Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Phoebe
H enry Cohen was grumpy, rude, and I never knew where I stood with him. He offered no likable qualities whatsoever, apart from his face and body, and he drove me insane with just a few words, frustrating me in ways not even Rob had ever managed to do.
Asleep, though, Henry had been something else entirely.
Seeing him peaceful, with one hand tucked under his cheek while his other rested on the bed between us, had taken his attractiveness to a whole new level—one I considered dangerous.
Dark hair, tanned, smooth skin, defined muscles keeping him strong on the outside while he hid his vulnerability on the inside.
I’d stayed with him far longer than I’d needed to before I realised I needed to walk away.
There was only so much time I could spend watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest or the way his lips parted as his breathing grew heavier before everyone declared me the psycho of the holiday.
Nothing good could come from sitting there, trying to turn him from villain to hero by creating some tragic backstory that didn’t exist. There were no stories for me to create to explain him behaving the way he did, as though his gentle heart had yet to be discovered through no fault of his own.
But, oh, how I’d enjoyed studying the smooth, tanned skin of his shoulders and arms, losing myself in dirty thoughts of what it would be like to run my tongue along every curve and muscle he owned, taking my time to taste every part of him as slowly as I possibly could.
If only I didn’t dislike him so much.
The girls had spent all morning long grilling me on what had happened with Henry the night before, too, with neither one of them believing that I dropped him off at his door, then headed back to my room to read.
Even you’re not that sad, Phoebe, had been the general consensus.
They were right, of course. I just couldn’t tell them what I’d actually been doing once I’d slipped beneath the sheets of my own bed and allowed my hands to drift over my own skin, imagining those hands belonged to someone else.
Finally, though, I got the girls to backoff.
I must have been more capable of selling the lie than I’d given myself credit for, but that didn’t mean I liked how it left me feeling, so I convinced them to head to the beach for the day instead of lounging around the pool.
Hopefully, once there they’d find other men besides the Henley Boys—a name Bailey had come up with after her date with Andy and finding out that they were from Henley-on-Thames—to keep them company.
“You ready?” I asked Bailey and Rhea at the door of our apartment, my loaded beach bag slung over my shoulder.
“I’ve been ready for an hour,” Rhea grumbled, walking over to me. “Bailey’s story time keeps getting in the way.”
“I can hear you!” Bailey shouted from their shared room.
“Good. Get a move on!” Rhea called back before she turned to me and let her eyes drift down over my outfit. “Damn, Bee. You’re looking good. Someone’s letting that coral string bikini do all the talking for her, huh?”
I glanced down at my outfit, which I’d half covered up with a very loose-fitting, billowy thin white beach shirt that hung off one shoulder.
“Henry’s going to go mental over that when he sees it.”
I looked up at her sharply. “Can we not talk about him, please?”
“Okay.” She laughed, but I didn’t miss the subtle shake of her head.
Eventually, Bailey came rushing out of her room wearing a striking white bikini and a huge bag with God only knew what inside it as she pushed her thick, black sunglasses over her eyes. “Right. Let’s go. The beach is calling.”
“What?” Rhea gasped. “No more stories of your date with Andy or how you decided to hold out for yet another night like a good little virgin because you like the way he chases you and you want to drag it out for as long as possible? Please. Don’t stop. We need more.”
“Jealous, Rhea?”
“Busted.”
We made our way out of the apartment and down the stairs, and I couldn’t ignore the butterflies stirring in my stomach at the possibility of seeing Henry around the pool.
Hopefully, his hangover would have been too severe for him to have been up so early, because I didn’t want to face him just yet after the things he’d said to me the night before.
Still, the thought of not seeing him…
I didn’t have long to overthink it, though, because the moment the striking aqua blue of the pool came into view, there he was.
My enemy in paradise.
His strong, tanned, toned back glided through the length of the pool with ease; his face down as he swam like he’d been born and raised in the water.
My heart hammered and my legs turned to jelly at the sight of him, leaving me completely out of control of my own body, and I hadn’t even seen his face yet.
Mum’s words came back to me in a rush: There’s a fine line between love and hate, Phoebe. Always remember that because the feelings they both bring to life are often too similar to differentiate. When you get them mixed up, all hell breaks loose.
She’d been trying to explain to me how her relationship with my father really worked, and at the time I’d half-tuned her out, but now? Now, I kind of understood what she’d meant.
I loved to hate him, and I hated wanting him, yet I couldn’t look away.
When Henry reached the end of the pool, and his hands found the edge, he lifted his head out of the water before standing tall and running his palms down his face. When his eyes eventually opened, they found me within a heartbeat. His lips parted and then…
That bastard smiled.
He smiled .
At me.
And his face didn’t crack, or the world didn’t implode, and everyone around me carried on like they hadn’t just witnessed the same miraculous phenomenon I had.
Henry Cohen seemed sober, present, not under duress, and he looked… happy to see me?
I hadn’t realised I’d stopped walking behind Rhea and Bailey until they both turned back to find me from roughly ten feet away, pulling my attention from Henry to them.
“Phoebe?” Bailey made my name sound like a question.
“Yeah,” I said in a rush, forcing my feet to move again and walk over to the girls. “Sorry. I was just?—”
“Ladies!” Andy called, commanding our attention in that unmistakably charming voice of his. For once, I didn’t mind his interruption. I had no idea what I’d been about to say to Bailey and Rhea to explain my temporary paralysis.
