Page 1 of Sexy as Sin
Brett Hunter did only one thing well: make a lot of money without making a lot of enemies. But he did it very, very well.
Did that sound bleak? Maybe it was. By the time he turned forty, though, a man ought to know what he was good at. You focused on your strengths, not your weaknesses. Your strengths would bring you home.
So what was he doing on a beach? That was some solid-gold weakness right there.
Desensitizing, that was what. Or, possibly, taking his mind off his latest and most far-flung international deal, and the way he’d hung himself and his investors right out on the line.
No. It was a calculated risk, and risk was his life. Self-improvement was a much preferable motive. He was in Australia, right? Australia was all about the ocean. A luxury-property developer who was afraid of the water was absurd, it was limiting, and it had to stop. No better time to tackle that than today. The beach was broad, the sand was white, squeaky-fine, and firm under his bare feet, and the Southern Hemisphere sun was early-February warm even at seven in the morning. Anybody in the world would look at a video of this scene—a businessman standing barefoot on the sand, his dress pants rolled up, an endless expanse of blue ocean spread out before him like a gift—and want to trade places.
He didn’t have to gointhe water. He just had to walk next to it. Nothing easier. He set the timer on his phone for fifteen minutes. He’d walk as far as he could towards the bluff where the lighthouse stood guard, and when the timer went off, he’d walk back. Disciplined. Easy. Zero danger. Thirty minutes.
He got the occasional curious glance from a surfer, possibly because nobody else out here was wearing a tie. He’d already exercised, shaved, and showered this morning, too. The beach walk had been an impulse, which was another indulgence he didn’t permit himself. He wasn’t sure why today felt like the day.
He could have said that he started watching the girl as a distraction, but it would have been a lie. He started watching her because... because...
Because the sunlight had lit up the copper of her hair, was why. It was pulled back tightly from her narrow, fine-featured face and hung down her back in a braid, but you couldn’t miss that shine, bright as a new penny. The top of her short wetsuit was still around her waist, which meant that he was looking at a black bikini on skin much too fair for the strength of this sun. As he watched, she pulled the wetsuit up, shoved her arms into the sleeves, and pulled the zipper up, so that was sad. After that, she picked up a baby-blue surfboard covered in rainbows, glitter, and unicorns, ran into the water on endlessly long legs, and started paddling out, and that was sadder.
He wasn’t going to watch her surf. The motion of the waves was making him sick, their thunder a menacing roar he felt all the way through his muscles—at least, they were tightening up, making it hard to breathe. People said this was restful? People were crazy. He kept walking, andnotlooking at the ocean. Focusing on Cape Byron instead, where the lighthouse stood. The most powerful lighthouse in Australia, situated at the country’s most easterly point. If you stood out here at dawn, you’d be the first person in the country to see the sun rise.
Facts were always helpful.
His phone finally began to chirp, and he reached for it, hit the Stop button, and turned around. Fifteen minutes down, fifteen to go, and he hadn’t had a heart attack yet.
When he got back to the spot where the girl had gone in—well, the woman, because she hadn’t been a teenager, despite the skin, the rainbows, and the unicorns—fortunately, or he’d have been a pervert—hedidlook out at the water.
He didn’t spot her at first. The waves, which didn’t seem terribly large, rolled in nearly perpendicular to the shore, an odd configuration he hadn’t realized existed, and there had to be twenty people out there. Some of them were kids. Their parents let them surf alone at seven in the morning? That was dangerous, surely. There were two surfers riding one of those waves right now, and one of them was his redhead. She was too far away to see the color of her wet hair, but there was that braid and those long, slim legs. Besides, something in her posture, the angle of her head, told him so. She looked... relaxed. Confident. Free.
She’d dropped down onto her board and was paddling out again, parallel to the shore, when he saw the fin.
