Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
STACI STRETCHED, ROLLED over and curled against Remy.
There was no confusion about where she was or whom she was with.
And for the first time since she’d left Paris all those years ago, she felt as if she hadn’t made a mistake in trusting a man.
She snuggled closer to him, breathing in the woodsy scent of his aftershave, the lingering smell of sea breeze on his skin and the subtle fragrance of sex.
He squeezed her tight and rubbed his hand down her back in a long languid stroke.
It occurred to her that if they stayed here at sea for the rest of their lives everything would be okay.
It was only when they got around others that they’d encounter problems. But her grandmother had always warned her about hiding from the truth.
There was a reason she wanted to hide and that was.
..she didn’t know. Maybe she was scared or too attached to Remy.
Maybe she didn’t want him to know that he could make her feel as good as he had.
Because she still was afraid to really trust him.
She might feel good now, but her mind was getting active and her doubts floated to the fore.
Tension settled over her and stole her sunshine as sure as clouds could on a summer’s day.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Getting up,” she said, because that was the safest answer.
“Yeah, right. Come on, what are you really thinking? You owe me that.”
She realized he had a point. She just wasn’t sure she could tell him. She just didn’t know if she could drop her baggage at the door and be the woman that could make a relationship work with Remy.
“If you could see your face,” he said.
“What would I see?” she asked.
“A woman who’s afraid.”
Exactly as she feared but she’d always known she didn’t have a poker face. She didn’t have it in her to be false with people once she started caring about them. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, she did care for Remy.
“I keep circling around and coming back to the same spot about trusting you,” she said. “But right now I have to protect myself—”
“No you don’t. We’re in this together, you and me. We don’t have to protect ourselves from each other.”
She pulled the sheet up with her as she sat next to him. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she stared at him through narrowed eyes. “I can only assume you’ve never had a broken heart.”
He shrugged in that Gallic way of his and it wasn’t so charming to see his casual attitude when she was feeling everything way too intensely.
“I tend to keep things casual because that’s my way. My job is pretty demanding.”
“Yes, but you’re between gigs now. So what’s keeping things so low-key this time?” she asked.
“We’re away, in a different place,” he said. “It’s not the norm.”
She arched both eyebrows at him and he shook his finger at her.
“Don’t get your back up. You know damned well you wouldn’t have looked twice at me if we weren’t trapped here together.
This show is giving us a reprieve from our everyday lives.
It’s your chance to trust in a man and mine to slow down. ”
“What happens when this reprieve is over?” she asked, fearing she already knew his answer. Remy was the kind of guy who could move on. She had to remember his words. They weren’t in the real world right now. She couldn’t fall in love with a man who was enjoying a vacation from his life.
“I don’t know, ma chère. I don’t have all the answers. I didn’t expect to meet you or to feel the way I do about it, but there it is whether I want it or not. If I could walk away from you then the last two weeks would have been a stroll in the park.”
She didn’t say anything.
“For both of us. Denying it won’t change the truth. There is something between us that we can’t deny. You know it’s true or you wouldn’t have been so tense the last two weeks.”
He had a point but she hated it. She didn’t want him to be right or for this situation to be out of her control. Yet it had been since she’d tripped over the threshold of the elevator and fell into his arms.
He’d caught her and she had to wonder if that’s why she thought she could trust him. If that’s why she really wanted to make this work.
She hated the weakness inside her that made it impossible for her not to hope that...well, that this would last. “Let’s stop talking about it.”
“Why? You’ll keep worrying over it, won’t you?”
“Yes. But talking isn’t making it any better,” she said.
“It is, ma chère. It’s letting you know that you’re not alone. I’m unsure, too,” he said.
“Renting a yacht and seducing me on the sun deck doesn’t seem unsure to me.”
He tugged her off balance and back into his arms. “I wanted to show you I was more than just a one-night kind of guy.”
She had to laugh because there was no way that she’d ever have thought that about Remy. Even their first intense lovemaking hadn’t felt casual. Nothing did with him and she knew if she didn’t want to go crazy she would have to start forgetting the fear that he wasn’t a man of his word.
