“I think that sounds interesting.” Tessa gave him an encouraging smile.
Mostly he wanted to take Tessa to the beach. He could get copies of those notebooks and go over them later when he wasn’t so distracted. She was a distraction in the best meaning of the word. She’d made him realize he needed to relax, to focus on something that wasn’t work or helping the kids in his family get through Spanish. Tessa was just for him, and she was young and healthy. She was careful. Tessa was starting to show him that everything he’d been worried about before didn’t matter.
He sat back, the truth hitting him squarely in the chest. His father’s death had haunted him his whole adult life, and he hadn’t truly understood the cost.
Oh, shit. Had he honestly held back in other relationships because he’d watched his mother mourn? Because his father had died and his family had felt incomplete? Because he’d been a boy who didn’t want to feel that pain again?
It was a revelation that was so simple it made him feel dumb. He’d held back from this new family of his because there was still a kid inside him who lost his dad and was afraid he wouldn’t fit in with his mom’s new family.
But they’d welcomed him. Not a one of them cared that he hadn’t gone into the military the way most Taggarts did. They accepted his talents.
And used them heinously. Why the hell shouldn’t he ask Sean to teach him some cooking skills? Or to help him move out of that rattrap he was in and into a better neighborhood? Why didn’t he tell Uncle Ian if he wanted him to spend so much time helping his kids, he could have his company install a security system at a reduced rate…or for free.
They were his family, after all.
“But he could make so much more money if he played up the popular angle,” Luis argued. “I know the real history is in the leaders and artists who came to this island and Montez’s political theories, but no one is making a documentary about political theories.”
He’d thought Luis was a practical scholar. He hoped the kid wasn’t getting stars in his eyes. Or dollar signs. Since documentaries had become big business through streaming services, some historians had started playing up the more salacious parts of their work in order to garner looks from Hollywood. But he’d seen more than one of those meetings go bad. “You know most of the time they don’t actually option the book. They simply read it and count it as research and do their own thing. The author doesn’t even get paid.”
“Only if you don’t have a good agent, which you do,” Luis pointed out. “Your family has connections. You can get something out of this, too.” He pushed back from the table. “Just think about it. You always think too small. It’s a big world and…I’m sorry. I’m overstepping and disappointed in how this trip turned out. I guess I expected more work since we’ve only got a week here. Are we still going into the jungle to look for the treasure?”
Tessa had sat back, watching Luis. She was perfectly still, reminding him of how a predator watched prey right before she pounced. She didn’t like the way Luis was talking to him, and she might have something to say about it.
It was perverted that he was getting aroused at the thought of his pretty predator attacking. He didn’t mind at all that some people would consider her the stronger of them, that she could take a man down without breaking a sweat. He was cool with that as long as he got to take her down in a much sweeter way.
She was the beauty and the brawn, and he was the professor who got to study her.
He was perfectly comfortable with his masculinity, and more than comfortable with her femininity. She was his gorgeous, dangerous woman, and she was perfect for him.
It was good that she would defend him physically, but Luis wasn’t a threat. He had stars in his eyes and unrealistic expectations. If he gave Luis partial credit in a book that became a huge hit documentary series, Luis’s career in academia would be made. Unfortunately, very few people had it that easy. “I think I’m going to spend the rest of my time here in the library. And I’m going to cut the research short. It’s been forever since I’ve had a real vacation, and the bartender in the village was telling us about a beach house we can rent for a few days.”
“Are you serious, Hawthorne?” Her lips had curled up like the cat who’d gotten a particularly sweet cup of cream. “You want to sit on a beach with me?”
He wanted to do way more than sit on a beach with her. He wanted to spend every moment convincing her that this was real, that what they had between them was worth fighting for. He reached over and covered her hand with his. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. I’ve got some notes to take and copies to make where I can. Luis, you should feel free to do the tour of the possible treasure sites. I’ve already paid for the gear. You can write it up, and we’ll see if it works in the book or if we can get it published for you somewhere else.”
Getting work published as a grad student would help him enormously.
“It’s not the same and you know it.” Luis’s head shook and his hands were fists at his sides. “I thought you were different. I thought you were real.”
He strode out, slamming the door behind him.
“How am I not real?” He was surprised at his assistant’s outburst. The world seemed to have turned upside down today, and he wondered if he was missing some social cues. He could do that.
She stared at the door as though she was worried Luis might come back. “I think he viewed you as some sort of professor god. You know, the kind who would never let a woman fuck up his focus.”
“Those guys are sad, and they usually are like that because they’re dicks who can’t get a woman.” He had known the type. They weren’t pleasant to be around. He tended to avoid them at faculty mixers.
How would Tessa handle a faculty party? She would likely grab a beer and be herself and tell anyone who didn’t like it to fuck off.
He was okay with that, too. Some professors played the game, picked a spouse who fit into the academic world, but he was picking one he loved.
Because he was rapidly falling in love with this woman, and he didn’t even want to try to stop.
She stared down at where their hands met. “You aren’t any of those things, but apparently you haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time.”
He’d just realized why. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve been a coward. I watched my mom lose my dad. I lost him, too, and it felt like such a fragile thing.”
“But your mom found love again. She’s happy. At least she seems to be.”
“Yes, she is.” His mom had found a great life, and she’d tried to make him a part of it. It was his fault he’d been distant. “She’s happy, and part of me decided she’s happier with Sean than she ever would have been with my dad. And then I wondered if I wasn’t the guy a woman had to get through to find a man like Sean. A starter guy.”
She gasped, and suddenly she was up and setting herself on his lap. She put her hands on either side of his cheeks, a fierce look on her face. “You are not a starter guy. You are amazing and surprising, and you’re kind. Any woman would be lucky to end up with you.”