Page 48 of Undertow

Hayden snort-laughs and follows me to the table. “You shouldn’t give me any ideas.”

“I’m so serious about this,” I say, pointing at him as I drop gracelessly into the booth side of the table, then scoot down to where the food is. “I am not getting married without Parker.”

“You’re thinking an awful lot about marriage for someone who refuses to date me,” he says reasonably, but entirely unconcerned by the tipsy woman talking about tricky weddings on his ridiculous super yacht.

“I need to eat something,” I tell him. “I didn’t eat much today, and either you drugged me, or that was a very strong drink.”

“Well,” he says casually as he unrolls his silverware. “I’ve already been accused of kidnapping and fraud today. I suppose we may as well add drugging you to my rap sheet.”

I shake my head in mock disappointment. “Some lawyer you are.”

Once I have some food in my belly, I don’t feel as tipsy as I did before, but I still feel happy. I hate to admit it—actuallyloatheto admit it—but I think it’s just because I’m spending time with Hayden when I thought I never would again.

The chef clears our empty plates away, and Hayden thanks her. When she’s finished cleaning up, she goes below deck to give us some privacy.

“So,” I say, gazing at him across the table. “You’ve been emailing my daughter?”

He nods unapologetically, like that’s a perfectly natural thing to do. “Since the night we met. She’s a smart kid. I like her.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty fond of her myself.”

He cracks a smile. “I noticed. She’s pretty fond of you, too.”

“What… um, what do you talk about?”

“Lots of things. Mostly, we started out talking about you. She wanted to know what had been going on between us and why we were at the beach that night. What we weredoingat the beach.”

“You better not have told her that.”

He smirks. “I kept it PG, but I think she’s smart enough to read between the lines. She was surprised and said you don’t usually get serious with guys very fast, but she could tell you really liked whoever you were sneaking out with.”

I cover my face with my hands. “God. That makesmesound like the teenager.”

“When I told her you didn’t think we could really give dating a chance because she and Landon didn’t like each other, I think she felt bad.”

My amusement fades, and I uncover my face. “You shouldn’t have told her that.”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

“I know, but it’s not her problem. I don’t want her to feel bad about it.”

“After that, we started talking about other things. I think she wanted to get to know me a little bit, see if she approved.”

“Did she?” I ask lightly.

His eyes glint with amusement. “She helped me kidnap you, so she must have.”

“What a traitor.” I shake my head playfully but realize I haven’t checked my phone in a while. I haven’t heard it go off, but I want to make sure I don’t miss anything.

I did. Just one text message from Parker.

“Having fun?” she asked.

I smile faintly and type back, “Yes. Thank you.”

Since I didn’t know I was getting kidnapped tonight, my phone doesn’t have a full charge. I didn’t realize how low my battery was, but looking at it now, I see the bar is in the red.

I don’t want to risk my battery dying and Parker not being able to reach me again, so I ask Hayden if he has a charger on the boat that I can use.

---