The Billionaire's Gamble

Chapter 17

Evie isn’tin the hotel room when I get back. Panic grips my chest, plays a beat on my heart. What if she’s gone? That couldn’t be, right?

But then, on the counter, I find a note written in a familiar slanted hand:

Nick,

I’ve gone down to the beach with LaToya and Dalton. We’re meeting some of the others by the fires. Join when you come back.

~Evie

I look hard at that little squiggly line preceding Evie’s name. It’s smudged at the beginning. Had she almost instinctively written “love”? Would she have meant it?

My conversation with Kara on the rooftop was illuminating, like looking at a twin. If I can be so confident in Kara, why can’t I be confident in myself? I’ve taken big risks in the past. They’ve almost always worked out. With every passing moment, I find myself more and more convinced that I want to take my next one on Evie.

I change into a different set of dark Parisian clothes and head downstairs.

The fires in Evie’s note refer to a grouping of private beach cabanas with fire pits, perfect for both an end of the night drink and a beginning of the night power hour.

Everyone’s there, with the noted exceptions of Brent, Cheryl, and Dax. Even Kara beat me there. She’s sitting next to Dalton and raises a beer to me as I approach.

My name is called from all sides in greeting, but I only have eyes for her. She’s wearing a sheer cover up over a turquoise crop top and jean shorts. Her blonde hair is up with tendrils escaping here and there, and her eyes are dancing with laughter. There’s no sign of the crying girl I’d left in the hotel room a couple hours ago.

“Nick!” she says. I still haven’t gotten used to how much I love hearing her say my name. “You just missed the funniest story.”

“I never found my bra or my other shoe,” Tori confirms. “But what’s important is that those field mice were saved from a short life in the lab.”

“Sounds like it was a winner,” I reply, sliding into place beside Evie. She melts against me, her hair once again right beneath my nose, her scent once again filling me with anticipation and hope. Hope for the future. Hope that I can be different.

Then Evie half turns to look up at me, her blue eyes sparkling with light reflected from the fire, and I know. I know instantly. I’m in love with this woman. I’m in love and there’s not a goddamn thing on this planet that’s going to get in the way of that. Especially not my fears, especially not myself.

The rest of them have gone back to laughing about Tori’s story, but Evie continues to look up at me. “What’s the matter?” she asks quietly. She’s noticed a change in my expression, a shift in my eyes. The quiet intensity of my feelings changing the very makeup of my face.

I open my mouth, the truth about to slide from my tongue. But then something stops me. I’m not a man who does anything in half measures. If I’m going to confess Feelings to a woman for the first time in my entire life, I’m doing it the right way. A nice dinner. No! A hot air balloon ride. No, not that either. But something. Something big. Thankfully I have plenty of time to think on the flight home.

Evie is still looking expectantly at me, so I shift gears. “I spoke with Kara,” I say.

“It looks like it worked,” Evie says. “She apologized for freaking out at me but didn’t elaborate.”

“We bonded a bit,” I admit. “But I’ve got to plead the fifth on the details. What’s important is that she said that we could head home tomorrow.”

The exciting news has the exact opposite effect I’d expected. Instead of thrilled at getting to go back to New York, a flash of disappointment crosses her beautiful features.

“Oh,” she says. She recovers quickly though. “Wait, this isn’t because she’s bailing on the Seafarer, right?”

I shake my head. “The opposite. She’s agreed to sign on. We’ve more than proven ourselves.”

Evie nods, but her eyes are suddenly far away. They drift away from me, out to the ocean where the black waters pulse with waves. Not-so-distant club music is already pounding.

In a flash I realize I’ve messed up. Not knowing where we stand, Evie thinks that once we get home we’ll go back to our old roles. Me the tyrannical boss, her the spit-fire in red-soled heels. But I also can’t come right out and say my plans. Why ruin the surprise?

So instead I pull her back against me and whisper in her ear, “It’s all going to be okay. I promise.”

She tenses slightly but then relaxes fully into me, and doesn’t comment on my words again.

The rest of the evening is the perfect send-off for Evie and me. We toast with champagne to our successes and our newfound friendships. We listen to Kara’s playlist, some of her favorite songs and some hotly contested choices that lead to a lot of arguing by the younger members of the entourage. Food is brought from the resort on giant platters and we eat and dance and enjoy the quietest night so far.

There is one episode of excitement: when a slightly intoxicated Dax appears at the back of the cabana.

