Chapter 10
TEN
NOAH
Saying goodbye to Sienna—and not begging to spend the whole night kissing her—took herculean effort. We only have two days. This is going nowhere. I shouldn’t be taking this slow. Fuck romance. I should be diving in headfirst.
And yet romance is all I see when I look at that woman.
It’s a living, breathing thing, guiding my every move. It sets a pace I can’t help but take. Nothing has ever felt this right. It’s terrifying, since we’re meant for a one-night stand, if we’re lucky, and nothing more.
Despite the fear there, it’s impossible not to enjoy every tension-filled moment.
I contemplate showing up at her room with breakfast this morning but determine it’s a little too presumptuous. Better to wait for lunchtime. If I haven’t run into her by then, it’ll be the perfect excuse to check in. She has to eat, so why not eat with me?
I’m heading out for a run along the beach when Bert and Ernie appear, blocking my path. “Thought you were going to meet us for dinner last night. Where’d you disappear to?”
I run my hands through my hair and dart a look around. “Ended up going to the party on the beach.”
Ernie’s eyes light up. “Oh, our next-door neighbor told us she was going there too, didn’t she, Bert?”
The rounder of the two men nods. “Yup. She did say that. Did you happen to run into her?”
I try to wipe the grin off my face, but it’s no use. “Yeah, I did, actually.”
Ernie, white hair styled perfectly, claps me on the shoulder with a little too much force, turning me around and leading me back the way I came. “That’s great. Walk with us. Tell us what happened.”
I glance over my shoulder. “I was just going for a run.”
He waves a hand. “You can do that later.”
I suppose he’s right. So I give them a very brief overview of the night, quickly touching on how Sienna and I danced and talked.
“But she was by herself this morning,” Bert states.
“Yeah, when we left, she was having breakfast on her deck. Alone,” Ernie emphasizes.
I duck my head and chuckle. “I walked her back to her place and haven’t seen her since.”
Without stopping, Ernie looks at me head-on, his face twisted in confusion. “Why?”
“Because—” I shake my head. “Wait, why are you pushing this?”
In unison, they let out obnoxious sighs.
“You really like her,” Ernie says.
I shrug. “Yeah, why’s that bad?”
“Because we thought this was a vacation fling.” Bert runs a hand over his shiny bald head. “If we’d realized you liked her like this, we’d have turned you down when you asked to switch rooms. Now we feel bad.”
I frown. “What difference does it make?”
“Because now you’re less likely to casually ‘run into’ her,” Bert explains like I’m an idiot.
“I appreciate the concern, but I’ll be okay.”
“No you won’t,” Ernie grumbles. He stops, so Bert and I do the same.
Ahead on the beach, a dozen or so women sit on towels, lined up in rows. Between them and the ocean, a man with his own beach towel laid out beside him stands, gesturing like he’s speaking.
“But fortunately for you,” Bert says, “we’re here to help.”
I scratch my head, still surveying the scene. “Huh?”
Just as the word leaves my mouth, it hits me. Because there, in the back row, pushing to her feet on her towel, is Sienna. “So you’re my fairy godfathers?”
Ernie throws his head back and guffaws. “I kind of like that title.”
Bert mouths the words a few times and shrugs. “It works.”
Now that I’ve spotted the woman who’s occupied all my thoughts since we touched down in the Bahamas, it’s as if there’s a tether connecting me to her, tugging, insisting I get closer. “Thanks, guys.”
I hustle onto the beach, though I only make it a few steps before Ernie calls my name.
“You need this.” He tosses a turquoise towel to me.
With a grin, I snag it out of the air. When I turn back around, Sienna is looking our way. And when our eyes meet, her lips lift like I’m the greatest surprise.
“You found me,” she says as I place my towel beside hers.
I nod. “Yup. I found you.”
My body feels surprisingly good after yoga. It’s nothing like the workouts I’ll be doing in a matter of weeks, nor the training I follow even in the offseason, but the stretches loosened up my muscles, and since I’m supposed to be relaxing during this trip, I guess that’s fitting.
“Would you maybe want to run into each other for lunch?” I ask her as we shake out our towels.
Sienna shrugs, but she’s smiling. “Maybe. What did you have in mind?”
I glance around the resort, then point at the beach bar. “There work for you?” I don’t want to waste time traveling, so that place is probably our best bet. “We can go back to our rooms and change, then meet at the restaurant in thirty minutes?”
