5. Finn
CHAPTER 5
Finn
The time to continue our journey came before I had a chance to decide if I looked forward to or dreaded the destination. Percy Davenport was of absolutely no help at all. Not only had he tossed aside all my brilliant meet-cute ideas, but he kept warning me about his family whenever the topic came up. And in some moments when we were as far from the topic of his parents as you could get. Mentioning that strawberries were my favorite fruit, in case he needed to order a convincing dessert for me, brought on a shudder about his mother. When I asked, he didn’t elaborate and simply looked into my eyes and told me I would know it when I saw it.
The morning found me sprawled out in the huge bed and with a sad view of Percy curled up on the sofa. Rich people didn’t need pull-outs, apparently, and bringing a fake boyfriend to a beach resort was too narrow of a niche for a service to develop. I jotted down a business idea right there before scanning the vast, empty space of the bed where my shorts and shirt lay. Hopping out of bed, I hummed to myself as I dressed.
When I turned around, zipping up my linen shorts, I realized Percy was awake and watching me. The moment when heat touched my cheeks, because he had observed my nearly-naked self putting on clothes, passed when the light cover fell off his torso. He sat up, his chest bare and sculpted, his abs chiseled with master-like precision. I looked at his round shoulders, at the steep rise of his trapezius leading to his long neck, and caught myself before I drooled.
I wouldn’t mind faking all sorts of things with you , I thought and promptly spun away. I’d danced a careful dance with a billionaire not that long ago, working hard to keep that fucked at arm’s length, seducing him enough to slip my hand into his pocket in search of evidence, but never so much that he lost all control and did things to me. Even so, just thinking about flirting with someone who lived in the clouds and ate gold flakes for breakfast annoyed me.
The shuffling noises told me Percy was a tad more decent and less eye-pleasing now, so I looked at him over my shoulder. “Ready for the big day?”
“Don’t be silly,” he grumbled.
I lifted my hands in surrender. “Somebody’s a ‘don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee’ person.”
“I’m more of a ‘don’t tease me until I’ve finished this family visit’ type,” he said, strolling past me into the bathroom. Unfortunately, Percy’s idea of decency was a pair of swimming shorts and rubber flip-flops. He didn’t bother to cover the perfection of his torso. His back was almost as appealing as his front, all rippling hills and valleys of his defined muscles.
Just my luck , I thought sourly. But it could have been worse. He could have been a pervert thinking he owned me just because I’d agreed to this silly game.
I rummaged through my backpack and double-checked that the USB drive was zipped tightly in a pocket that was much more secure than what my shorts had. Slinking the backpack over my shoulder, I was ready for our adventure.
It was still early when Percy tossed on a billowy light cream shirt with buttons barely done to hold the fabric ever so slightly together and led me to the car. A chauffeur covered the perfectly walkable distance between the villa and the harbor.
When we got out of the car and the chauffeur loaded our—it was mostly Percy’s—luggage, a frown rippled over my face. The long strip of the harbor was lined with yachts ranging from slightly larger than a fishing boat to some that looked like they had tiny little living quarters below the deck, but none seemed like they housed a permanent staff of thirty people and sported a helicopter pad. “Is…that it?” I asked.
Percy shot me a weird look I couldn’t decipher. It almost looked like this entertained him. “What did you expect?”
I rolled my shoulders in a half-shrug. “At least a superyacht.”
Percy tilted his head at a sleek, black yacht with a fairly long deck. There was an upper level with a steering wheel and seating area, and enough room below the deck to have sleeping quarters, perhaps a small kitchenette and a shower, and probably a sitting room of sorts. It was elegant in all its detail, from the brown wood of the deck to the cream faux leather furniture. “Come aboard,” Percy called after me and lifted a couple of his suitcases. His chauffeur loaded the rest and I finally crossed the plank and came aboard his yacht. “This is the only luxury I actually care about,” Percy explained as he loaded the luggage under the deck. He climbed out and onto the upper level, started the engine, and leaned against the wheel while waiting for me.
Wide-eyed, I climbed in after him and found myself in a cozy open space with a canopy providing shade in the middle. Secured to the floor was a table with an L-shaped sectional and a cozy high chair for the captain to sit and steer.
“Your plane was bigger,” I pointed out.
