I glance around us. “And yet, I’m right back where I started.”
Chapter 26
Vivienne
It’s unsettling to think of the blond brute in front of me as anything other than a man who has made me his co-conspirator in, if not fraud, at least a lie. But my Viking was once just a little boy.
A boy who couldn’t afford new shoes.
A boy who was abandoned by his mother, who lost his father and a stepsister he loved like a sister.
Knowing his history makes it impossible to look at Lance the same way. And yet . . . nothing has changed. Lance isn’t a little boy anymore. He’s a successful man, one intent on making a liar out of me.
Standing up, I throw the rest of my lobster roll and beer into a garbage pail a few yards away.
Lance does the same, and when I turn around, I practically plow into his chest. I swear he has no concept of personal space. “Want to walk along the beach before heading back?”
No. Any more intimate revelations and the last of my defenses will be in ruins at my feet. I’ll beg Lance to kiss me. Hold me. Fuck me.
Maybe even love me.
I don’t actually answer him. My throat is too tight for that. But I keep pace with him and we cross the street together, our hands finding each other before we reach the opposite side. My skin tingles from Lance’s touch, my bare arm registering the heat coming off his body.
“So, now that you know everything about me, tell me more about you.”
I clear my throat, resisting the urge to pull away from his grasp. “I hardly think one conversation about your past qualifies as everything.”
As if Lance can feel the turmoil inside me, his fingers squeeze mine. “Maybe not. But I wouldn’t mind knowing more.”
“You already know plenty. I’m boring, remember?”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute. “What would your boyfriend know about you?”
I sigh, telling myself that this is just a team-building event. And, like it or not, for the rest of the summer, Lance is my teammate. “I hate the taste of milk, but I love cheese. I can spend hours painting a canvas, but I’m terrible at painting my own nails. As a kid, I would stay up hours past my bedtime reading my mom’s romance novels, but I hated reading for school.” I pause. “Except maybe The Outsiders. S.E. Hinton made homework feel like a pleasure.”
“Nothing gold can stay,” he murmurs.
I glance up, pleasantly surprised he remembers the book. “Do you think it pisses Susan off that the most memorable line quoted from her book was from a poem written by Robert Frost?”
“Susan? You’re on a first name basis with S.E. Hinton now?”
I shrug. “I’ve read all her books at least three times. I feel like we’re friends.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, though I catch his grin from the corner of my eye. “Maybe,” he says, finally answering my question. “But if all she included was the quote, no one would have paid it much attention. It’s because Susan made the poem relevant that people can still recall it, even years later.”
“Now you’re on a first name basis with her, too?”
He turns the full blaze of his smile on me. “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”
I can’t help but laugh, thinking about introducing him to Savannah. “Be careful what you wish for.”
His grin fades, as if I’ve struck a chord, but he rallies. “Coffee or wine?”
“Wine.”
“French fries or chocolate?”
“Fries—all day, every day.”
“Pool or beach.”
“Hmm. Your pool or a public pool?”
“For argument’s sake, a private pool.”
“And the beach—like Jones Beach where you have to park a mile from the actual beach and lug all your stuff only to hang out with half of Long Island? Or one of the local beaches around here?”
“Let’s compare apple to apples: local beach vs private pool.”
“Pool in the morning. Beach in the afternoon. Or vice versa. I like both. But public pools or crowded beaches, no thanks.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Look who’s being snobby.”
“Nope. Just a girl who used to babysit a lot. Do you want to know how much poop is left in a kid’s swimmy diaper after—”
Lance groans. “Never mind, I don’t need—”
“Not a lot,” I finish. “If you see something that looks like a Tootsie Roll floating in the water, it’s definitely not candy.”
“Thanks. I probably could have lived my whole life without that tidbit of information.”
“You know what they say, the more you know . . .”
The sun is drooping toward the horizon, tired after a long day. But not so tired that she doesn’t give us a show, painting the endless blue shoreline in streaks of neon pink and fiery orange, highlighting the white-capped waves dancing along the water’s surface. “Any more this or that questions?”
“No. You’ve ruined it for me.”
When I sneak a glance at him, I feel almost guilty for the frown on his face. “Plane tickets or road trip?”
“Plane.”
“TV or movie?”
“Movie.”
“Morning sex or night sex?”
Lance’s head spins like it’s on a swivel, and I look away, hiding my blush. “If we’re dating, we should probably know these things about each other,” I mumble.
A few seconds pass, just long enough that I’m beginning to wonder if he’ll give me an answer. “Not that sex isn’t great every time of day, but morning sex is my favorite way to wake up. How about you?”
“I’m more of a nighttime girl.” My favorite part about sex, at least with Richard, had been the cuddling afterward. It was the most intimate part of our evenings together.
“Shower sex or bed sex?”
My stomach flips a little. “Bed.”
He elbows me gently. “What was that?”
“What?”
“The answer you aimed at the sand.”
“It was still an answer, and I’m sure you heard me.”
“Wait—” His eyes widen. “Have you never had shower sex?”
“I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
Mostly because now I very much want to have shower sex . . . with Lance.
As if he’s reading my mind, Lance squeezes my hand. “I’d be more than happy to give you a very thorough—”
“No. Definitely not.”
“If you change your mind . . .”
“I won’t.”
I can’t.
I shouldn’t.
But not for the same reasons I gave Lance when he first suggested our arrangement. Yesterday, I told him sex was off the table because I didn’t want to feel like a liar and a whore for accepting his money.
But right now, I’m just as worried about protecting my heart as I am about my self-respect.
Saying goodbye at the end of the summer will be so much easier if I still think of Lance as the cocky ass I first believed him to me. As the cold-hearted businessman who destroyed any chance at a genuine relationship, or even a fun summer fling, in favor of his bottom line.