Chapter 24
24
T he view of Saint-Tropez from the water is stunning. It’s a perfect portrait of summer—sunlight shimmering off the waves surrounding the bobbing boats. Blue skies and blue seas, and the color’s brightness is so startling that I’m not sure why anyone associates it with melancholy.
I associate it with Elizabeth Kensington.
And she’s where my gaze keeps catching, disregarding the rest of the stunning scenery.
Lili is seated at the very end of the diving board that sticks off the stern of the yacht we’re on. Wearing a white one-piece, her dark hair blowing around in a wild halo.
She walked out there about ten minutes ago. Rather than jumping, she sat. And she’s been perched at the end ever since, her head tilted back so her face is angled toward the sun.
If I still had a trust fund, I’d spend it all to find out what Lili’s thinking about right now.
“Lili! You scared?”
Tripp and Jasper dived into the ocean a few minutes ago. They’re treading water beneath the diving board now.
“That might have worked when we were kids,” she calls back to Tripp. “I’m sunbathing.”
“Well, I’m jumping,” Jasper announces. “So, get in or get off.”
Lili waits until they climb the ladder to execute a perfect swan dive from the ten-foot drop.
She stays under for longer than I expect. I tense, only relaxing when her head breaks the surface. Right by the ladder, an impressive distance from where she entered the water.
“We get it, show-off,” Hugo says as Lili climbs onto the boat. “You were swim team captain.”
“Not my fault you’re afraid of sharks.”
“ Everyone’s afraid of sharks,” Hugo replies. “Some people are just more aware of it.”
Bridget snorts. She’s sprawled out on the full length of the cushion next to mine, reading a book. So am I, one of two I brought.
Lili tosses a towel on the teak deck and lies down on it. I swallow, watching a drop of water roll into the hollow of her throat. As mesmerized by the sight of her now as I was when she was out on the diving board. As when I woke up in her bed.
“You see this, Charles?” Theo leans forward from his spot beside Chloe to show me his phone screen.
I squint at the headline. Highland Promotes Piers Colborn to International COO , it reads.
“You were at Eton together, right?”
I don’t bother asking how he knows that. Theo didn’t go to Eton, but I’m sure he’s friendly with lots of our peers who did.
“Right,” I reply.
And I haven’t seen him since.
Trauma either binds people tighter together or separates them, in my experience. Piers and I were teammates more than anything. After the accident that robbed me of my ability to play rugby, it was easier for both of us to lose touch and try to forget what’d happened.
I’m glad to hear he’s doing well though. Bloody impressive, COO at twenty-six.
I rub the faded scar on my knee involuntarily, then stand and shrug my shirt off. “Going to check on the local shark population for you, Hugo.”
He doesn’t reply. When I glance over, he’s smirking at Lili.
I’m confused, until Jasper whistles. “Shit, man. Did you lose a fight with a grizzly bear?”
Flashes of last night fill my head.
“I won the fight,” I tell him. “But it was one hell of a match.”
One of the girls snickers. I’m not sure who because I’m focused on Lili’s pink cheeks.
I didn’t realize she’d left scratches on my back, but I’m not mad about it. Her suit hides most of the marks I left on her body last night, but there’s a purplish hickey visible on her collarbone now that gravity has fanned her hair across the towel.
I take the stairs to the upper deck two at a time. Dive off the board into calm turquoise water and emerge with the taste of salt in my mouth.
The water is chilly, but not cold. Refreshing after sitting out in the sun for the past couple of hours.
Jasper jumps in next, followed by Cal. The rest of Lili’s friends jump in soon after. Even Bridget, who announced earlier she was staying dry today.
It’s hot out, and it’s getting late in the afternoon. We’ll head back to shore soon.
Lili is the only one who stays on board.
I tread water for a few minutes, listening to banter about the perils of sharks and stingrays and shipwrecks, then swim to the ladder.
Lili hasn’t moved, so I grab a dry towel and sit down beside her. Deliberately flicking some water on her in the process.
She scowls, shading her eyes. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry.” I grin.
Today has been fun. Even the thought of meeting with the real estate agent later today hasn’t dampened my mood much.
