The Ruthless Gentleman(86)

Crew began to crowd around the fridge and I took the opportunity to slide out of the banquette. “I have to go make a call,” I whispered to Skylar.

She slid an arm around my waist. “Be careful. Remember you are an incredible woman who sees only the best in others.” I’d told Skylar about my conversation with Hayden. She was skeptical about him flying to Miami, about his protestations of love. And I understood that. I’d forgiven him but that didn’t mean I could accept him back in my heart.

“I don’t know where we’ll end up, but I figure I’ll listen to what he has to say.” The fact was, even if we could put everything about Cannon in our past, which I believed was possible, the practicalities of dating someone like Hayden were impossible. But I wanted to hear him out in a way that he’d never really listened to me when I told him I wasn’t Cannon’s spy.

“You deserve to be happy,” she said.

I kissed her on the cheek and then, without anyone noticing, I dipped out of the galley.

I didn’t even change. I just grabbed my bag and Hayden’s number and headed off the yacht. All I could think about was the way he held me so tightly and protectively. The way he looked at me when I was talking as if I were saying the most interesting thing he’d ever heard, the whisper of his lips against my skin, his reluctant smile. I just wished it had meant as much to him as it had to me.

I gathered speed, wanting to find a quiet place to call as soon as I could. As I got to the end of the jetty, I scanned the marina, trying to think about where I might go.

“Looking for someone?”

I spun around and came face-to-face with Hayden Wolf.





Thirty-Nine





Hayden


Patience had never been my strong point, but sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing. After all, it meant I was standing here in front of Avery. I couldn’t just sit in a hotel room and wait for her to call. I’d come down to the marina to watch her yacht dock.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her smile pulling up the corners of my mouth as I stepped toward her.

“Waiting for you,” I replied, sliding my hand over her hip.

She tried to step out of my arms but there was no way I was going to let that happen. “I said I’d call.”

“And I said I’d wait.”

“I was just . . . We’d just . . . I was about to call you,” she said, her hand sliding over my chest. I shuddered at the perfect feel of her.

“What were you going to say?”

Her smile faltered. “I was going to say I’ll hear you out.”

“Like I should have done to you,” I mumbled. She was a better human being than me. I’d questioned her, accused her and here she was, still offering me a chance to set things straight. “I understand I betrayed you. You have every reason to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. But I also know that you can’t possibly feel for me what I feel for you. Because if you did, we wouldn’t be standing here heading in different directions. And I can’t be with someone I love more than they love me. My heart is fragile enough. It can’t cope with the inevitable disappointment that comes from that.”

I groaned, desperate to take on all the pain I’d caused her, all the pain she felt inside. “I was an idiot. I accept that, but let me prove to you that I have learned my lesson. I should never have questioned you. But don’t ever think it was because I didn’t love you enough. I stand here, not just believing but knowing that I will love you until my last breath. That’s true whether you walk away from me or you let me keep proving my love to you for the rest of our lives.”

She covered her face with her hands in the same way I’d seen her do through binoculars all those weeks before. “I’m here for the next five months, Hayden. We don’t work together.”

“Look at me,” I said, circling my hands around her wrists and uncovering her face. I swiped my thumbs below her eyes, hating that I’d caused her grief. “Five months is nothing.” I pulled out her hair tie, letting her chestnut-brown locks fall free, the ends caught by the falling sun. There she was. My Avery. “It’s all details. We’ll figure it out.”

She swept her fingers over my cheekbone, shaking her head. “They’re important details and I can’t open myself up again. Not to you. Not when I don’t know how it’s going to end.”

“I’ll tell you how it’s going to end. You’re going to marry me, we’re going to have twenty kids and we’re going to grow old together.” Fuck, I’d never thought a wife would be in my future, let alone kids, but being with Avery, that was all I could see. Her. Forever.

She rolled her eyes. “I need you to be serious. If we can’t make dating work then what hope do we have?”

“We’re way beyond dating, my love. Don’t you get it? You need to understand that when we met there was no going back. I belong to you now. You belong to me. Tell me it’s not true.”

“I can’t. I love you.”

My heart swooped. She was mine. “I love you more than you will ever know.”

I took her hand and strode down the dock. “But if you want to nail down the details, plan it all out? Let’s go.”

“Where are we going? Not to your hotel because—”