Chapter 6
Ben sent a crew member to pick Charlotte up the next morning to bring her to the boat.
She felt hungover from her fears of the night before.
They had magnified while she was sleeping and multiplied like ants, but the moment she saw Ben and he smiled at her, her anxieties scurried away like mice.
There was something about him that made her trust him, and then she would remember the things he had said in the interview that were like flashing red stop signs, warning her to steer clear.
That he never got attached to any woman, hadn’t loved the women in his life.
Years before, it would have challenged her, and she would have risen to the bait.
Now it terrified her and was like a Greek chorus echoing in her head, warning her.
She remembered everything he had said with her perfect recall.
But then there were his eyes looking into hers and she got lost in them and she forgot what the warnings were.
“Are you okay? Did you sleep well?” he asked her over coffee on the rear deck.
The deckhands were getting the boat ready to leave the dock.
The plan was to find a location and drop anchor, and get dropped off to explore the deserted beaches.
They were going to use the tender so they could get in and out of small bays and coves. It was another adventure with him.
She assured him that she had slept well, which was a lie, but she couldn’t tell him that she had woken countless times in the night, thinking about him. As it turned out, he wasn’t the liar, she was, hiding her powerful attraction to him, but she had to, to protect herself.
One of the crew drove them in a motorboat Ben kept onboard with the toys.
They reached a location he liked forty-five minutes later, and Ben had the crewman drop them off in a cove that he liked the look of, and told him to come back in three hours.
Ben had a radio with him, so he could contact the boat if they had a problem and needed to be picked up earlier.
Some of the small islands and beaches weren’t as hospitable as they looked initially, with biting bugs in the sand, or swarms of bees.
But this time, the beach was as peaceful as it had looked through his binoculars from the motorboat.
They waded in the last few feet, and the boat took off to go back to the mother ship, as Charlotte felt the sand on her feet and smiled at him.
The sand was almost pure white, and so fine it felt like satin to the touch.
She lay down on it, and Ben smiled at her.
She was wearing a red bikini with her hair piled up on top of her head.
He sat down next to her, and had to steel himself not to put his hands on her.
There was a little lip of rocks at the end of the beach, which shielded them from view from the boat.
It was like being alone on their own planet with no one there with them.
He suddenly looked tender as he gazed at her.
There was a pleading look in his eyes and he bent down to kiss her.
It was the moment they had been avoiding since they met, she out of fear, and he out of terror of losing her if he made the wrong move.
But there were no wrong moves now, only right ones.
She kissed him just as passionately, and reached her arms up to him where she lay and pulled him to her.
With a deft hand, he unhooked her bikini top and bottom, and pulled off his swimming trunks, and they lay naked together on the sand.
It was so fine it felt like velvet beneath them as he kissed her, and gently explored her body with his hands, and she caressed him, and the inevitable happened.
He held her for a long time after they made love, looking down at her.
She was smiling, and he kissed her tenderly, and bent to kiss her breasts, as she arched toward him again.
And the second time was even better. They were making up for all the years they hadn’t known each other, when everything they’d had seemed like counterfeit compared to this.
He lay down next to her after they pulled apart, looking into her green eyes.
“I feel like I’m going to break apart I love you so much, and I wanted you so badly,” he said, and she nodded.
“Me too,” she whispered. “Was this a plan or did it just happen?” she asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I met you, but I was afraid to scare you off.”
“I’ve been trying to resist, and it was impossible,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow, her slim body stretched out as he admired her.
“We got lucky,” he said, grinning. “These beaches are tricky, I’ve been bitten by stinging ants on some of them, and had to wait in the water till they picked me up. This is a good one,” he said, looking at her. “A very good one.” He knew he would always remember this moment.
They swam in the crystal clear turquoise water afterward, and went back to lie on the satin sand, and made love one more time before the crew came back to pick them up. They were back in their bathing suits waiting when they showed up, and had lunch back on the boat.
He made a suggestion over lunch. “Why don’t you stay here on the boat for the rest of your stay? You’re leaving in two days, and it would be nice to be together now,” he said gently, and she looked at him seriously.
“Technically, I’m on vacation now, until I leave.
These were the days off they gave me, if I did the interview over Christmas.
So what I do is my business. But the truth is that I corrupted the interview as soon as I slept with you.
I haven’t written the article yet, and no matter how hard I try, my feelings for you will affect it.
I’m not going to write a puff piece, but it won’t be as crisp and sharp as it would have been if today hadn’t happened.
I can’t do anything about it now. I’ll try my damnedest to be objective, and I’m not going to tell them.
It’s none of their business. But I’m guilty of a professional fault now. And wherever I stay won’t change that.”
“You’re an honorable woman, Charlotte Ramsay.”
“I try to be, but I blew it this time. I really tried not to let you know how I felt about you. When you told me about your childhood, it pushed me over the line. I think I fell in love with you as soon as we started the second interview. I don’t know when, but I did.
But my professional ethics have been severely stretched.
I’m going to write the article as soon as I go back, while I can still be somewhat objective.
” He could see that she was worried about it.
She was an ethical woman, and her integrity was important to her. He admired her for it.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte. Maybe we should have waited.”
“I couldn’t have waited another minute when you kissed me on the beach this morning,” she said softly.
“Neither could I. I didn’t mean to make it so hard for you professionally.”
“It was bigger than both of us,” she said, and leaned over and kissed him. “These have been the happiest days of my life,” she said, and meant it.
“With more to come,” he promised. “Will you really not stay longer?” he asked with a pleading look. He looked like a boy sometimes.
“I can’t. I have to write the piece before it gets corrupted any further by my feelings for you.
” He didn’t argue with her. He respected her reason for going back, and everything about her.
“I have to be back in the office on December twenty-ninth. They gave me two vacation days and a travel day. I have to go back.”
“What are you doing on New Year’s Eve?” he asked her.
“Writing about you,” she smiled. “That’s second best to spending it with you.”
“I have some important Zoom meetings set up on the boat. I want to be here for that—I have fewer distractions here to prepare for them—and then I’ll fly back. I’m not sure what date yet. And in the meantime, we have tomorrow together. Let’s make the best of it. Will you stay with me?”
“What’s the old saying about you might as well be hung for stealing a sheep as a lamb? Yes, I will.” They stood up and he hugged her close to him, and she felt as though a river was running through her that calmed all her fears and swept her along with it.
They picked up her things at the hotel, and she put them in the cabin next to his.
She was faintly embarrassed with the crew, but she loved the idea of waking up next to Ben for the next two mornings, before she left.
It had been an incredible trip, and the final gift was staying on the boat with him, although she doubted that they’d get much sleep, but for better reasons than her anxiety and torment for the last two nights.
They had dinner on the aft deck again, one of the chef’s French specialties this time, bouillabaisse and oysters.
It was a superb meal, and they sat on the deck for a long time, just talking softly about how strange life was at times, and how unexpected.
She felt as though destiny had had a hand in it, and Ben agreed.
Charlotte didn’t allow herself to ask any questions on the last day, of herself or him.
A cynical side of her could have thought that he had wooed her to assure a good article about him, but she didn’t believe that.
He might bend the truth occasionally when asked a question he didn’t want to answer, but he wasn’t a scam artist or an opportunist. She was more worried that this was just a fling for him, his usual modus operandi, whether it lasted for a day or two years, which was the longest he said he had ever lasted with any woman.
She was deeply afraid of his saying that he never attached to anyone because of his painful childhood. He wasn’t someone who stuck around.