The trip to Saint-Tropez has been an even better escape from the cycle of stress and worry and anger than Theo’s wedding was. The rest of Lili’s friends seem to care about my title as much as she does—not at all. Getting to know Theo better has been nice too.
It’s a chance to experience what my life was like before my father died. Minimal obligations and responsibilities.
My life is still privileged in so many ways. But I started to view that privilege as a prison at some point, and that’s a very isolating way to go through life.
“You come here a lot?” I ask Lili.
“No.” She sits up, mirroring my posture. “Been a while actually. Since … high school?”
“Surprised your family doesn’t have a place here.”
“We have one on the Amalfi Coast,” she tells me a little sheepishly.
“Do you go there a lot?”
“At least once a year usually. My dad owns part of AC Milan, so that’s always where he wants to take our family trips.”
I sort of … forgot how wealthy Lili is. And that she’s from the kind of family that takes vacations together.
The reminder of how different our lives are dims my mood a little. All I have to offer her is a title—one she doesn’t care about.
She glances at me when I say nothing. “You follow football, right?”
“Is the king English? Yes, I follow football.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know much about the Premier League.”
“It’s where all the best teams are. That’s all you need to know.”
Lili scoffs. “Don’t mention that to my dad.” She reaches for the tube of sunscreen someone left on the deck. Holds it toward me. “Do you mind putting some on my back? I want to lie out for a while, but I don’t want to get burned.”
I take the bottle from her. “If you wanted me to touch you, you just had to ask.”
She tries to grab it back from me. “Never mind. I’ll ask?—”
“You already asked me. Turn around.”
She huffs but listens. I squeeze some of the white lotion into my palm, then start rubbing it over her right shoulder. She groans softly when my thumb digs into her deltoid, and the sound shoots straight to my dick.
If we were alone, I’d flip her over and fuck her right here.
“Are you okay?” she asks me quietly.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seemed … extra serious when Theo was talking about that guy you went to school with.”
I’m startled—pleasantly surprised—that she was paying close enough attention to me to notice.
I squirt more sunscreen out, then move to rub her other side, careful not to disturb the scab on her shoulder. It’s almost gone, revealing the new, pinker skin beneath.
“I didn’t injure my knee playing rugby,” I confess. “I was in a car accident when I was seventeen. Piers Colborn, the guy Theo mentioned, was the one driving.”
Lili’s back expands with a sudden breath under my palm.
“It was an accident. The other driver wasn’t paying attention. Ran a red. Piers and I just happened to be on the wrong side of the car. Hadn’t heard his name in a while, is all. Took me by surprise.”
“Were you friends?” she asks.
“Friendly. Teammates mostly. We were on our way to practice when it happened. My father was furious. He’d never wanted me to play rugby in the first place. Tried to sue the Colborns and everything.” I shake my head.
“I’m sure he was worried about you.”
“Worried about not having an heir. With good reason, as it turned out.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Charlie.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, attempting to ignore the expanding pressure in my chest.
I’ve never told anyone about that accident before, and something about the soft sympathy in Lili’s voice has my heart going haywire.
This version of Lili is very different from the woman who left scratches all over my back and then climbed onto my lap because I wasn’t fucking her fast enough.
And the one who haughtily forgot my name—multiple times.
I like all three versions.
More than I should probably since she’ll be headed back to New York in a couple of days.
With that temporary thought in my mind, I write MINE on her back in sunscreen, right between her shoulder blades.
I can’t see any of the hickeys I left on her from this angle, but I know they’re there. Know she’s probably sore, too, from riding my dick the way she did.
“What—are you writing something?” she asks.
Smart.
In addition to being fiery and impatient and occasionally sweet, Lili is smart. She notices things I don’t even register myself, like the way the mention of Piers affected me.
“Nope.”
I smear the sunscreen around, making sure her whole back is covered, then lie down on my towel and close my eyes.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Lili lies back down too.
Her hand brushes against mine in the few inches between our bodies. Without opening my eyes, I link our pinkies together.
She doesn’t pull away. She curls hers around mine too, covering the metal of my signet ring.
When I glance over a couple of minutes later, she’s smiling up at the clear sky.