Page 23 of Faking Ever After

He seemed a little awkward or worried. “Um, is there, like, a safebox I could use?”

I frowned in confusion. “Your things are safe in the room. Nobody’s going to look around.”

Finn nodded, but he still hesitated and didn’t move back. “I know. Of course. But I’d just be more relaxed if I could leave my…passport…someplace safer.”

I nodded. Moving the linens from the closet, I revealed the small safebox secured to the wall and positioned to appear as though it was part of the shelf. “Of course.” It was a timely reminder that Finn wasnotmy boyfriend. He had no reason to trust me. He was here to do a job and that was it. If he was more comfortable leaving his things locked up, he had every right to do just that.

He doesn’t owe you trust, I told myself as I stepped into the bedroom to give him privacy while setting up his access code. When that was done, he joined me in the bedroom and smiled lightly. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I said. I wondered if I’d done something to cause the lack of trust. And however much I tried to tell myself that it was the most natural thing to occur, I couldn’t quite convince myself that I hadn’t done something wrong. Then again, I had always been that way. “Ready?”

“Hell yeah,” Finn said excitedly. And with a shared smile, we left the room, heading for the city beach and a day in actual paradise.

CHAPTER 9

Finn

Hot grainsof sand fell freely into my sandals. Chatter rose around us to battle the neverending hum of the sea. Waves rushed and rolled, making children giggle and run and making adults sigh with pleasure. To my right, there were endless rows of beach beds facing the sea, and to my left, the crescent beach extended far into the distance.

I glanced at the man walking next to me. His billowy shirt was half undone and his feet dragged through the sand every so often. His hands were in his pockets, dark sunglasses on his face, and a light, salty breeze in his sun-kissed hair.

He really didn’t see any difference between himself and the mass of bodies sprawled out on the beach, swimming in the sea, playing volleyball on the sand, or drinking cocktails and chilled wine and coffee on the sandy terraces of the countless cafes that dotted the right side of the beach.

The tension that I could almost see clouding the space between us was my doing. Then again, I wasn’t about to take that USB drive with us to the beach and risk getting it stolen, wet, filled with sand, or hundreds of other disappointing fates I’d predicted for it. There was a very powerful man in New York City who wanted that drive destroyed. I wasn’t going to make it easyfor him. But perhaps concealing things from Percy while staying in his home, sharing his bed, and getting to know his family wasn’t the best way to kick things off, either.

I resolved to make things right some other way. Telling anyone—even someone as charming and sweet as Percy, who I did not know so well at all—about the drive was out of the question.

“Now, why does a billionaire entrepreneur move through the mass of commoners when he has a beach under his window?” I asked in my cheekiest voice.

Percy chuckled. It was warm and sweet, but slightly distant. It was so hard to notice the gap I’d created between us that I might have imagined it, but I wouldn’t put my money on it. “One, because it’s also a public beach,” he said, reminding me of what Alicia had already explained to me. “And two, you’ve met my family.”

“And three, you like being around people,” I suggested.

Percy rolled his shoulders. “I’m hardly your party-going extrovert,” he said. “But…ah, yeah, I like crowds where I can be like everyone else.”

“You know, you’re nothing like any billionaire I’ve ever met,” I said.

Percy’s dark eyebrows rose above his sunglasses. “And you’ve met many?”

I tilted my head this way and that. “You’d be surprised.”

He shook his head lightly. “Finn, hardly anything can surprise me coming from you.”

Whatever that line meant, I didn’t get to ask further. We had neared the wet slope where waves licked the beach and my attention darted from Percy to a few screaming, laughing children. A wave twice or three times as big as any so far rolled and roared and splashed us both as high as our knees. Laughing figures floated with it, got dunked, and were pulled further outas the sea retreated. My feet sank into the wet sand and I heard myself yelp in surprise.

Percy spread his arms wide to catch some balance, then grabbed my wrist to hold me steady. He laughed hard as he pulled his feet out of the soft, mud-like mass that pulled us a few inches deep. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to throw me off balance completely.

His fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist and my heart leaped out of my chest. I looked at him, my gaze dropping from my reflection in his dark sunglasses, landing on his smooth, bare chest, and falling to the sand that sucked my feet in.

Slowly, I pulled one foot out, and the other followed, the wet sand around the footprints was already packed hard. I waited for the next wave to wash off the sand from my sandals and watched as Percy did the same. When he was free, he pointed to a path of dry sand ten paces away from us. “That’s as good a place as any, I think,” he said.

I agreed.

We spread out a single, big beach blanket and Percy brought over some rocks to keep the corners from getting lifted by the breeze. It was white with a traditional Greek pattern that symbolized eternity and the ocean’s waves, woven in blue. And although it was large enough for three or even four people—if the four were very intimate and didn’t require personal space—Percy and I sat down close enough to almost touch.

He undid the rest of the buttons of his shirt and tossed the thing into the basket. I pulled my T-shirt off, too, and felt the heat of the sun on my chest in an instant. There was no shade here, but Percy, whose skin was fairer and far more prone to burning than mine, seemed content. He produced a bottle of sunscreen and started rubbing it in while my throat tightened and my mouth dried.

Percy was rough and quick about it. His movements were short, terse, and driven by purpose, yet I couldn’t pretend not to see the particular way his left hand rubbed the sunscreen over his right pec. The defined muscle lifted slightly as he kneaded it, massaging the lotion over his skin. He covered his abs until they glistened under the unfiltered sunlight, then handed me the bottle with a little smile touching his lips. “Could you do my back?”

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