Page 111 of Nine Months to Bear
Closer.
Closer…
My phone buzzes against the table, breaking the spell. Stefan reaches for it before I can.
“Camille,” he says, reading the screen. “Should I answer?”
“God, no. She’ll want details about…” I gesture vaguely between us. “This.”
“We can’t have that, can we?” he teases.
“Definitely not,” I agree. “She’d alert the press immediately.”
“Mm. And wecertainlycannot have that. Some things aren’t fit for the front page.”
He’s doing that thing again where he says one thing and means another. His posture is the giveaway—utterly relaxed and yet somehow vibrating with intensity at the same time.
It’s the contradictions about him that kill me. How he can be so much of one thing and so much of another thing, too.
Dark and light. Hot and cold. It’s enough to give a girl a headache.
“Have you heard from your grandmother?” I ask, if only to change the subject.
He nods. “She’s happily bossing my men around.”
I let out a soft laugh. “I could see that. It’s sweet that you take care of her, you know.”
“‘Sweet.’” He says the word like he’s never heard it before. “I’m notsweet, Olivia.”
I shudder and turn my face toward the horizon. There it is again. Kind and cruel, scorching and freezing, here and then gone again.
“She wants to know when we’ll be back,” he says.
“Funny,” I mutter, “I had the same question.”
“Sick of life at sea already? It’s only been a few days.”
I shake my head, still stubbornly averting my gaze so he can’t see all the thoughts running through my mind. “Honestly, no. It’s been a long time since I was away from work.”
He hums and follows my eyeline out to where the sea meets the sky.
“You could stay here forever, couldn’t you?” I ask.
“Here as in on the yacht?”
“Here as in away from everything. The business, the threats, the constant looking over your shoulder.” I stretch my legs out on the lounge chair, letting the sun warm my skin. “It’s peaceful.”
Stefan shakes his head. “Peace is a luxury I can’t afford.”
Another beat passes. Seagulls cry and wheel overhead.
“My father loved this boat,” he says quietly. “He’d disappear for weeks at a time, sailing up and down the coast. Which meant my mother hated it.”
“Because she couldn’t control him here?”
He nods. “She used to say the yacht was his escape from reality. From responsibility.”
“What do you think?”