After all everything he’d done since they’d met had proven to her that he wasn’t lying about his feelings.
“What else do you have planned for today?”
“I was hoping we’d cook together in the galley. I’ve ensured that we have state-of-the-art appliances. Then we’ll eat on the deck under the moonlight, maybe dance to some Cajun rock and then I’ll seduce you again before we go back to the house.”
“I can see you’ve given this some thought.”
“I have,” he said. “I wanted...I still want to get to know the woman behind all these defenses, Staci. I care about you. I can’t make myself stop thinking about you.”
She understood what he was saying; he was verbalizing what she felt. She knew if she kept her guard down then she could enjoy the rest of her time with him. And to be fair it would probably be easier on him; he could stop worrying that he wasn’t living up to her needs.
“Okay but I’m in charge in the kitchen.”
“Like you were the first time,” he said.
“Ha. This time you take orders and act as my sous chef,” she said, standing up and reaching for her bikini bottoms.
“As you wish,” he said.
“As if. You’ll let me think I’m in charge, won’t you?”
“You bet,” he said with a grin. “Let’s shower and I took the liberty of stocking some clothing for you.”
“You did?” she asked. “Who does that?”
“A man who wants to impress his woman.”
His woman. Was she really Remy Stephens’s woman?
Did she want to be? She knew she did. That was why she was laboring over everything he said and did.
She wanted this to be real. More real than she’d wanted her father to show up when she was a kid.
It was wrong in a way that a man still held the key to her happiness and she was afraid to let him see how much he meant to her.
“Well, I’m impressed,” she said. “Are we showering together?”
“No, I’ll let you have the facilities first. I need to check with the captain and tell him we won’t be fishing,” he said.
“I doubt you ever really intended for us to do that,” she said.
“Why?”
“I think you said it so I wouldn’t be wondering if you were going to make a play for me.”
“You’re right. I wanted you to relax. And I think I succeeded.”
He had done that all right. “Thank you, Remy.”
“For what?”
“The massage, the understanding. I know it’s been difficult—”
“Nothing worth having comes easily,” he said, before he pulled on his swim trunks and walked out of the stateroom.
STACI REGAINED HER equilibrium in the kitchen while Remy showered.
She chopped vegetables, letting the sounds of her knife on the cutting board sooth her.
The captain and crew were still staying out of sight, which Staci truly appreciated.
She felt raw and exposed after making love with Remy and needed to put herself back together.
She was used to always being the strong one, the one who was tough and made everyone else feel better. Even Alysse let her be the tough one. It was Staci who always dealt with difficult small business loan officers, over-zealous customers and one time a would-be burglar.
At this moment she felt entirely incapable of doing anything but working in the kitchen.
“What can I do?” Remy asked as he came and stood beside her.
He wore a pair of jeans and a white linen shirt that he’d left unbuttoned at the neck.
His hair was still damp from the shower and the white linen made his skin tone seem even deeper.
Seeing him now she wondered how a man as together and successful as Remy could be out of work.
He seemed more like a wealthy restaurant owner.
“I wasn’t sure what we were making so I’m just chopping vegetables,” she said. “I already made some cupcakes for dessert...they’re baking in the oven.”
“Cupcake girl, I’m flattered,” he said, and dropped a kiss on her neck. “Face me so I can see if the dress I ordered looks as lovely on you as it did on the model.”
She put her knife down. She thought this was part of the problem, too.
She normally wore jeans and a T-shirt. The dress was a simple sundress that tied at the back of her neck.
The skirt fell to her knee and wasn’t full or flowy, something which would have made her petite frame seem shorter.
He’d chosen well, she thought. But now that he was standing there waiting to see how she looked she was nervous.
To heck with it, she thought. She’d never been a nervous Nelly why was she behaving like one now?
She turned toward him and put her hands on her hips, staring up at him in challenge. “What do you think?”
He tipped his head to the side and peered at her for what seemed like an eternity. “Exquisite. But why are you angry?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t me. I’m jeans not fancy dresses. And this place is nice but it’s outside my comfort zone.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you’d enjoy a vacation from everything.”