“Sure.” She folds her towel in half, then in half again, and drapes it over her arm. “I can do that.”
“Want me to walk you back to your room?”
She rolls her eyes. “If you hadn’t given up your nice room to avoid me, we could walk back together. But no, I can get back myself okay. Unless…” She trails off, scanning the beach before blinking up at me.
The look is weighted, heavy. Like she has something other than lunch in mind.
Stomach tightening and heart racing, I force myself to respond. “Unless?”
She presses her teeth into her lip. “I can walk back with you, and then you can come to my room.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but it almost sounds like she doesn’t want to leave me any more than I want to leave her. Like spending thirty minutes apart is a terrible waste of the limited time we have here.
“Okay, though it probably makes sense to stop at your room first, since you’re near the water.”
With a shrug, she turns toward the path that winds along the beach and to the villas.
“So, Paris,” I hedge.
Last night, once I finally found the strength to stop kissing her, I got the hell out of there, worried about what would happen next if I didn’t, so I never had a chance to ask about her move.
Sienna hums, her focus on the sidewalk ahead. “Yes, Paris.”
“Why are you moving?”
“Job. It’s a big move for my career. But I’m nervous. Being the youngest of five siblings means that I’ve always been kind of cocooned.”
Amused, I parrot her words. “Cocooned?”
She giggles. “Like I can’t go anywhere without someone being in my business. They all care. They only do it because they love me. But I’m ready to fly, ya know?”
I nod, smiling. “Yeah, butterfly, I think you are.”
“Butterfly.” She hums. “I like that.”
“Better than sweet cheeks?”
Her already flushed face goes red. Most of the time, she’s sassy, but then she has soft moments like this, almost like the sexy clothes and sharp tongue are a front.
A defense mechanism, perhaps. Like the intricate designs on a butterfly.
The colorful attitude protects her. It allows her to stand out, or blend in, depending upon the role required of her at that moment.
One of my strengths is my ability to read people.
It’s served me well in my career. I study my opponents’ tells so I know when they’re about to deke left or glide right.
I know when a goalie has taken his focus off a certain spot.
It takes a second of indecision on his part and a fake-out on mine to get the puck into the back of his net.
Though I don’t normally use that intuition in my day-to-day life.
I’ve never really had reason to, I guess.
My focus has always been fixed solely on hockey.
If I’m not studying tape, training, or working out, I’m keeping my brain occupied with crossword puzzles or a documentary.
I like learning and I like studying, but I’ve never been interested enough in a woman to use those skills to discover more about her.
But with Sienna, I want to know everything and I’m studying every detail. It takes work, and I’ve got to really focus on the little comments, the body language, and the facial expressions, because she’s not giving me much to go on.
“In what industry is this big career move happening?”
Sienna stares off toward the ocean, those green eyes going distant, and shakes her head. “Can we not do that whole thing?”
“What whole thing?”
Head tilted, she sighs. “The careers, the last names. I don’t want any of that to influence the way you look at me.”
I frown. “Why would your last name influence the way I look at you?”
“It influences how everyone looks at me,” she says, a soft sadness to her voice.
My hackles rise a little, an unfamiliar defensiveness overtaking me. “I’m not everyone.”
I don’t get hung up on wealth. I already know she comes from money anyway. It was obvious the moment I saw her. I couldn’t care less about fame either. Could she be an actress? I’d be the last person to recognize her if that were the case. Honestly, none of it matters to me.
“Please?” Her tone is soft but full of desperation.
“It changes how people look at me. I know it’s asking a lot, but can we just be Noah and Sienna here?
I need to be my own person this week. I’m so damn nervous about next week.
I have no idea what life will look like when I’m no longer living in my brothers’ shadows. It’ll be good to practice.”
I thread my fingers through hers and squeeze.
“You’re going to soar, butterfly. I don’t know your last name, and I don’t know a damn thing about your life, but from what I’ve witnessed over the last couple of days, I know you’ll be amazing.
So yeah, we can just be Noah and Sienna this weekend. I think I’d like that, actually.”
With a relieved sigh, she smiles. “Well.” She peers back at her villa. “I know you had to switch rooms since the accommodations were so terrible, but you’ll have to slum it with me for a few minutes while I change.”
I chuckle. “I already told you why I switched rooms.”
“Ah, yes,” she teases. “Because you were trying to stay away from little old me. How’s that working out for you?”
With a grunt, I pull her into a bear hug and lumber toward her door. “You’re a brat, you know that?”