“Finished?” he asked, observing the wide radius of my tornado’s wreckage.
I looked around at the shattered glass and scattered forks myself and then nodded.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good.”
Ronan clapped his hands. “Good.”
I stared at him as he then moved from behind his lectern, plopped down on one of the big leather chairs in front of the cold stone fireplace, and picked up one of his books. My anger, which I thought I’d fully depleted, flared again as he randomly flipped through the pages with a big victorious smile on his face.
“What?” I growled, my grip on the pointer tightening till my knuckles shone white through my tanned skin. “What the hell are you still grinning at?”
Ronan brushed a sprinkling of glass he suddenly noticed from his knee and looked up at me as my chest heaved.
“It’s just that I’m brilliant,” he said. “That’s all.”
I hadn’t thought he could annoy me more, but his cocky smile made my heart pound faster, my blood pulsing hot in my veins.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
When I opened my eyes Ronan was holding up the miniscule plaid mini skirt, moving it a hair up, a hair down to align it with my hips as I stood across the room from him.
“You got all the glassware correct, love. I’m that brilliant of a teacher. We’re finally getting somewhere,” he explained before lowering the skirt and frowning. “Is it the colour of the plaid? Would you wear it if it were blue?”
I screamed in frustration and threw down the pointer before turning and storming out of the library.
“Posture!” Ronan called after me.
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you, what?”
I whirled on my heel and stuck my head back inside the library, gripping the door frame so tightly I thought the intricate carving of grapes might shatter.
“Fuck you, sir.”
Ronan winked at me.
“Good girl,” he said, returning his attention to the open book across his lap.
I lingered in the doorway glaring at Ronan because I was angry, because I suddenly didn’t want to leave, because whether I would have admitted it there in that moment, I longed for those sparks between him and me, bright and hot and red like two pieces of flint struck together in the dark.
When Ronan finally raised his eyes to mine, I could see in the intense blue that he knew all of this. He knew what I wanted. And he knew how to drive me absolutely crazy holding it just out of reach. A lazy grin tugged at the corners of Ronan’s lips. He licked his finger to turn the page as he turned his attention away from me.
“Ms Evans?”
“Yes?” I practically croaked.
“You’re dismissed.”
Ronan
The gentle, clear blue waters rocked the yacht like a baby’s cradle, the sunlight kissed my bare skin like a multitude of chubby-cheeked cherubs, and the relaxing crash of steady waves against the distant shore lulled me into a merry haze like a mother’s lullaby. I sighed deeply, my lungs filling with warm, salty air, and stretched my arms above my head on the reclined lounge chair perched on the top deck.
“Ah, Benson,” I said, grinning up toward the beaming midday sun, which the weed convinced me was definitely smiling down at me in return. “Could this day get any more perfect?”
The calm serenity of the moment was momentarily broken as Benson reached the end of his strawberry daiquiri and his bright-pink curly straw made a noisy slurp.
“Brilliant, sir,” Benson answered, ringing the little bell to call the yacht’s service staff. “Simply brilliant.”
On the lounge chair next to mine he wiggled his bare toes and adjusted the tri-fold sun tanning reflector on his chest. He was wearing Hawaiian-print swim trunks and nothing else but a thick smear of white sun block across his nose.
“I’m so glad we decided to do this,” I said, closing my eyes with another contented sigh. “I’ve been working so hard, as you know.”
“You’ve been putting forth quite the effort, sir. Quite the effort.”
I nodded. “It’s not easy, not easy at all, helping the less fortunate, the downtrodden, the huddled masses, the—”
“Are you two enjoying your-fucking-selves?”
I peeked open an eye and lifted my head just the tiniest smidge to squint across the top deck of the yacht. Delaney was not in a lounge chair like Benson and me. Delaney was not high like me, nor tipsy like Benson. Delaney was not happy like us.
She was grumpy and irritable and prickly as usual.
“So ungrateful,” I mumbled to Benson. “Are all Americans this ungrateful?”
Benson was distracted by his next strawberry daiquiri arriving and only managed a hmm of mild agreement before affixing his lips to the curly straw, tangerine-coloured this time.
“Ms Evans,” I said, propping up my lounge chair and crossing my arms over my chest, “the sun is shining, the water is cool, and the breeze is sublimely caressing. What could you possibly have to complain about?”
I didn’t think it was possible, but Delaney looked even more pissed than ever. I had no idea, not even the tiniest hint, not even the itty-bittiest iota whatsoever why…
“Oh, I don’t know,” Delaney said, tapping her chin. “Maybe I’m not super dee fucking duper stoked to be spending my afternoon out on the sea stuck in five-inch stilettos on a thrashing deck trying to balance three books atop my head in a bikini?”
I couldn’t resist a grin of amusement as the books tumbled from Delaney’s head again. She cursed as she wobbled unsteadily while bending to retrieve them.
“Listen,” I explained oh so patiently (as is my oh so generous way) as Delaney bobbed this way and that trying to balance the stack, “as far as I see it, Benson and I here went out of our way—”
“Terribly out of our way,” Benson echoed as he plucked the strawberry garnish from the lip of his tall strawberry daiquiri glass.
I nodded in agreement toward Benson and continued, “We gents went terribly out of our way to give you the best deportment lesson in all the land.”
“Or on sea,” Benson added, adjusting his oversized sunglasses.
I snapped my fingers and said, “Excellent point, my fine Benson. Ms Evans, we are providing you with the best deportment lesson in all the land and sea.”
The yacht rocked on a particularly choppy wave and Delaney stumbled on her long legs to collapse against the railing, clinging to it as the boat pitched this way and that.
“Oh, how terrible!” I cried. “Benson, your sunscreen fell off the little table there.”
“Pity,” Benson replied, obviously not giving a single fuck as he stretched out with a lazy yawn.
“Delaney, darling,” I said, waving a hand, “fetch Benson’s sunscreen, would you?”
Delaney glared at me as she struggled to get her ridiculously tall heels underneath her, slipping and sliding like a new-born fawn on a winter ice rink.
“I fail to see what this has to do with learning how to become a part of high society,” she said through gritted teeth.
The yacht pitched forward and Delaney’s skin turned a shade of green.