You’re free,Willow Sanderson told herself as she paddled out into the surf.Feel free, dammit.That was why she’d come out on the water on three hours’ sleep after finishing the prep for this afternoon’s event. Now, trays of ribbon sandwiches, of tiny vegetarian empanadas, of skewered beef and chicken and barbecued prawns, of honeydew melon and watermelon both red and golden, and much, much more, sat neatly slotted into the racks in the walk-in cooler. The day before that, she’d piped chocolate mousse into dozens of tiny individual shortbread crusts, filled others with creamy, intensely flavorful lemon curd, and dipped more dozens of huge strawberries in melted chocolate.
This was an open-air event, though, a summer celebration, and she’d tried to bring some extra life to it with something brand-new, a playful touch of her own. The melon had given her the idea, and experimentation had convinced her it was a good one. Nourish’s freezer was filled with fresh-fruit ice blocks made of mango and orange, lime and pineapple, and strawberries and beets, and the vibrant orange and green and red of them made her smile. She’d serve them in a galvanized tub filled with ice, and the whole thing would look so festive and fun, and so uniquely Byron Bay. This event was about selling the Aussie lifestyle, so she’d do her bit. Thiswasthe town, however large it had grown, whose hand-painted Welcome sign still told you to “Cheer Up. Slow Down. Chill Out.” Anyway, food should be fun.
The rest of the menu, she’d agreed upon in advance with the client’s representative, a PR woman businesslike to the point of abruptness, who clearly hadn’t read the sign. The ice pops were Willow’s bonus. A little cheeky, a little offbeat. She was allowed to be that. She was a partner now, which meant she was free to try.
Everything was in place, in fact. Amanda Oldmarsh, the company’s founder and senior partner, had scheduled the wait staff and setup. All Willow had to do was to load the van, turn up with the food, and supervise the service and cleanup. Nothing she couldn’t handle after ten years in the catering business. And, for now, surf to get into the right head space. She didnothave to think about Gordy Atkins, the supposedly laid-back events coordinator who owned more pairs of board shorts than he did actual trousers and whose messy, white-blond curls always looked like he’d just come from the beach, or about what he’d said day before yesterday, when he’d rung her in the midst of shortbread-making.
It was like not thinking about pink elephants. Shedidhave to think about it, now that she’d thought about it.
“I’ve got a thing on at the Station Pub Sunday night,” Gordy had said. “You might like it.” Which didn’t exactly make your heart go pitter-pat, did it, as a “You’re Special” invitation?
“Hang on,” she’d said. “I have to check my calendar.”
“Just once,” he’d said, “I wish you’d just say ‘yes.’”
“I can’t just say ‘yes,’” she’d answered, “since I could very well be prepping for a Directors’ luncheon the next day, piping whipped cream and putting mint leaves onto the chocolate cups for a dinner for twelve. I can’t be in two places at the same time.”
“Right.” He’d sounded not so much boyish as sulky. “I’ll come by after, then.” He’d hung up before she’d had time to check her calendar forthat.Or even to say “yes” or “no.” Wasn’t he meant to ask? Wasn’t that how it was meant to work?
Why, when you wanted good-natured and easygoing, did you so often end up with “feckless and irresponsible”? Not to mention “still leaving his dirty clothes on the floor?” Couldn’t you be easygoing, fun,anda full-grown man?
She’d better decide what she meant to do about it, because at this moment, the thought of Gordy coming through her back window at one in the morning was filling her more with irritation than desire.
The next wave looked like a good one, though, and she was here. Beside her, a blond girl of eight or nine was looking back as well. Willow called out, “We’ll both take it,” and the girl nodded and smiled happily. All teeth, coming in too big for her face, the way teeth did.
That was the great thing about the waves at Belongil Beach. They weren’t big and powerful, but you didn’t have to fight for them. You shared them, and riding them was communion. With your neighbor, and with the sea. She popped up, the blond girl did the same, their boards rose and carved through the sea, and Willow laughed out loud.
Never mind Gordy. Never mind Nourish, and her brand-new partnership. Never mind feeding a hundred people who were celebrating breaking up the countryside she loved best in order to put up more houses for rich people. Right now, she was riding this wave all the way down the beach. Right now, she could fly.
