Page 18 of Tempting Me

CHAPTER FIVE

SHAY

I’m going to puke.

I can feel it. It’s right there, ready to creep up my throat. My skin feels clammy, and it’s so freaking hot out here.

Shit.

I can’t believe I’m really going to do this. I’m going to hire Luca Asher to remodel The Marina. If my family could only see me now, they would be so disappointed.

But I’m desperate and his work is good. I just don’t know how to make this work without anyone seeing us, but I’ll find a way. I have to.

I sit down on the bench and then I stand up and then I sit down again, my hands twisted together as I look left and right, making sure there’s no one in sight.

Where is he?

I know I was a little vague in my note, but he surely knew it came from me.

I sit back down on the bench and look out over the water.

I picked this spot because in a moment when I’m feeling so unsure of what’s going to happen next, this view calms me.

I let out a breath.

If somewhere deep down—deep, deep down—Luca is still the Luca I knew years ago, he’s going to say yes because, as he mentioned last summer when I hired the other company, he knows this place. He knows the memories I want to keep alive, and he knows the vision I have to make it what it once was. His brain is scarily similar to mine. That’s what drew me to him all those years ago.

It’s just that no one can find out about this, and I can’t stress this enough.

If I don’t get The Marina back up and running, I could lose it. If my family finds out I hired Luca, I could lose it.

That’s the part I don’t know if Luca is going to agree to.

What’s the saying? Play with fire and you’ll get burned.

Yep. That’s me. I’m basically walking around with the gasoline clenched in my hand and a match in the other, waiting for someone to bump into me.

“I think I finally see why this is your favorite spot around the lake.”

I startle at Luca’s voice, standing quickly and spinning around to face him. My gaze jerks to his instantly, then he breaks eye contact to take me in, his eyes traveling down and back up my body so slowly that I feel naked. When those blue eyes meet mine again, I can see that he has questions for me. I expected it.

“Why is that?” I ask.

“Because this view is like a sedative. The entire drive here, I was building up a fight in my head with you because that’s what we do, but then I got out of my truck and saw this”—he gestures to where the sun barely peeks out from behind the lake and mountains as it goes down for the night—“and the anger just disappeared.”

I have to fight back the smile on my lips. His assumption is perfect.

But I don’t smile. Right now, I can’t show any signs that Luca Asher holds the cards.

“How can you plan a fight with someone if you don’t even know what they want from you?” I ask, and instantly he points a finger at me.

“Because I knew you wanted something from me, and my brain can’t figure out one single reason why you think I'd give you anything.”

“Because you love that marina just as much as I do,” I snap and then sit with a huff.

The lake sand is soft, so I don’t hear him as he walks up to me, but I can feel it. So when he sits down next to me and lets out a breath, I know I have only one chance to get this right.

“The Marina isn’t doing well, and I thought hiring someone to help me fix it up and rebuild it to what it once was would be the answer, and I still think it is. I just …”

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