Percy snorted. “I hate that tin can.” He put a hand on the steering wheel and lifted his gaze to the horizon. “This is what I love. Blue seas, blue skies, freedom. I’d sail everywhere if I could.” He cracked a smile when he looked at me again.
That was oddly sweet. I cocked my head and looked him over. A gust of warm wind pulled his shirt wider over his bare chest, and my fingertips tingled in reply. He looked like he was yearning for that horizon more than anything you could offer him.
“I’m the last person who should complain,” Percy said.
I shrugged. “We’re all unhappy about something, I guess.”
“You don’t seem unhappy,” Percy said.
I cocked a smile. “In my experience, the saddest ones laugh the loudest.”
Percy nodded like someone who understood everything but also knew that saying anything to that was pointless. So we moved on without missing a beat.
“Where to, Captain?” I asked, walking to the far end of the upper deck, slightly in front of Percy and the control board.
“Let’s pull this baby out of the harbor and give it a spin,” Percy said. “Give us some music, Finn.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. Of all the joys in my life, music had the top spot, closely followed by a good, sexy romance novel. I connected my phone to Percy’s Davon Portable Sound System and played my favorite 1980s hits while Percy slowly pulled us out of the packed harbor.
As we left the bay behind, the open waters tilted the boat this way and that, but the spray of the sea and the purr of the engine combined to give me the picture-perfect moments of summer vacations. Unable to sit still, I kept walking between the railings around the upper deck, gazing at the diminishing Mykonos and the growing dot of Naxon on the horizon.
Of all the prospects I could have hoped for just a few nights ago when I sought out my friend, vacationing in the Cyclades was not on the list. And when I’d agreed to accompany Kim’s billionaire boss as his date, I hadn’t expected the sweetest man on Earth to steer his own little yacht between the islands.
Percy asked me to hop down under the deck and grab us a couple of beers from the fridge. There, I discovered an interior that was far cuter than anything I’d imagined. Instead of the cream, brown, gold, and black scheme I had seen outside, the sitting and sleeping areas were white, gray, and blue, matching this endearing idea of Greece that lived in my head.
With a beer in each hand, I returned to the upper deck to find Percy steering, his broad shoulders bare, his torso narrowing to his waist, and his shirt hanging over the back of the chair. He turned around to accept his beer and my gaze lingered on his perfectly sculpted body.
Fuck. My. Life. I held a breath and forced myself to look up. When the hell did he have time to make billions and stay in shape? I barely managed to have my morning coffee and prepare dinner in one day. I took a swig from my bottle and realized how badly I had needed the cold, bitter liquid just now.
“Do you have any siblings, Finn?” Percy asked, tilting the steering wheel a fraction to the left.
“A younger sister,” I said coolly. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about Julie without raging and crying about the injustice done to my family. “She’s in college.” And that was the end of it.
“And you? What is it that you actually do?” Percy asked with an innocent smile, smoothly moving from one question to the next. He had every right to question me like this. After all, you didn’t pick up a stray to sleep in your bed in your parents’ home for two weeks without questions.
“What do you think I do?” I countered with a teasing smile.
Percy chuckled and nodded, accepting the game. “Let me see. I bet you’re a theater kid. I bet you danced your butt off doing The Crucible in high school. You have the razzle-dazzle for Broadway, so you might even be auditioning, but singing is a bit of a hindrance.” A spark of mischief came to life in his eyes.
I grabbed my chest. “How dare you? A hindrance?”
“Comedic timing, though, is spot on,” Percy said with a wink. “And because getting that big break in New York is rough no matter your talent, you’re taking acting jobs where you can. You come prepared with all sorts of backstories for your character and you’re such a method actor that you’ll live the role even if it means flying to Greece.”
“Incredible,” I said with awe filling my eyes.
Percy’s eyebrows shot up and a shocked expression melted over his face. “Wait, was all that correct?”
“Not even one of those things was correct,” I said, admiring his ability to get so much of it wrong.
Percy threw his head back and laughed loudly enough to compete with the hum of the sea and his yacht’s engine roar. “Tell me your story, then.”
