My wife.
“I’m giving you one last opportunity to be reasonable and get them on a plane to Miami.”
Or else?
My shades slide down the bridge of my nose, sweat assisting, so I push them back, facing Rose. She’s always a pleasing sight, but today especially so, with her ever increasingly curvy body adorned in a gold bikini, her boobs bulging against the material, her hair bundled up high.
I feel myself twitching against my wetsuit as I reach for her and pull her close, pushing a wave behind her ear as I kiss the corner of her mouth. “You’ve caught the sun,” I whisper, pulling back and slipping a finger past the taut material of her bikini top and easing it down a fraction, revealing a tan line just north of her nipple.
She peeks down too, but not for as long as me. “Don’t change the subject.” She pushes my hand away and slips her fingers into my hair, holding my dark waves in her clenched fists threateningly. “Are you really that passionate about keeping Otto away from your mom?”
For fuck’s sake. She doesn’t say it, but I know she’s mentally considering the fact that I’m also keeping her away from that Benson bloke. “This has nothing to do with Otto and everything to do with Daniel’s stability and education.”
“Stability? He’s there, and I’m here. And he can have a private tutor in Miami. Are we going back to St. Lucia?”
Won’t she stop? I groan and swoop in for another kiss. And get blocked with a dick-slicing glare. I roll my eyes—though Rose can’t appreciate my silent mocking with my shades hiding it.
She reaches for my glasses and lifts them, revealing my eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
“I didn’t,” I say, stealing a kiss before she can shove me away. Her rejection is probably a good thing. My tight wetsuit might become tighter. I’m not arguing with her. We’ve done enough of that recently. So . . . “You’re staying here, and Daniel is staying there.” I’ll tell her instead. Another stolen kiss as I pass her, heading for the cabin. She’s soon chasing my heels, protesting. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“I know,” I say over my shoulder, not denying it.
“What?”
I stop, exhale loudly, and face her frown. “If you think for a moment I’m letting you go back to St. Lucia without me—”
“In case I’m swept off my feet by a single, handsome banker?”
I seize her face, squeezing her cheeks until she has duck lips. Why must she rile me? “There will be no sweeping, there’ll only be mopping.” Blood. “Remember that if you’re ever tempted to be swept.” I slam my lips on hers, kissing away her scowl. “Are we clear?”
“Fuck off.”
Smiling darkly, I watch her wrench herself away, but my amusement loses its darkness and gains some true light when my focus lands on her arse as she stomps away, the two curvy peaks jiggling beautifully, her bikini bottoms cutting high across each one. I groan on an exhale and push my shades up into my hair, fixated as I blindly pick up my cigarettes off a nearby wall and light one, never taking my eyes off my wife.
She stomps up the steps to the cabin as James exits with Brad, and they both part to let her through, following her path with raised, knowing brows. She tosses both arms in the air, and the wind carries her muttered insult to my ears. She hates me. I’m an arsehole. “Same story, different day,” I say to myself as the boys look my way. They’re both freshly showered after a few hours out on the water with me. I’ve been distracted by the ocean and a willful wife during the time it’s taken them to change. I make my way to them and up the steps, puffing my way through my cigarette.
“All right?” Brad asks as I pass through the middle of them and take a right into the café.
“Brilliant,” I mutter, grabbing a water from the fridge and holding it up for the young girl who’s serving to see, prompting her to run it through the system and add it to my tab. “Where are the others?”
“Out on the balcony,” James says, taking a beer instead of a water. I look at it in his hand as he screws the cap off. He’s drinking more lately, a result, no doubt, of stressing over where Beau is every second of every day or, more to the point, who she’s with. That woman would give Houdini a run for his money. “I just checked in with Leon on the delivery for Friday.”
“Where’s Beau?” I ask, prompting James to point his bottle to the decking and me to look through the open concertina doors and past the dozens of occupied tables. I spy her at the very end of the wharf, reclined in a chair, her feet kicked up onto the railing, her face pointed upward. Toward the sun. “Still nothing from Burrows?” I ask, chugging down some water.
A veil of menace drops at the mention of the arsehole. “Not that she’s said.”
“She’s here,” Brad says, passing us and heading outside. “And we all know she wouldn’t be if she’d heard from Burrows.” He’s right. She’d be off playing detective, and that would be the perfect opportunity for Burrows to try and worm his way back into her affections. So where the fuck is he?
James and I follow Brad out into the sunshine. “Rose hasn’t mentioned anything?” James asks.
“All Rose has done this past week is be difficult.” I look at him. “In what fucking world do we depend on the girls for enlightenment?”
“This fucking world,” he mutters. “I’ve got Otto keeping tabs on Beau’s phone.”
I laugh. “Does she know?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you haven’t told her, but she knows.”
“Of course she fucking knows.” He looks out toward Beau, and I follow his line of sight, seeing Rose tugging some denim shorts up her legs with heavy hands. She leaves them undone, and I smile. She can’t get the buttons fastened anymore. “Good girl,” James says as Rose picks up a bottle of sunblock and squirts some in her hands, rubbing it into Beau’s arm while she obviously slags me off. We make it to the other men and pull up chairs; as Otto taps away on his laptop, Ringo chomps his way through some chips, and Goldie sips tea, very ladylike as I draw on my Marlboro.
“What?” she asks, the cup at her lips. “What are you looking at?”
“You had a haircut?” I ask.
Her spare hand goes straight to her hair and smooths it behind one ear, then the other. It’s shorter, probably as short as it could be without losing the convenience of being able to tie it back. “A trim,” she says on a scowl, hating me for noticing she’s done something so girlie like have a visit to a salon.
“Looks nice,” I say honestly, feeling James watching me, probably waiting for me to crack a joke. I have no intention. I’m being genuine.
“Thanks,” she grunts, taking some tea. “You could do with a cut yourself.”
I feel at my hair. It’s been weeks, but my wife claims to love the longer look on me, and hair is something I can give her, so I’ll carry on poking up with the tickle on my nape. “Rose likes it like this,” I say, running a hand through it and knocking my shades off my head. James dips and picks them up.
“You too,” Goldie says, nodding to James, who freezes in his half-bent position, looking at everyone as everyone looks at his longer-than-average hair.