Chapter 47
HARRISON
A month after the wedding, I steered the yacht out of the marina with Aurelia at my side, the same vessel I’d spent most of last summer on, thinking I’d be a bachelor for a while. The teak deck beneath my feet felt familiar but somehow different with her here.
Everything felt warmer and I felt more alive than ever, watching her blonde ponytail sail out behind her in the breeze, her eyes hidden behind giant sunglasses.
Her hand slipped into mine, small and sure, and I felt a rush of something I hadn’t expected to ever feel the last time I’d been here—complete joy, quiet and fierce at the same time.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe how much things had changed since the summer, when I’d been partying it up hard and I hadn’t even known that Dad had given Sterling that ultimatum. I hadn’t realized what was happening at home or how drastically it would change the course of my own fate.
Now I was back here with an impossibly gorgeous wife at my side, a woman so smart and beautiful that I couldn’t stop staring at her for more than a few seconds at a time. The tight navy jeans and fitted white hoodie she had on weren’t helping matters either.
I supposed it didn’t have to, though. This was our honeymoon, after all. We’d carved out just enough time to celebrate being newlyweds before we dove back into the life we were building together back home.
“A week isn’t enough time, is it?” she asked from my side, her face turned toward the Mediterranean stretched out around us, the surface sparkling like glitter under the wintery sunshine.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I admitted, sliding my arm around her waist. “Months wouldn’t be enough out here with you, though.”
Aurelia rested her head against my shoulder, her arms looping around my waist and her hair catching the light. “Whatever would you do with me alone out here for so long?”
The playfulness made me grin. God, I really can’t get enough of this woman.
“I’m not sure,” I mused out loud, doing my best to sound serious. “I can think of a few things. Teaching you how to tie every knot a sailor could ever need might take a while.”
“I bet,” she replied with barely restrained laughter in her voice. “What knots might I need to tie you up?”
I glanced at her, knowing she couldn’t see my eyes behind my sunglasses, but I was sure she could see the steep arch of my eyebrow. “Are you serious? You want to tie me up?”
“I want to do everything with you.” She shot me a wicked smile that made a groan catch at the back of my throat, but I honestly couldn’t tell if she was being serious right now.
Things had been light, playful, and teasing between us all month, though. Our first four weeks of marriage had been absolute bliss.
I glanced at her again. “For the record, I’d let you tie me up any day of the week. It’s better than the knots you had me in before by a mile.”
She giggled. “It’s not like it was smooth sailing for me either, Buster.”
“Who the fuck is Buster?” I pretended to scowl. “Do I need to remind this guy that the giant rock on that finger makes you mine?”
I felt a slight shiver pass through her as I tightened my grip on her hips. “I like it when you get all jealous and possessive. Even when I know it’s fake.”
“It’s totally not fake, even if it was a joke that time.” A smirk ghosted across my lips. “If you saw the way men look at you sometimes, you’d get it.”
She gave my shoulder a smack. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough that it made my skin zing under my T-shirt. “You’re one to talk. Have you seen the way women look at you? It’s like you walk into a room and all they see is sex on a stick.”
“I haven’t noticed.” I shrugged. “I meant what I said that day we got married, Mrs. Westwood. You’re it for me. It’s like I don’t even realize there are other women in the world anymore.”
She groaned softly. “And still such a charmer. Sigh. What am I going to do with you?”
“Tie me up?” I suggested, half-joking, half-hopeful. “Keep me as a sex slave in the cabin and become a pirate, sailing the seas forevermore.”
“Now you’re talking my language.” She settled her head against my shoulder and inhaled a deep, long breath.
Neither of us spoke for a while, just letting the gentle rocking of the yacht and the endless blue waters calm our thoughts.
I realized then that this, being here with her, was the start of everything we’d been talking about, a life of adventure and freedom while also working our assess off at the jobs we loved.
Bending my head, I kissed her temple, feeling the warmth of her against me and letting myself imagine all the adventures still waiting for us. The last few weeks, while blissful, had also been busy.
We’d had one week after the wedding, between Christmas and New Year’s, to relax. Instead, we’d spent it packing and virtually touring real estate. Commercial and residential.
As soon as the W&S offices in San Francisco had opened in January, we’d both been there, making phone calls and reaching out to our connections.
We hadn’t even hit New York yet and it’d been an endless few weeks of deals and deadlines during the daytime, our nights spent making love and dreaming out loud.
So far, being married was better than people talked about. I couldn’t believe this was what it was like, because it was actually pretty damn fun.
As we watched the swells, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, feeling that internal tug to reminisce. To remember. To be sappy as shit and not have to care.
“What were you thinking about when you were walking down the aisle?” I asked quietly. “I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe the most breathtaking woman in the universe was about to become mine.”
She laughed softly, and the sound still made my chest tighten in the best possible way. “I remember thinking I’d never stop smiling, even if my legs gave out.”
“I might also have had a few slightly less appropriate thoughts,” I admitted.
“Along the lines of how beautiful you would be out of that dress and how I wished I’d thought to, uh, prepare myself for seeing you in it.
Shit, that day in the bridal shop when you first came out in it, I nearly exploded. ”
She turned into me. “By prepared yourself, you mean…”
I pumped my eyebrows at her and grinned.
“You know exactly what I mean, but yeah. You were stunning that day, Aura. You always are, but you were just so radiantly fucking happy when you were walking toward me and I—” I cut myself off to swallow past the tide of emotion pressing against my throat.
“I’d never felt that way before. It was… ”
“Perfect,” she finished for me. “Even when you almost dropped my ring while sliding it onto my finger. It was still perfect because it was ours, and I can’t imagine anything more perfect than that.”
I groaned. “Are you trying to make me cry here?”
“Is it working?” she asked innocently. “Because I might just cry with you if it is. Happy tears, of course. I just can’t believe we ever thought this was only going to be business. I mean, look at us. It’s so obvious that we were meant to be.”
I laughed. “Obviously.”
She pressed herself against my side, sliding her hand up into my hair and sliding her fingernails softly across my scalp. “In all seriousness though, I think it always kind of felt inevitable to me.”
My heart lurched and I chuckled, stroking my fingertips under her shirt to caress her side.
“Same here, but you were supposed to be my business partner, then my friend, then we found out our mothers were sworn enemies. I guess it just took me some time to figure out that all that was just noise. I had such a thing for you all along, though.”
“I’m not even sure I ever admitted it to myself, but same,” she said quietly, pressing a kiss to my shoulder and exhaling a heavy breath. “So, what do you want to do when we get back to New York?”
My thumb kept drawing lazy circles across her side. Our official move was scheduled for as soon as we got back stateside, but we’d been up and down a couple times the last few weeks, checking out potential apartments to buy and office spaces to lease.
None of the decisions had been made just yet, though. We were still weighing our options, trying to figure out exactly what we needed.
She lifted her head, her hand sliding to my chin to turn my face toward her.
Then she pressed up on her toes and kissed me with a deep, deliberate heat that stole my breath.
“I don’t want to think about leases or new routines just yet.
I just want… us. For a little while.” Her arms tightened around me, pulling me even closer.
“But I would like to go down to our room for a while.”
The words made me grin like an idiot and I kissed her again, slower this time, savoring the taste of her. She didn’t have to ask me twice to take her to our tiny little bedroom. I lifted her clean off her feet, relishing the easy laughter that came out of her as I carried her to the stairs.
Once I got her to the cabin, I kissed the soft curve of her neck and shuddered at the pull of her arms around me.
Outside, the glittering expanse of the Mediterranean surrounded us, no one else in sight for miles, but in that moment, the only universe that mattered was the one we were creating together.