His appearance makes the entire party freeze. Dax approaches the group like nothing’s wrong, like he thinks if he just strolls up he’ll be welcomed back, no harm done. At all of our expressions, that winning smile breaks across his handsome face.

He gestures for Kara to come to him. She doesn’t, staying seated on the couch like a queen on her throne.

With a scorching look that would send a less arrogant man sprinting, Kara says, “I have no idea what you could possibly have to say to me.”

Dax isn’t shy about giving his forgive-me speech in public. He’s ballsy, I’ll give him that.

“Look, babe,” he says. “I fucked up. I know that. I promise you, it didn’t mean anything. You know you’re the only girl I have feelings for. She was just physical, a distraction.”

“I don’t know why you think I care,” Kara says. She looks back down at her phone and continues to scroll her playlist for the next song she wants to hear.

“You’ve been so busy,” he says. “I was just horny and that bitch was throwing herself at me. Can’t we just agree that I fucked up?”

Kara graces him with another look, this one even more withering than the last. “Yes, we can agree about that, Dax,” she says.

Dax struggles to compute her words with her expression. “Great,” he says finally. “So we’re good?”

Kara tosses her phone to the side, stands, and says, “No, Dax. We’re not ‘good’. And if you want my advice, I’d get the fuck off this island and back to Boston before I punt your ass there.”

Dax’s smile falls off his face with a wet plop. For the first time, he’s realizing this isn’t going to go his way. And that there are a lot of witnesses to his humiliation.

“I don’t know why you’re being such a bitch,” he says. “I told you. It didn’t mean anything.”

“And you didn’t mean anything to me,” she says. “Hope you find a less bitchy girl who’ll put up with your shit in the future. Or, actually, no I don’t. It’d be bad karma to wish you on any poor girl out there.”

“Look,” Dax says, stepping forward. I move to stand, but, as always, Dalton beats me to the punch.

“She wants you to leave, man,” Dalton says, standing in front of Kara in a single long stride.

Dax scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Dude, you’re too corny. Get the fuck out of the way, Friend Zone, before I move you out of the way.”

“I’d like to see you fucking try.”

On a better day, Dax probably would realize he can only lose in this situation. But on the spot, stinging from a humiliating rejection and probably already at least a couple beers in, his judgment is irrevocably skewed. What happens next seems inevitable.

Dax turns away slightly, chuckling, looking as if he might make a retreat. And then his eyes flash, turning back with a fist raised and streaking towards Dalton’s chin.

Tori shrieks. Evie jumps to her feet. I start to dash forward.

But it’s all too late and pointless anyhow. Dalton leans backward like a boxer and the punch whiffs past his face. Thrown off balance, Dax stumbles forward… right into Dalton’s fist. The spot where the kid punched me earlier smarts sympathetically as Dax is thrown to the sand, a long fall for the basketball player.

It’s over in a few seconds, time slowing and then racing forward again. Before I can fling myself into the mix, resort security beats me to the metaphorical punch. They must have been on the sidelines, unnoticed professionals on a rowdy island, because they seem to know that Dax was the instigator. They drag him off to hoots and hollers from the Krew and we’re able to return to enjoying the evening, Dalton the hero of the night.

I hadn’t wanted to leave New York, had dreaded it even. Who was I without my routine, my company? But this trip across the Atlantic has opened my eyes to the man I could be, maybe even already am. One who dances, who wakes up late and goes to bed after dawn, who only has eyes for the beautiful woman laughing across from him.

Evie snatches my attention and holds it close. No matter who I’m speaking to or what else is going on, my eyes can’t help but drift back to hers, looking for her reaction or to test her mood. Frequently, when I glance her way, she’s already looking at me, and I can’t suppress the thrill of excitement that rips up my body at the thought of going home and trying something new.

The evening ends with the sunrise. As the small hours slipped away, more and more of the Krew melted off to bed. The party moved back to Kara’s suite when the beach closed for the night, and now it’s just Kara, Dalton, Evie, and me, watching the sun rise from the hot tub on the balcony. We’ve gone through quite a few bottles of champagne, told just about every funny story we can think of. Now there’s only silence and reflection. Evie is resting against my shoulder; Dalton and Kara aren’t quite touching but have moved closer and closer all evening.

I press my lips to the top of Evie’s head. It feels perfect, a kind of tranquility that I never thought was possible for me. But I’m happy to be proven wrong. And I’ll be even happier once I can get Evie alone back home and tell her exactly how I feel.