Page 66 of All The Way Under
I was able to trace Jennings’s communications ordering the hit with a little help from friends, and the police arrested him two days ago. While he’s locked up, I’m still leery about the whole firm and the actions they may take to punish what they view as bad business dealings. Even though I’m on leave, I’m on high alert, which is just as well, because I don’t know one Navy SEAL who knows how to do vacation in a normal fashion. Give us a problem to solve, big or small, and watch us thrive.
Saylor sits on the bench in front of the bay window overlooking the lake.
“This is so beautiful. It’s a shame my sister and her husband can’t come, but because of the shitshow that is our lives right now, their art gallery is thriving. Everyone wants to visit to get a look at them.” She pauses and spins to face me. “Like zoo animals.”
It’s not an inside joke anymore, though. This is fucking maddening.
“Which is fine because it’s good for the charity but also sucks to lose all sense of the people we used to be.”
“No more flying under the radar,” I amend. “The good thing about the media is they’ll forget about you as soon as something else sensational happens. You aren’t that important.”
I try to joke, but I can tell by the tilt of her eyes she’s not having it.
“Saylor,” I say.
She raises her chin to look at me. I say, “This will pass, and things will go back to normal.”
“At least I have an excuse as to why I can’t go get my MBA at Columbia now. It would be near impossible to focus when all anyone cares about is my time on that base.”
I sit next to her and have to fight back the urge to take her right here and now.
“I get why you’re afraid of your mother. She’s terrifying in a way I didn’t know was possible, but you don’t need an excuse not to go to school. Don’t go. Do whatever you want. Your brain is full, anyway. What were you working on yesterday?”
Saylor exhales a pent-up breath. “A no-fail GPS that will stay online at all costs. It uses a hybrid of quantum satellite triangulation and AI-stabilized inertial nav to pinpoint a boat’s location within three centimeters, even in GPS-denied environments like urban coastlines. It will have zero latency and a phantom cloak mode, which masks the vessel’s digital footprint, or it can make it appear to be somewhere else entirely.”
My jaw drops. “That is impressive. When you said tweaking AI GPS when I asked on our video chat, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
She continues. “Even masking a vessel from the military. The boat or ship will only be visible on the water to the naked eye, but for that, it won’t exist. Sea Tracker failed me,” she says, sighing. “I must do better this time. It has to be no-fail.”
Her blue gaze meets mine.
“I know I don’t need another degree, Brody. But until now, my family was all I had, and making my mother happy was part of my job description. You’re right. It’s time to do whatever I want. What I’m building now will be life-changing.”
Sometimes I forget what resides behind her eyes—how her mind is purely magnificent. She wears her beauty to mask her intelligence instead of the other way around, how many women in today’s world function.
“I’ll talk to Bitsy, and she’ll talk to your mom. We’ll make it sound like it was her idea for you to dominate what you’reworking on now instead of going to college. Sounds like she is the key to getting your mom to believe anything in the world.”
Saylor laughs, her smile pulling up in the corner. “It’s just one more thing in the absolute circus of my life. I will admit that plan has chops, though. Start with tea talk and then move into the GPS project, though. You have to warm Bitsy up.”
She slides her hand over and intertwines her fingers with mine.
“Thank you for sticking by me. This is a lot, and it’s going to continue to be a lot. Bronwyn asked me if you were going to deal with the pressure from all the outside sources well, and I said, of course, but then I realized maybe you would get sick of it.” She pauses, breathing. “Because anyone would get sick of it.”
Bringing my hands up to her face, I pull her to me, kissing her, tasting her, giving her the only answer she’ll ever need. What we have together is not something that can be replaced. Nothing that has to do with her would ever be anything that would detract from my feelings for her.
Every nerve snaps to attention when her hand slides over my dick covered by my thin swimsuit.
I curse under my breath. “We have to go downstairs. They’re waiting to meet you.” The words are spoken against her mouth, our teeth touching.
Her mouth closes into mine, moving soft and slow, making my blood turn to fire. “What about a quickie?”
The need to have her outweighs my plans to take my time and savor her all night long. I can do both.
Her kiss, after being apart, drags something primal out of me, and I don’t want to cage it. Never will I cage anything when it comes to Saylor Wyndham. This woman deserves the best of everything the world has to offer.
Standing from the bay window seat, I hold out my hand to help her up. She sees the answer in my eyes, in the telling smirk. Saylor kicks off her slides and lifts the dress over her head.
“You planned this. This was always going to be an all-out assault, regardless of what I said.”
