Chapter 7 #2
Somehow, I swallowed down the traitorous feelings of desire that rose in my throat as I gripped the bottle of water with both hands and smiled at the barman. “Thanks for the drink. I may be back for that cocktail sooner than I thought.”
“I’ll be right here.” The barman smirked.
I turned to leave, pretending I had no awareness of Henry’s presence, despite being invaded by the heavenly scent of whatever aftershave he’d splashed all over his tanned, toned skin—the very skin I tried to pretend wasn’t standing in front of me as I strode past him with my chin raised and my focus dead ahead.
You’re the last thing I want right now.
Yeah, you have a funny way of showing it, pal.
If he wanted to be everywhere I went, I’d make his life as miserable as he was making mine.
Henry could watch me walking away in my turquoise two-piece string bikini.
He could watch my dancer’s arse sway as I sauntered away from him with ease.
He could take note of the French plait I’d gone to the effort of putting my hair into that morning, and he could bathe in the wake of the citrus perfume I’d drowned myself in, too.
I could play as dirty as the next guy, especially if the next guy turned out to be him.
Despite my best efforts, though, I didn’t make it very far before I heard him following me, not letting me escape his suffocating cloud of perfection.
The rat bastard.
I walked over to my sun lounger, kicked back on it, and took a quick drink of my water, then slid it beneath the sunbed to keep it in the shade, all while pretending I hadn’t noticed arrogant Henry taking a seat on the lounger beside me, his elbows resting on his thighs as he clasped his hands together and simply… waited.
His intense gaze pierced me, so I gave my body a little shuffle to make myself more comfortable, hoping he noticed every fleck of my skin and the way the sun lotion bounced from it, creating minuscule diamonds the sun couldn’t help but caress.
Oh, yeah. I could play this game if he wanted me to, and I’d play it with my eyes closed to drown him out.
It had been far too long since I’d felt confident enough to do anything like this, and even though Henry hated me, I couldn’t deny that he brought something out in me that made me want to fight back instead of laying down and taking his shit.
That fire in my belly excited me.
I’d missed it over the years.
“You’re here alone,” Henry eventually said, the richness of his deep voice washing over me.
“Mmhmm.”
“Where are Bailey and Rhea?”
“Don’t know,” I lied.
“Do you always spend so much time on your own?”
“Yep.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Okay, Dad .”
“Are you being surly on purpose?”
A shrug of my shoulders and a soft exhale were my surly responses.
“Phoebe?”
I kept my eyes closed, despite wanting to turn towards him and look at his stupidly gorgeous, arrogant face.
Every time he said my name, it did something to me I couldn’t explain.
I’d been with Rob for years, and his voice never made the hairs on the back of my neck stand upright the way Henry’s did.
“Phoebe, look at me.”
For some ungodly reason, I did exactly as he asked. The moment my eyes met his, my skin flared to life with more goosebumps again.
I hated how attractive I found him.
We stared at each other far too long for it to feel natural, until Henry leaned forward as though he wanted the moment to be between us and nobody or nothing else. Not the birds flying by, the insects chirping in the greenery, or the wandering eyes of those close by.
“I wanted to say I was sorry about last night,” he said quietly.
I blinked twice at the tender tone of his voice. “What about it?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember you being an arsehole again, but a few days in to this holiday and I’m already getting used to that being your default setting. It’s nothing new.”
“Yeah?” he said, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Such an arsehole that I was the one to carry you back to your apartment when you’d had one drink too many and blacked out.”
I stared at him, seeking out the lie he had to be telling. The only thing I saw, however, was his smug truth. “You… carried me back here?”
“Me.”
“I was… in your arms?”
At that, his smirk faded, and he cleared his throat. “Erm. Yeah.”
“ Your arms?”
The tightening of his jaw and another small nod were all I got.
“As in… you held me?”
This time, he didn’t respond.
I imagined it, me so drunk I couldn’t even stand on my own feet properly. Henry seeing me drooling and slurry, a complete mess bundled up against his chest.
Jesus, his chest .
My attention drifted down to it without thought, and my mouth watered.
Had I been pressed against that? Had I moaned with lust at the feel and smell of him so close to me? Had I said anything I shouldn’t have? Had he put me to bed? Were we alone? Had I, had I, had I? Did we, did we, did we? Oh, good God in Heaven above.
What had I done?
I threw my hands over my face in embarrassment and let my head fall back against the lounger with a groan I couldn’t contain.
He’d sought me out this early in the day to gloat and rub this in my face, that much was obvious.
I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
I’d have to suffer this ridicule from him for the next however many days, knowing he’d seen me at my worst, knowing he’d somehow won this battle between us that I didn’t even want to fight.
“You can go now,” I told him from behind the palms of my hands. “You’ve achieved what you set out to.”
“Which is?”
“My mortification.”
I heard his huff of manly laughter, and I dared myself to peek out between my fingers only to see his head dropped between his shoulders as he shook it in obvious amusement. “Shit. I guess I don’t need to apologise for anything, then.”
His apology. I’d forgotten all about it, too busy drowning in my own shame and embarrassment to have given him much thought.
Henry looked up quickly, and his eyes locked on mine. “You make it really hard for me to dislike you sometimes, Phoebe Turner. You know that?”
“You want to dislike me?”
“I have to. The alternative carries far too many risks for both of us.”
Without another word, Henry rose to stand over me, blocking out the sun, yet somehow making me hotter than I’d been all morning.
“Just look after yourself out here. Not all guys have good intentions,” he said softly.
“What about your intentions?”
He held my gaze before he quietly said, “I don’t have any.”
Without another word, he turned and walked away, and I stared at the muscles rippling across his toned back while this goddamn stranger somehow left me with more questions than answers yet again. Though one stuck out more than the rest.
“Henry?”
He stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder at me.
“How do you know my last name?”
That twinkle in his eye lit up his face for just a moment before he said, “You may have been drunk, but you sure had a lot of things to tell me on the way home. Even if they were mumbled against my chest most of the way.”