Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
F rankie sat in the passenger seat of Zane’s BMW convertible and watched the sun drop low, spilling its orange light across the Nantucket Sound. She felt soft and happy. Music from Zane’s speaker purred through the air, and not a single other person was on the beach, not this far south. Zane had left the car to make a phone call, and he stood at a distance, his phone pressed against his ear and his head bent. Frankie couldn’t hear anything he said, but sometimes he turned and smiled at her.
He’s mine.
Zane had been very pleased with Frankie’s delivery of the packages that afternoon. “It went off without a hitch,” he’d said when he picked her up and kissed her hello that evening. Frankie had melted into him.
Zane returned from his phone call and sat with his arm wrapped around Frankie and his eyes on the sunset.
“Is everything all right?” Frankie asked.
Zane pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Everything is better than fine.”
Frankie knew he meant it.
Five minutes went by without a single word. Frankie felt delirious and out of her mind. This was nothing like the first week she’d spent with Colin—after they’d met at a dumb freshman-year party and eaten nachos at a terrible Mexican restaurant. The server hadn’t even known what guacamole was. Their kiss had tasted like black olives and virgin margaritas.
“Do you ever have dreams about your future?” Zane asked.
“All the time.”
“Me too,” Zane said. “And I can’t help but feel like you’re a piece of that puzzle. That you were missing from my life all this time, and now, everything is clicking into place.”
Frankie pressed her nose to his chest and inhaled his musk. “I feel the same way,” she whispered.
They kissed for a while. Frankie was so lost in it that she hardly noticed the passage of time. When she returned to herself, she was surprised to see that the sun was already down and night was falling fast. Zane turned up the radio to play an eighties song.
“I just remembered,” Zane said. “I have your money.”
Zane shifted to open the glove box and remove an envelope, which he dropped on Frankie’s lap. Frankie picked it up, opened it, and counted out two hundred dollars.
Frankie’s throat swelled with panic. And greed. Two hundred dollars made in twenty-five minutes of work. Not a bad rate.
“This is too much!” she whispered.
“It’s the going rate for people who work for me,” Zane said. “Don’t take any less than what you’re worth, honey.”
Frankie wrapped her hand around the envelope tightly. Questions purred through her. Is this illegal, Zane? Am I involved in something wrong? What was really in the boxes? Are we going to go to prison if we’re caught?
But just one look in his eyes stopped her questions. She found herself kissing him again, lost in his breath and the heat of the night. She wanted desperately to go home with him, wherever that home was. But it seemed that he had other plans for their relationship.
“I don’t want to go too fast,” he said after their kiss broke. “Like I said, I see you as a part of my future. I see you as more than just a summer fling.”
It was what any woman dreamed of hearing.
“I see that, too,” she said.
Night had fallen, and the darkness was ever-present and thick. Frankie shivered and buckled her seat belt as Zane put the top up on the car and prepared to drive her home. He was a capable driver, fast but not too fast, whizzing through the soft night.
“Would you be up for another job this week?” he asked.
Frankie felt cocooned. She would have said yes to anything.
“It’s the same rate,” he said.
“Sure,” Frankie said. “Just tell me where to be and when.”
“That’s my girl,” Zane said, massaging the back of her neck.