I leaned against the flat surface just to the left of Percy and his steering wheel. The waves tilted us left and right, so I sat on the edge of the elegant table that extended from Percy’s control board and gripped the safety railings. Wind ruffled my hair and I removed a few annoying curls that fell over my eyes. “I wish I had it all figured out the way you measured me.” I shook my head. If I’d had the ambition to become an actor—or talent for that matter—half my problems would be solved. As it stood now, I still had the other half to deal with, plus the issue of no prospects after seeing justice be done. I was a vigilante, but I couldn’t afford a goddamn cape, so that rendered me to a petty criminal. “I’m sort of drifting,” I admitted. “So much of my life, I spent waiting for something to begin. I used to think I was waiting to grow up or for life to just start happening, but then I realized I missed all my chances.” Percy’s somber expression and my tired tone were a killer combination. I laughed at us. “What a way to start an adventure, huh?”
Percy shared a small smile. “I know something about those feelings.”
I arched an eyebrow before I could stop myself. I really had to remember that having unlimited dollar bills didn’t exactly solve all the problems of a human heart. Not that it made things worse, as far as I could tell.
He shrugged in a shy way nerds in college would. It looked like such a natural gesture for him. “I know what that sounds like. You really don’t get to complain when there’s a silver spoon wedged in your mouth, but…” He fell quiet and shook his head as if to rattle the words off his mind.
“But?” I softened my voice enough to remove the tone of irony that tended to catch me off guard around his kind.
Percy showed a lopsided smile and looked away from me, his blue gaze kissing the equally blue canvas of sea and sky around us. When he inhaled a deep breath, his chest inflated, and I almost forgot what we were talking about. How could he be so geeky and shy in one moment and so hot and confident in the next? Before I could begin searching for an answer, Percy supplied one to my earlier question. “But…I sometimes wonder if I was just struck by lightning and my whole life happened because of pure luck, not hard work.” He looked into my eyes as if to test the limits of my sympathy. When he found that I had plenty left, he continued. “I’ll be the first to admit that we had a good idea, Richie and I, but that was it. The rest was just luck and timing. We were two broke college students who got to the answer to a very particular problem five minutes before another pair would. It could have happened to anyone. And now I’m listed as influential by Forbes .” He rolled his eyes with more than a little contempt.
“ Forbes ?” I asked, dialing up the intrigue in my voice.
A snort worthy of an award erupted from Percy. “It’s a pile of nonsense. I tried to give a university lecture once. That was before Kim joined my team. She would have had the sense to stop me from accepting the offer. Not only did all my jokes bomb, but I stumbled through ninety minutes of lecturing without understanding half the things I thought I knew.”
I blew out a big breath of air. “Crap. In front of college students? That does a number on your confidence.”
He shuddered. “I still have nightmares about it.” We shared a short laugh and Percy looked at me. “I guess the lesson is, being unhappy with things is simply human nature.”
“I suppose that’s how we evolved in the first place,” I mused.
“Except here,” Percy said. “Here is where I’m happy.”
Massive ferries dotted the blue surface of the sea, sending ripples in all directions, but Percy’s yacht rode the waves, heaving, falling, and making its steady way toward the growing island of Naxos. Its mountainous peaks became more visible with each minute that ticked away. A huge stone arch on bare rocks struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t place it until Percy pointed to it. “Apollo’s temple. That’s what’s left of it, at least.” And I remembered seeing it on some postcard somewhere a long time ago.
Percy’s yacht left a frothy trail in its wake, cutting through the waves until we neared the harbor.
“If it weren’t for my entire extended family, all their friends, and the friends’ fifth cousins flocking here for the party, this would be Paradise.” Percy steered our way into the harbor and began the slow process of docking and tying his yacht in a line of sleek private boats and ships.
Before we got off the deck, Percy tossed his shirt back over his annoyingly perfect body, buttoned it nearly all the way up, and clenched his fists. “This is a bad idea,” he muttered.
“Too late for second-guessing now,” I said.
“Doesn’t make the idea any better.” He glanced at me then at the approaching car that had all the makings of a billionaire’s private ride; black, elegant, longer than strictly necessary, polished like a freaking mirror.
“Can’t wait to meet the in-laws,” I said in an over-the-top, oh-golly manner.
Percy choked and cleared his throat. “When they unload all their questions, be vague, act shy, and improvise only when it’s necessary.”
“And if all else fails, I’ll just break into Hello, My Baby like Michigan J. Frog,” I said. By the horrified look on his face, Percy wasn’t sure whether or not I was joking. And upon further introspection, I wasn’t certain either.