Page 65 of Away With You
His face softens into a smile. “You’ve got some dark thoughts in that beautiful head of yours.”
My heart pounds and I lick my lips. He has no idea. “Yeah, well. What they don’t realise is I’ve got access to toxins in my lab. If it comes to it…I could make it appear like an accident.”
It takes a second for him to catch on, but when the penny drops, his expression is priceless. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified.”
I chuckle, patting his chest as I walk back into the bungalow. “I’ll let you figure that out. Now I’m off to get ready for our day on the yacht.”
His quiet but happy laugh follows me to the bathroom, and I close the door with a sense of relief. Whatever or whomeverhad put that expression on his face, I’ve helped him move past it. And that’s what I’m here for, after all. To help him deal with these awful people he calls family. Now I just need to suit up in my fanciest armour and help him get through the day.
?·?·?
“Jade, this is all your fault.”
My best friend’s face is alight with amusement as she gazes back at me from the screen of my phone. “It can’t be that bad.”
I pan the phone camera down to my ankles, then my feet and back up to my face. My extremely grumpy face. “It is that bad.”
Jade’s laughter booms through the phone, and I turn the volume down, sparing a glance at the door and the man I know is beyond it. “This is not helping.”
“I’m sure no one will notice them.”
The ‘them’ she’s referring to are my ankles and my feet. My glowing white ankles and feet. Somewhere along the self-tanning application, Jade must have gotten bored, and now I’m paying the price. Where the rest of my body is a gorgeous, glowing bronzed colour, the lower half of my legs remains pasty white. The kind of white that suggests they haven’t seen the sun…ever.
“How did you not notice this before now?” she asks when she gets her breath back, wiping away her tears of joy.
I prop my phone against the mirror and apply face bronzer to my feet and ankles. To no avail; they refuse to accept any form of colour. “Yesterday I swapped pants for a floor-length dress. Then it was dark, and then Nathan was shirtless. None of this had me paying any attention to my ankles!”
“Hang on. Circle back. Tell me more about shirtless Nathan.”
I swallow a wistful-sounding sigh. “Jade, it’s even better than that picture in that article. It’s—he’s—perfect.”
Her gulp is loud in the quiet room. “Man, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d hate you.”
“Well, maybe that’s why I have snowy white feet. Your subconscious is sabotaging me.”
She laughs loudly again. “Hey, I wouldn’t put it past me. My subconscious can be a prickly bitch.”
I giggle. Jade has a way of talking me off any ledge. Similar to Nathan. They are the calm in my messy storm. “Stop making jokes and help me.”
She taps her bottom lip. “Step back and let me get a look at you.”
Confused by her request, I do as she asks. “Why?”
“Pan the camera around so I can see you from behind.”
Again, I follow her order, contorting my body so she can see me from every angle.
“There it is. The answer is right in front of us.” She grins at me before letting out a wolf whistle. “You are so hot in that bikini; no one—and I mean no one—is going to be looking at your feet.”
I roll my eyes at her ridiculousness, propping her back up against the mirror and peering at my reflection. Today I’m dressed in two of the most expensive pieces of fabric ever made. It’s a flattering, designer string bikini, blue—the exact colour of Nathan’s eyes—and it covers very little of me. Rosie had snuck it in my bags when I refused to buy it, and looking at myself now, I guess I’m grateful. In it, I know I look yacht-ready.
“You’re just saying that to keep me happy.” I struggle into my cover-up, a crochet hollow-out knit dress in a decadent cream colour that allows for hints of the blue bikini to pop through. Despite its name, it doesn’t cover up much, but it creates a whole vibe. And it’s not like I have a heap of time or options to change into something else. All my other beach wear is just as flimsy as this one.
“I do want to keep you happy. My tastebuds are craving that Duty Free giant Toblerone you promised me,” Jade says now. “But it’s also true. You go out there looking like that, and Nathan won’t be looking at your feet. Guaranteed.”
I nibble my lips. “Okay, I’m going to choose to believe you. Now, what should I do with my hair?”
Many minutes later, my hair slicked back into a ponytail I just know will give me a headache, I step out of the bathroom. And straight into Nathan’s captivating gaze.
