Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
AIDAN
“No shade to St. George’s,” Morgan says as we pull up to the private beach on the point, “but that sleepy little town was a waste of time when we could have been here instead.”
“Yeah, I see why everyone says to go into Hamilton instead. Maybe we should head there tonight?”
She pulls her full lower lip between her teeth, and I have to glance over at the two boats anchored off the shore, so my body will stop reacting to every aspect of hers.
I honestly didn’t think this whole day through.
The way she looked, sitting at the bow of the boat with the wind whipping around her as we navigated the channel on our way to St. George’s Harbour.
Walking side by side on the narrow sidewalks of the town like we were a couple.
The way I felt seeing her in my ball cap after she pulled it off my head and insisted she needed it to hold her hair off her face more than I did since I was under the shade of the Bimini.
And then, as we rode across Castle Harbour, she sat at the bow in nothing but her bikini and my hat, slathering sunscreen on herself. Her fear about being out on the water seems to have faded, but I’ve kept the boat at a reasonable speed just to make sure she’s comfortable.
“I’m probably busy tonight,” she says.
Ouch. “Oh yeah, doing what?”
“Packing. My flight leaves really early tomorrow morning.”
Knowing that she’s brushing me off right now makes me wonder if it’s because she’s giving herself the same kind of reminders as I am.
Based on what she said last night about not knowing how to act after finding out she’d fucked her stepbrother, I’m guessing that’s the case.
But, there’s always the potential that she’s not interested, despite our chemistry the other night.
I cut the engine so we don’t get any closer to the shore. It’s amazing how quickly the water changes depth and color here as the islands—essentially a collection of coral reefs in the middle of the Atlantic—jut out of the water.
Coming around the helm, I head toward the bow, wanting to get the anchor down while we’re still far enough away that we won’t drift into the other boats anchored nearby.
Morgan moves aside, watching me as I pull the anchor out, hold it by the chain, and toss it toward the shore, then pull slightly to make sure it’s hooked into the sand below. “Are we swimming to the beach?”
“We’re shallow enough right here that I think you can just walk in.”
She snorts out a laugh. “Says the guy who’s over six feet tall.”
“Happy to throw you over my shoulder again if necessary.”
She looks like she’s going to say something, then thinks better of it, but it’s hard to tell for sure with her sunglasses on and the brim of my hat shading most of her face.
“You’ll be too busy carrying the cooler and our bags,” she says, finally.
She bends forward to grab her bag from the deck, and goddamn, that bathing suit barely covers half her ass.
I don’t know why I’m so attracted to her—why every curve of her body has me turned on, why her laughter makes me feel lighter, why her smile makes me happy. Her generally sunny disposition is a brightness that I’ve never thought I wanted in my life.
And that you can’t have, I remind myself.
I turn away, annoyed that I have to keep reminding myself that she’s my stepsister and I shouldn’t want her . . . that I don’t want her.
This isn’t because I’ve fucked her. I’ve fucked a lot of women without the desire for a repeat performance, without being unable to focus on anyone but them afterward.
Stepsister. I grind out the reminder in my head.
I grab the soft-sided cooler that’s packed with drinks and lunch and set it on the seat with a bit more force than necessary. My voice is terse when I say, “I’m going to jump in. You can hand me the cooler and our bags and I’ll carry them to shore.”
“Yes, sir!” Her tone is mocking, but goddamn do I like those words coming off her lips.
I step in and the water only comes up to my chest, so I take my aviators off and hold them above my head while I dunk under.
Then I stand and shake my head to get the excess water out of my hair before putting my sunglasses back on.
When I look up at Morgan, she’s taken my hat off.
Her hair is loose, falling in long waves well past her shoulders, but with her sunglasses still on, I can’t tell if she’s looking at me or the beach.
She lifts the cooler, using her knee to brace herself on the edge of the boat as she bends to lower it to me.
From my vantage point, I have a fantastic view of her almost spilling out of the triangle top of her yellow bikini.
To stop myself from thinking about how her breasts felt in my hands, how her nipples peaked under my thumbs, I focus on balancing the cooler on my shoulder and holding the two bags she passes to me above my head so they don’t get wet.
She’s right about her needing to swim to shore, and once we’re there, our towels spread out on the beach far away from the two families that are also here, she pulls bottles of premixed cocktails, flavored waters, containers with dips and finger foods, and individually wrapped sandwiches from the cooler.
Then she glances up at me, smirking as she says, “This is a fancy- ass picnic.”
“Today was supposed to be my gift to our parents. The boat trip, lunch on the beach, snorkeling . . .”
“And then they got sick, and now you’re stuck with me.”
I like it so much better this way, I almost say. “Bummer for me, I guess,” I say instead, to which she laughs and pokes me in the side, telling me I’m a jerk.
After we eat, she’s eager to get back in the water. “Let’s go explore that cave carved into the cliffs,” she says, pointing to the opening just off the beach. It’s much larger than the smaller cave behind us, which is barely big enough to stand in.
The water’s shallow in the ocean cave, and we stand there waist-deep, keeping still while brightly colored fish swim all around us. The water is so clear that we can see them without putting on our snorkeling masks and sticking our faces in the water.
