Chapter 45 Keep You
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Keep You
IRINA
The storm had been a stroke of luck. And not just because of the night, and the morning … and the three other nights that had followed. I’d quietly moved most of my things into the main bedroom on the fourth morning after the storm, and Henry’s eyes had twinkled with pleasure.
We hadn’t really spoken out loud about what it all meant, but I wasn’t sure that conversation was really needed just yet. At least, that was what I kept telling myself.
Henry’s plan was to sail far enough off the coast to reach international waters, and then make our way north before sneaking back west and docking at Staghorn Island.
Technically we would no longer be ‘offshore’, but we’d bent enough rules this far, what was one more that had very little chance of causing any problems whatsoever?
Josie had cheerfully informed us that the storm had managed to blow the Girl on Fire north faster than we would have been able to make under motor, so we would reach Staghorn days earlier than expected.
There, we would be able to arrange for fresh food and water to be ferried out from one of the populated Whitsunday islands, or even flown over from the mainland.
And even better, I’d be able to use the swim spa while we waited for news of whether I’d been approved for a bridging visa, which would allow me back onto the mainland while they assessed my application for a partner visa.
Yesterday we’d Zoomed with the immigration lawyer Henry had engaged.
Rebekah, or Bek, as she insisted we call her, was a forty-something-year-old woman with impeccable makeup, sleek brown hair, and a personality that was both bubbly and cutthroat—an odd combination that somehow seemed to work for her.
“I’ve pulled a few strings … called in some favours at the Department of Home Affairs.
I made several people very uncomfortable that your application process went so very wrong, thanks to the general incompetence of government tech bros.
” She paused to wink knowingly at us, and I wondered how much she suspected about the strings Henry had pulled behind the scenes himself.
“So, long story short, they’ve agreed that, given the fuck around with your initial application, they should grant a bridging visa as soon as possible. I think we’ll have an answer within the next seventy-two hours. And if not … well, I’ll be making some more calls, and they won’t be as pleasant.”
She grinned, flashing white teeth behind her ruby red lips. It was mildly unnerving.
“So, we could potentially be able to return to Sydney within a week?” Henry asked.
Bek nodded. “I’m about eighty-five percent certain at this point that I’ll be able to make that happen for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, my eyes prickling. “This really means so much to me.”
Bek shrugged. “You’re my clients, and you’re paying top dollar. This is my job, Irina.” Her voice dropped almost a full octave. “And I take my job very seriously.”
Then, with a tinkling laugh that was jarring after the dead-serious tone of her words, she ended the Zoom. I looked at Henry, cocking an eyebrow.
“Where did you find her?”
Henry, pink-cheeked, ran a hand through his curls. “She came highly recommended. And she had the highest hourly rate of everyone I looked into, so I figured she must be worth every cent.”
“She’s a little terrifying,” I admitted with a nervous giggle. Henry grinned, scooping me into his arms and planting a kiss firmly on my mouth, working my lips apart, tasting me until I was jelly in his arms.
He broke away, his smile softening. “Well, if terrifying the government into letting me keep you is what it takes … I’ll throw my entire fortune at her.”
Keep you …
My cheeks turned hot, and I buried my face into his shirt, inhaling the clean linen scent of him.
“Do you think we’ll want to keep each other? For two whole years? Longer?” I mumbled against the fabric.
Henry pressed me backwards, thumb and forefinger pinching my chin, eyes suddenly serious. “Are you ready to talk about this?”
My lips parted as I realised that he’d been waiting for me to bring it up. I swallowed and nodded.
“What’s worrying you, Catnip?” he asked gently.
What a loaded question. I sifted through the towering pile of apprehensions for the ones that were safe to discuss with him … the ones that didn’t get too close to the one thing I didn’t ever want to confess.
“Well … I know that you’ve done long term before, and I know that … that how I feel about you is important enough to me that I want this to work … I really, really want it to work … but—”
“But you’ve got no idea if you’re ready for something so serious,” he interrupted, his brows furrowing.
I shook my head vehemently, my hands going to his shoulders and squeezing. “That’s not it at all! I … I’m scared, Henry.” I nibbled on my lip, wondering how to put these feelings into words. “I worry that if something goes wrong between us, it will ruin everything.”
“Well, let’s just make sure that it doesn’t go wrong, Catnip,” Henry murmured.
“How do we do that? How do we not make mistakes? How can you be so sure that in a month, or six months, or a year, we won’t fuck up somehow, and it will all fall apart?”