Andy jogged over to us in nothing but his red swim shorts, pushing his hand through his blond hair as his grin grew ridiculously bigger at the sight of Bailey.
They were both goners whether they liked to admit it or not.
I could feel the heat of Henry’s stare on me even though I now had my back turned to him, choosing to face Andy instead, because, well, Andy did nothing for me.
My body didn’t react to him. He was safe, especially when I was around Bailey and Rhea.
They had to believe my no men rule was stronger than ever, otherwise, how would I?
Andy threw his arm around Bailey’s shoulder, pulled her to him, which she embraced wholeheartedly, and cast his gaze down at our loaded-up bags. “Where’s the cheeky trio heading off to? Our pool not good enough for you today?”
Don’t tell him, don’t tell him, don’t ? —
“Phoebe wanted to do a little exploring, so we thought we’d head down to the beach for the day,” Bailey answered.
“Without me?” he asked, slapping his chest with his free hand.
“Yes, without you.” Rhea smirked, pushing her bag farther onto her shoulder.
“Nah. That’s no fun. You need male protection down there. All those slimy men in and out of the bars, looking for fresh flesh to dig their slimy claws into.”
“Men like you?” Rhea raised a brow at him.
“I’m going to ignore your cattiness, Rhea, because I know it’s a defence mechanism to your feelings towards my friend Jace, there, over at the bar.”
On cue, Rhea glanced behind Andy to the cocktail hut, where Jace leaned against it, offering her a sarcastic little wave. She latched onto it immediately and huffed out a laugh before rolling her eyes and turning back to Andy. “Whatever.”
“We really should get going,” I interjected. “I want to get a good spot on the beach, and if we don’t leave now…” I trailed off the moment I felt a presence walking up behind me, followed by a shadow being cast over my shoulder, the air turning too thick for me to breathe.
How did he do that?
Henry’s wet feet slapped against the pool edge’s tiles before he came to a stop and blew out a breath. Droplets of water fell on my skin through my super thin shirt, and I had to force myself to breathe before I slowly turned around to look up at him.
He was backlit by the sun, and my double-crossing heart soaked it all in.
“You were saying?” Henry rubbed his wet lips together. “Something about leaving?”
“Right.” I nodded. “Yeah. Me and them—the girls. We, ah, need to go to the, erm...” My brain glitched, and my words ran dry.
He smirked. Smirked! The arrogant little…
I shook my head, trying to ignore the rivulets of water cascading down his chest. “The beach. That’s where we’re going.” I blinked. “The beach.”
He looked amused, like he’d been about to say something else, but then a subtle clearing of Andy’s throat behind me stole Henry’s attention, and he looked over my head in his direction.
Henry’s smile faded immediately. A few seconds passed by before he let his gaze drift down to me again, and he ran a hand through his wet hair.
“Well, don’t let me stop you.” Without another word, Henry stepped around me as if we’d never even seen each other or spoken, leaving all of us to turn and watch him go.
Once he reached his sun lounger, he grabbed his towel and ran it over his face and hair without a care in the world.
Business as usual , I thought.
“Okay, then,” I said in a sigh, pressing my lips into a thin line and forcing the group’s attention back to me. “I’m outta here. Who’s coming, because I’m not waiting around any longer?”
“All of us.” Andy squeezed Bailey’s shoulder. “They have a volleyball section down on this one beach we heard about. What do you say? Girls versus guys?”
“That’s not fair. There are three of us and only two of you,” Rhea said, assuming through no fault of her own that Henry wouldn’t be joining us.
“We don’t mind. We can still take you.” Andy winked, earning himself a little rib nudge from Bailey, who didn’t do anything further to argue our case.
I mentally vomited right there and then, and I could see how our escape to the beach was about to go.
Bailey and Andy snuggled up, trying to get into each other’s pants.
Rhea and Jace playing their own version of interested-not interested.
Then me, laid out next to them trying to read a book, unable to hear anything else but their bad jokes, giggles, and pet names.
Abso lutely not.
“Wait,” I said, taking a step towards them all, forcing each of them to look my way.
“We don’t need your pity or an advantage.
You’ve got three players.” I nodded towards Henry, who had laid back on his lounger and placed his hands behind his head, his eyes closed against the sun.
The others turned to look at him, then looked back at me, scowling in confusion.
“Use him,” I added. “Three versus three, or it’s no deal. ”
“You want Cohen to come along?” Andy asked.
I shrugged. “Means nothing to me if he does or he doesn’t, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to kick your guys’ arses only for you to whine like babies that we had an unfair advantage.”
“That’s fighting talk.”
“What you gonna do about it?” I asked, sounding like someone I barely recognised.
Andy seemed to mull it over for a few seconds longer than he should have done, given how badly he wanted to spend the day with Bailey again.
But whatever he was at war with himself about, he got over it soon enough, because a second later, he glanced over his shoulder and called out to Henry, who peeled his eyes open and turned his head in our direction.
“The little princess wants you to take her on in a game of volleyball down on the beach,” Andy said. “You wanna show her how it’s done?”
Before I could comment on Andy’s not-so-endearing term for me, Henry directed his attention my way, and our eyes locked as he smiled and said, “I’d like nothing more.”