As the waves lap at the rough coral arches around and above us, Morgan clears her throat. “Last night, when you said that Max will drop my mom in a few months, when he realizes she’s not a suitable replacement for your mom—”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, bringing my hand up to run it through my hair.
The fish, alarmed by my sudden movement, scurry away.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” And I definitely shouldn’t have waited for her to bring it up before apologizing.
But we were having a relatively nice, and less hostile, time today without our parents around.
I didn’t want to bring that tension back.
“But what did you mean?” she asks, her eyes scanning the water like she’s watching the fish that are no longer there.
I reach out, tilting her chin up so she meets my gaze. “At least look at me if we’re going to talk about this.”
Her tongue darts out between her lips, wetting them, and she gives me a slight nod. “Okay. So, what did you mean?”
I let my hand drop back into the water, but take a small step closer to her. The light shining through the triangular opening of the cave illuminates the water, but our upper bodies are in the shadows and I want to see her clearly.
“Max married my mom when I was in middle school—”
“What?!” The word is half surprise, half confusion.
“After my dad died—”
Her gasp echoes in the cave. “Max isn’t your biological father?”
“No. He was one of my parents’ closest friends. He and my dad met in med school, around the same time my parents got engaged. They all stayed close friends. He was always around when I was a kid, basically like an uncle.”
Her voice is quiet and concern is written all over her face. “What happened with your dad?”
“He had rotator cuff surgery to repair an injury that never healed right. And then he got addicted to the opioid painkillers he was prescribed. It was . . .” I pause to gulp down my emotions, “. . . messy.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been so hard.” Her blue eyes are dark in the dim light as she looks up at me.
“It was.” I want to say more. I want to tell her how he was a whole different person by the end. But I don’t trust my voice not to crack with emotion, so I just nod. I’m not sure why I even want to open up to her about this, except that it feels like she’d understand.
“So your mom married Max, and then?”
“And then she died my freshman year of college.”
“Holy shit, Danny. That’s terrible, I’m sorry.” Her hands find my waist and give me a supportive squeeze, and all I want to do is pull her close and wrap my arms around her. But I don’t trust myself not to kiss her, and she’s made it clear that’s a line we’re not crossing again.
“Yeah. The thing that sucks the most about it is that they were so happy together. And then she was in a head-on car accident late at night. It was an elderly man driving the wrong way on the highway. She swerved to avoid him, but he clipped the back of her car and sent it spinning into the trees just off the side.” I can’t bring myself to describe the way the car flipped over as it spun.
“My god.” She breathes out the word so quietly it’s almost a whisper. “And Max has been trying to replace her, as you called it last night, ever since?”
I chew the inside of my cheek and give her a curt nod.
The women he dates always look the same.
Golden blonde hair with light highlights, blue eyes.
Maybe he just has a type, but the resemblance is usually so close it’s hard to imagine that it isn’t intentional.
I asked him about it once, which didn’t go particularly well, so we’ve never discussed it since.
“I didn’t even realize he was your stepdad. I . . .” She glances away, toward the pitch-black end of the cave. “I don’t even know if my mom knows. She’s always referred to you as his son.”
“I am his son. He adopted me after he married my mom, and the only reason I don’t call him ‘Dad’ is because he didn’t want to take that title away from my father.”
She swallows and her fingers curl into my sides. “And you’ve had to watch him marry multiple women who looked like your mom?” Her jaw is tense, like she’s gritting her teeth against whatever I’m about to tell her.
“Yeah. And it never takes long for him to realize that they aren’t . . .” I trail off as she drops her hands from my hips, not sure what to say or how to say it. Good enough? “. . . her.”
“So he just, like, lures women into marriage for their looks?” Her voice is critical, and in some ways perhaps it’s justified, but my protective instincts kick in.
“I don’t think he lures women into anything. He’s a catch,” I say, thinking about his good looks, kind nature, and lucrative career as a surgeon, “who wants to be caught. I assume he just wants to be happy?”
Her laugh is a scoff. “By finding a replica of your mom? I hope he’s talked to someone about that, because that sounds an awful lot like transference.”
My brows dip. “What’s that?”
“It’s when you unconsciously redirect your feelings, desires, and expectations from an important person in your past to a new person. It usually happens after a traumatic loss.”
My stomach dips at how accurate that description is to what I’ve watched Max go through since my mom died. I’ve always thought of these rebound relations as him trying to replace her but maybe, instead, he’s just trying to find someone to fill that void.
“Why do you know this? Are you a therapist or something?”
“No, but I majored in psychology, and that’s basically Psych 101. So, you don’t think this thing with our parents will last?”
My bark of laughter is so loud and sharp that it echoes off the walls and the water, repeating the sound around us in a way that’s almost eerie. “No.”
“Because my mom isn’t good enough for him.” It’s not a question. Deep down, I think that this is the conclusion she’s already come to and is just looking for my confirmation.
“I don’t know your mom well enough to know the answer to that. But based on what I do know, she’s not going to last.”
She grits her teeth, and as I watch her trying to keep her expression neutral, I wonder if she’s battling between knowing I’m right and feeling like she should defend her mom. Though based on what I saw of their relationship last night, I can’t imagine why she’d feel the need to defend her.
She clears her throat and looks out toward the opening of the cave. “There are some clouds moving in. If you want to snorkel at that shipwreck, we might want to do that before those afternoon storms.”