Henry’s thumb swiped over my cheek, and I realised that I was crying. His green eyes were brimming with emotion too.
“We will make mistakes, Ri. Everyone does. It’s how we handle them that matters.
But if there’s trust, and honesty, and …
affection, then mistakes are just a learning curve, and we can work through them together.
But for now, let’s just enjoy this new thing we’ve found, because if we spend all our time worrying about a hypothetical future where we might hurt one another, how can we appreciate what we have right now? ”
“Who are you, and what have you done with Henry ‘Solve For All Variables’ Baxter?” I sniffed.
Henry chuckled. “I don’t want to solve for you, Ri. You’re not a problem. Right now you’re the least problematic thing in my life, and I want to bask in that.”
I nodded, sniffing, unable to speak. I wanted what he was saying to be true. I wanted to enjoy what we’d discovered. I wanted the trust and the honesty, and I wanted so much more of his affection.
I wanted love with him. But it could so easily slip out of my grasp.
Because I was problematic. I was the woman with more than one stalker and a bunch of secrets and a criminal family …
and I was still holding something back from him.
Something I simply couldn’t tell him. The shame of it …
the worries that lurked because of it. I wished I could scrub them from my mind forever.
“Catnip … is everything alright?” Henry asked, voice tight with worry.
With an effort, I forced all of it back down deep into the dark place where I’d been locking it for years and nodded.
“It’s just been … a big few months,” I admitted.
Henry’s lips brushed my temple. “That it has,” he agreed softly. “But if we had to go through all of that, to get this, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s all been worth it.”
I managed a wan smile, pressing a little kiss to his nose and getting up before he could get a good look at my no doubt haggard expression.
“Coffee?” I asked, heading for the kitchen.
“You know how I like it,” he replied. And I did.
I knew a lot about him now in the space of a few short months.
I knew he preferred fairy bread to cake, and that he made a mean spaghetti Bolognese.
That his cats were like children to him, even though he spoke about them with a certain affectionate disdain.
That his past had also been unhappy and difficult, and that he’d come out the other side of it … just like I had.
As long as my past didn’t catch up with me …
Everything I learnt about him made me care about him more … made me want this to work with every fibre of my being. Made me realise that even if I couldn’t be entirely honest with him, I’d already put all my trust in him. I trusted him to look after me. I trusted him to keep me safe.
But there was that niggling little voice in the back of my head, reminding me that he didn’t know everything about me … that I wasn’t worthy of his trust.
We arrived at Staghorn Island the next morning. Josie came trotting down the stairs, grinning wide as I spooned muesli into my mouth.
“You can use the swim spa whenever you like, Irina!” she announced merrily. “We are officially docked.”
I glanced at Henry, whose face was suspiciously ruddy as he took a bite of his Vegemite toast. I hid a smirk behind a sip of coffee, wondering whether he was imagining the last time we’d been in the spa together.
The first time I’d felt him hard between my legs …
and how the rule no longer applied to stop us from taking things further.
I hoped that was what he was thinking about.
Because now my brain was filled with it.
I’d shoved the worries of the previous day firmly back in their box. I was on a yacht with my husband, who was utterly insatiable when it came to pleasuring me … and within a week I should be able to return to Australia and live there legally, hopefully forever.
Forever with Henry.
For now, I just needed to take life day by day and not worry about things—and people—on the other side of the world, who might never bother me again.
And if taking it day by day meant fucking him in the spa, then who was I to complain?
“Parker will undertake some routine maintenance around the yacht, and I’ll do an inventory of supplies …
I’ve already radioed to the mainland, and we can get a chopper to fly out what we need.
It’s the most expedient way to go about things,” Josie continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that neither Henry nor I were paying her much attention.
“You do what you need to do, Josie,” he murmured, a naughty little smirk tilting his lips up and crinkling his eyes as he watched me. “Just one stipulation.”
“Yes, Henry?”
The glint in Henry’s eyes turned utterly sinful. “The main deck and anywhere overlooking it is off limits to crew … for at least the next three hours.”
I chanced a glance at Josie, who gave a little knowing smile and nodded before heading towards the stairs leading down to the crew quarters.
“I suppose I should get into my swimmers … you know, because I’m going to train … in the swim spa …” I raised a cheeky eyebrow at Henry.
“Wear the two piece, Catnip.”
With a giggle, I dumped my cereal bowl in the kitchen and practically skipped to the bedroom to change, my stomach a riot of excited butterflies.