wanted to kiss her before. Now the need to draw her close and capture those lips was as strong as any need he’d felt. To fit her along his body and feel her curves against his skin. The air was suddenly too thick to breathe; he couldn’t fill his lungs. Her eyes darkened and the pulse at the base of her throat fluttered. She felt it, too. There wasn’t a thing in his life he wouldn’t give to be able to lean in, to touch that mouth.
He wouldn’t. She was still vulnerable from retelling that story and he would never be a man who took advantage of that.
He scrubbed a hand down his face and looked out to sea.
But it wouldn’t be long.
Sometime soon, he’d find the right time and place to kiss Della Walsh.