Page 64 of Beached Wedding

I couldn’t believe she had admitted to entertaining fantasies starringme. It was one thing for my subconscious to sideswipe me with an erotic dream, quite another to process herconjuringsexual encounters between us. Her candor had pretty much mule-kicked me off whatever high horse I’d been on. I’d had to kiss her. Had to.

Andof coursereality was infinitely better than my dreams.

I don’t know how I stopped. I really don’t. The fact she’d been ready to go all the way had nearly undone me. I was all about consent and always checked in before things went too far, but things had been going far and fast and had feltright. In a way I’d never experienced.

My chest was still tight with regret at turning her down. Hell, my balls were punishing me with a dull ache that extended into my stomach and down the insides of my thighs.

Now I only had the memory of kissing her and sucking her nipples and it was a pearl in an oyster, digging at me, yet I couldn’t resist turning it over and over, allowing it to take up more and more space inside me, glittering and precious and liable to kill me if it was ever pried out of me.

Harry’s butler met us. Harry had expected us to be gone at least another hour and had run out for a follow-up appointment with his doctor. We could enjoy his pool if we wanted to wait for him to return.

I glanced at Ashley. She had been pretending fascination with anything that wasn’t me for the last hour. She had taken a seat in the back of the helicopter for the flight back, too, apparently no longer caring if I plummeted to my death.

“We’re expected back at the hotel.” Or rather, Ashley expected me to take her back to the hotel and I’d disappointed her enough for one day. “Thank Harry and let him know I’ll give him a call to thank him myself. It was great.”

“You didn’t touch the picnic,” the pilot reminded me. “Take it with you.”

Like we needed another bottle of champagne, but the butler carried it to the car for us and set it in the back seat. As I rolled away a minute later, toward the gate at the end of the driveway, I touched Ashley’s wrist.

“Hey,” I said.

“Can we not?” She moved her hand into her lap and kept her head turned away.

Been here, done this. My sigh burned into the bottom of my lungs.

I racked my brain as we crawled through congestion toward the resort, pulling over to put the roof up when rain started tospit. Ten minutes later, the squall became so intense, pouring in such voluminous buckets, I pulled over again to wait it out.

“What are you doing?”

“It’ll pass in a minute.”

Shetskedand put on the A/C to combat the humidity and the fog gathering on the insides of the windows.

“Ash—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Because you don’t have a solution, either. Do you?” Sexual frustration added a layer of aggression to my voice that came across like blame. I didn’t mean for that to happen, but this wasn’t easy for me, either. “Say we have sex. Then you go to wherever the hell you think you’re going and I’ll feel like I took advantage of you. So will you, by the way.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Like hell I don’t.” She had been genuinely hurt when Izzy had promised to travel with her then dumped her. That had been atrip. Not physical intimacy. “And what do I tell Shane? Nothing? Let it sit on my conscience like a tumor? What if you and I try to give this a serious go? Now wehaveto tell Shane.I talked him out of marrying you. Shane pretends he doesn’t have feelings, but he does. He would be rightfully pissed and probably would demand I buy him out—which I can’t. He’s not in a position to buy me out, either. So now we dissolve what we’ve built? Take a loss on the house? Even if he walked out and left T&B for me to run, I need his celebrity endorsement. That’s our brand. The business wouldn’t survive without him so every way I look at this, I’m screwed.”

“So long as your priorities are straight,” she muttered.

“That is fucking unfair. Tell me there’s a way you and I can see what this is—” I pointed between us. “—that won’t cost me everything, including people I genuinely care about. Tell me. I’ll do it.”

“Don’t yell at me,” she snapped, eyes gleaming with unshed tears.

I recalled her experience with her father’s anger and clenched my hands on the steering wheel, trying to rein in my anger so I didn’t scare her.

“You think I don’t know how shitty this is?” she asked. “I know I can’t go to Sydney with you. I’ll never be part of your life if I do. Shane’s mates are never going to accept me if I’ve moved on to his bestie like some kind of two-timing slut.”

“Don’t.” I would never let anyone call her something like that, especially her.

“I’m not keen to be the girl who broke up T&B, either. You think Eddie and Sandy are going to keep being nice to me if I’m with you? No. You did the right thing, Fox. Is that what you need to hear? Thank you for saving us both. Okay?” Angry tears stood on her cheeks and she swept them away.

“The thing that bites most is that it’s more of the same. No matter what I want…” Her voice cracked and her hands clenched into fists. “I’m always forced to lower my expectations. Get married in Hawaii? Heck, no. I can’t even getlaidin Hawaii. Career? I can go back to my job in Pine Grove that pays the bills, but I can’t have a career I enjoy. Iwantedthat job at T&B! Do you realize that? I felt like I did good work there.”

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