Chapter 6
THEO
Boat secured. Check .
Now for my passengers…
I turn to find Lottie doing laps around Sadie like a toddler-shaped firework – tiny, fast, and seconds from detonation.
Christ. And I’m about to put that on water…?
I snag a life vest from the boatman like it’s body armour and intercept her mid-soar. ‘Time to suit up, Captain.’
She skids to a miraculous halt and I wrestle the vest over her shoulders, zipping her in with the calm, practised ease of someone absolutely winging it.
Sadie’s watching the entire thing, arms crossed, a curious twist tugging at the corner of her mouth.
I throw her a grin that says, I’ve got this .
She smiles back like she almost believes me.
And just like that, I almost believe me too.
‘Ready?’ I say to our captain.
‘Ready!’
I help them aboard, bracing my feet as the boat rocks with their arrival. It gives me something to focus on – something that isn’t the warmth of Sadie’s hand in mine as she climbs in. It’s a hand. Just a hand. Nothing exotic or erotic or— Jesus , get a grip!
I feel about as wired as Lottie looks, and I glance at Sadie. ‘I think Captain might need strapping in?’
She gives an edgy laugh, pulling Lottie into her lap as she takes a seat – thank God – while I do the same and grab the oars.
Why did I think this was a good idea again?
Still, Lottie seems… mostly contained. Contained and chipper, which is as close to calm as you get with a three-year-old, I’m coming to realise. I row us out while she babbles non-stop about birds, boats, and everything in between, her head on a constant swivel.
And Sadie… I don’t know.
She’s dug out a pair of sunglasses and I can’t see her eyes any more, but her head is angled to the sun, her mouth softly curved. The sight steals my breath – then my rhythm – the oars stuttering across the surface before I pull it back under control.
Her mouth twitches.
I wonder if she noticed.
Noticed and knows the cause.
Beautiful , that’s what she is, that’s what I want to tell her. But I can’t.
I let that out and it’s a slippery slope into the truth – that I want her. That I wanted her back then, too. And that’s a truth neither of us can handle.
She’s fresh out of a relationship from hell, seeking a new life for her and Lottie – a happy, stable life.
And me messing with that, confusing it with whatever this attraction is… it wouldn’t just reopen an old wound, it would break Taylor’s trust in me. Maybe even break Sadie all over again, and I can’t do it. I won’t.
I can make her feel better though. I hope.
‘How do you feel now?’
We’re in the middle of the lake. Far enough from land for the noise to fall away. Here, it’s just the gentle creak of the hull, the steady lap of the water, the soft swoosh of the oars.
‘Better.’ She turns that tiny smile on me. ‘Thank you.’
My chest eases. Just hearing her say it and knowing that she means it…
But I can’t forget how she looked getting out of the car. Pale. Clammy. Flinching at every spike in sound. And I know it’s him. That whatever she went through at his hand, she’s still going through it now.
Because she hadn’t been like this before: wary of crowds, sensitive to noise…
Sadie from her teens would have been at the heart of it.
Grinning and yelling as much as those teens we passed.
‘You don’t need to thank me,’ I say, still rowing, still inching her away from it. ‘You’re doing me a favour by getting me out of the apartment too.’
Her smile lifts to one side. ‘I did think you were looking a little too vampire-like.’
‘Vampire-like?’ I choke out.
‘Sure, I’m surprised you don’t shimmer in the sun like Edward Cullen.’
Now I laugh. ‘Ha! Don’t you be getting me mixed up in your weird Twiglet fantasies.’
She laughs too, and it’s like sunshine. Real and true and there’s my Sadie – no, not my Sadie. But the Sadie I remember. God , how I’ve missed her. The thought punches through me, painfully acute.
‘I’d forgotten how you call it that.’
I swallow the sudden tightness in my chest.
‘You say Twilight , I say Twiglet, same shi?—’
Her brows lift above her sunnies.
‘Ship!’ I quickly correct.
I mouth an apology but to be fair, our captain is too engrossed in narrating a passing duck’s life story to care what curse I was or wasn’t about to utter.
And I’m too eager to draw more of the old Sadie out…
even if I am sailing too close to the wind by lumping me, her, and movie fantasies in the same breath.
Though she started it. She’d been obsessed with Edward as a teen. Edward this, Edward that. Edward Edward Edward.
Until, suddenly, she’d turned that laser focus on me…
‘Mummy, what’s Twiglet?’
A laugh bursts from my lips as Lottie comes to the rescue yet again. The girl deserves a full sweep of medals – gold for stopping the near-kiss in the car, silver for shutting down my thoughts, and bronze for being the ultimate third wheel.
‘It’s Twilight, not Twiglet.’ Sadie shoots me a mock-scowl as she says it. ‘And it’s a movie Mummy used to love.’
