Page 54 of The Grumpy Billionaire
“I tried everything I could not to think about you,” he admitted. “For years I dated women as different from you as I could find. Then I tried finding your clone. But I have to confess—even when I despised you, I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
I averted my eyes, shaking my head, blinking at the fuzzy golden aura around the tabletop candles.
This is bad.
We were doing it again. Our fun whale-watching excursion was quickly turning into another unwanted opportunity to spill my guts to Reid about our breakup and the miserable years that had followed for me.
Whether or not that was what he was going for, I had to stop it here. If I allowed him to get his fingertips any farther under the tight lid on our past, he might be able to pry it all the way off.
Theneverythingwould come spilling out.
“I’ve had too much wine,” I announced, attempting to get up from my seat at the table.
Once on my feet, I staggered to the side, the full impact of my alcohol and over-the-counter-pharmaceutical combo making itself known.
“Whoa there.” Reid vaulted up and caught me before I fell. “You didn’t even drink that much. I don’t remember you being such a lightweight.”
“I took some more motion sickness pills,” I confessed, my voice slurry.
“How many?”
“Two.”
Reid groaned. “No wonder you’re loopy. With what you already had in your system, that’s too much for your body weight. Come on. Let me help you.”
He wrapped an arm securely around my waist and led me down a corridor where he pushed open a door. A flip of the light switch revealed a beautiful stateroom, in the center of which was an enormous, extremely inviting bed.
My head was swimming like the pod of whales we’d seen today. I literally ached to crawl onto that comfy-looking mattress and stretch out. But I couldn’t let myself.
I turned around in Reid’s guiding arms and attempted to go the other way. All I managed to do was bump directly into his chest in the tight hallway.
“I can’t. No. I can’t get into your bed,” I said to his sweater.
Reid laughed softly. “Mara. Bed is exactly the place you need to be right now. Just lie down for a little while. You can sleep until we get back into harbor. Don’t worry—you’re not going to wake up naked.”
He spun me slowly back around and steered me forward. Too tired to argue, I let him and ended up falling onto the bed’s plush comforter more than crawling onto it.
My eyes refused to open even when I felt him removing my shoes and lifting me to tuck me under the luxurious layers of fine bedding.
I was barely conscious when I heard his soft, “Goodnight, sweet girl.”
When I answered, I had already started to slip in and out of a dream. He might not have even been in the room still, though in my dream the solid weight of him was tantalizingly warm next to me.
“Don’t let me tell you… okay?” I mumbled to the Reid in my dream who was tenderly stroking my hair the way I used to love.
“Tell me what, baby?”
“That I still… I still…”
And my conversation with my dream-lover faded to black as the fatigue overcame me.
EIGHTEEN
Rude Awakening
Mara
Warm sunlight hit my eyelids the next morning, shocking me from sleep to insta-alertness as I realized I’d forgotten to set my alarm.