‘I like Twiglet better,’ Lottie says matter of factly, and I grin as Sadie huffs, her own mouth teasing up at the corners.
‘Great. And so, the corruption begins.’
‘No corruption,’ I say not bothering to dampen my grin, ‘just an education in what constitutes a good movie versus a bad.’
‘You know I’m long overdue a rewatch, and your giant flatscreen with its fancy surround sound will truly do it justice.’
‘Be my guest,’ I deadpan, ‘so long as it’s not on my watch.’
Her lips purse to the left. ‘I’m sure we could find something else to watch together, if that’s you offering up a movie night.’
Walked right into that one, didn’t you?
And the image paints itself so clearly – a bowl of popcorn, her head tucked into my shoulder, a blanket strewn across us… cozy and domesticated and very much not me.
Deflection is, though…
‘Captain Lottie,’ I blurt out, ‘fancy helping me row this mighty vessel around the island? Or are you more pirate princess than sea captain now?’
Lottie springs to her feet with a dramatic, ‘ARRR!’
So much for contained.
Her tiny fist shoots skyward, narrowly missing Sadie’s chin but clipping her sunglasses and sending her reeling. The boat lurches. Lottie teeters forward like a pint-sized sailor three sheets to the wind?—
‘Whoa. Easy there, Blackbeard!’
I lunge – one hand grabbing the straps of Lottie’s life vest, the other flying out to steady Sadie before she hits the deck, or worse, the lake. The oars jam into my chest and thighs, and for one breathless second, we’re a human knot of limbs, chaos, and very questionable nautical safety.
I hold us still as the boat rocks and groans back to steady.
‘We good?’ I ask, looking up.
Sadie lets out a breathless laugh, her sunglasses now tangled in her hair. ‘That was almost the shortest voyage in history.’
Then she looks down.
To where my hand is still very much on her thigh, just beneath the frayed edge of her denim shorts.
Time stops. My pulse doesn’t.
Heat rockets up my spine, awareness crackling through me. I release her like she’s radioactive and drop back into my seat. My heart’s hammering. From the near-capsize? Or the soft, sun-warmed skin I can still feel on my palm?
No idea. Liar . And I need more deflection and distraction. Fast .
I grip the oars with one hand and scoop Lottie into my lap with the other.
‘Less jumping, more pirating, kiddo.’
And like the medal winner she is, she scrabbles for the oars with all the subtlety of a caffeinated squirrel. Distraction, personified. God love her.
I guide her small hands around the wood and lock mine beside hers.
‘All right, Pirate Princess. Slow and steady wins the race. Eyes sharp for the treasure!’
I’m in full storytelling mode, which is great, because Sadie reaches behind her head to retie her hair and my brain flatlines.
Her pink tee rides up just enough to flash a sliver of midriff, and its cheerful slogan stretches right across her chest: Sun’s Out, Fun’s Out.
I swallow. Yeah, it is.
I try not to stare and fail heroically.
Another note to self: next time, insist everyone wears a life vest. For safety and sanity.
Then – slap! – Lottie’s hands smack mine. ‘Faster, Uncle Feo! Faaaaster!’ She twists to glare up at me, her frown as serious as only a three-year-old can be. ‘We need to find the treasure!’
I clear my throat and adjust course. ‘Aye aye, Captain–Princess– Pirate !’
Sadie glances over, eyes hidden behind her shades again, but I bet they’re full of silent laughter. Her lips certainly are.
‘I just hope the treasure’s worth the whiplash.’
‘Oh, I’ve got a feeling it might be,’ I murmur, doing my damnedest not to look at the curvy-cotton culprit, though that vision’s seared into my retinas anyway.
Go to the park , I said . It’ll be fun , I said.
Forget a life vest – I need an ejector seat and a lobotomy.
* * *
Sadie
Whoa . Did that just happen?
If not for Theo’s sunglasses and the tilt of his head, I’d swear he’d been eyeing me up.
Theo. Me .
He couldn’t have been.
Not just now. Not in the car. Not in his flat.
Just like he hadn’t been seven years ago.
Because let’s face it, my track record with Theo is the worst.
My track record with men, period , is the worst.
But the air had been charged with something – my whole body thrumming with that low-level awareness that comes from being watched.
And I know that sensation.
Danny did it plenty. In public, in private…
It used to thrill me.
Until he taught me to fear it.
But out here, on the boat, with my little girl and Theo – his eyes, his attention…
The only thing I’m afraid of is making a fool of myself again.
Is it any wonder I’m getting carried away, though?
The man is literally transforming before my eyes – from billionaire bachelor to babysitter of the year. Rowing a boat with my three-year-old on his lap, letting her call the shots like he’s on salary and she’s chairing the board.
It’s ridiculous.
And unfortunately, stupidly hot.
‘What’s so funny?’