Page 62 of The Billionaire Offer
BART
Scuba diving was fucking awesome. I hadn’t admitted it to Serenity on our first day of lessons, but I’d been a little more nervous about it than I thought I would be. Andrew, our instructor, had unknowingly assuaged most of my fears with the information he’d given us before he’d shown us to our gear, and as I’d relaxed, I’d found myself really enjoying the experience.
And that had been before we’d even gone into the ocean for the first time. It turned out that scuba diving didn’t just mean slapping on the equipment and going underwater. We’d had extensive lessons on dry land before we’d gone into a pool, where we’d practiced some basic skills, and only after Andrew was satisfied with our progress had he taken us out for our first dive.
That’d been a couple of days ago, and today was our last dive with him. After this, we’d be qualified to dive without an instructor present, and I was already committed to doing a lot more scuba diving in the future.
The world underwater was just too magical not to. Although scuba diving wouldn’t have been very high up on my personal list of stuff I wanted to do in my life, now that I’d done it, I was hooked.
It was the one thing I’d done where I could tune out real life completely. The silence under the water was incredible, and it was so peaceful to watch the aquatic plants swaying in the slight currents like trees did in a light breeze.
The reef we were on was also like an explosion of color that I wouldn’t have imagined could be possible so many feet under the water. Coral gardens spread out across it, and interesting, brightly colored fish darted around everywhere. It was a whole different world down here, and it was one I’d quickly become addicted to.
Of course, it wasn’t just the fish and the coral that I liked watching. Serenity was in her element down here, and she was absolutely beautiful as she swam. Every time she looked at me, I could see the pure joy in her eyes as she excitedly pointed something out to me or, at times, just floated above the reef and spent her time just drinking it all in.
She was fucking gorgeous under the water and above. When we surfaced, her face lit up as she told me all about the different creatures she’d spotted. After the first dive, we’d bought an underwater camera and we took turns taking pictures with it as we explored under the waves.
Generally, we were just having an amazing time with this, and it occurred to me more than once she deserved all these wonderful experiences and so much more. She was my ultimate dive buddy, and hopefully, later today, I could convince her to be my partner in diving and in life for the foreseeable future.
I wasn’t planning on proposing, but if I knew that this wasn’t about the money for her anymore, I would’ve. At the very least, I was finally planning on finding out where she stood with all this.
As Andrew called time on our dive, she swam up to me and wrapped her body around mine, her eyes wide and smiling behind her mask. I took her hand, squeezing it before we made our way over to him and slowly surfaced together.
“That was so amazing,” she gushed as soon as her regulator came out of her mouth. “Did you see the starfish? I took about a million pictures of it. We should’ve gone diving when we were at the Red Sea. When we go back, we definitely have to spend more time on the coast. Andrew said the diving there is world-renowned for a very good reason.”
The man in question chuckled. “The bug has bitten hard, huh?”
We both nodded, and once we were back on the beach, we promised to see him again before we walked back up to our suite. Serenity’s skin had a hint of a golden tan to it after all the time we’d spent in the sun on this trip, and as she kept gushing about our last dive, I took in the brightness in her eyes and decided that, if nothing else, I’d like to keep diving with her.
Even if she didn’t want to be with me, we were both qualified now and I didn’t know anyone else who was, but at least it would also mean that I’d get to keep her in my life.God, I’m fucking pathetic.
This girl had me wrapped around her little finger, though.Probably always would.
“I think we need to make a new bucket list,” she announced as we left the hot sand behind and strolled down the garden path that led to our suite. “We can keep doing the regular stuff, too, like we’ve been talking about, but we need to make a list of all the places we’d like to go diving. The Red Sea, definitely, but Andrew said there are so many incredible places to go. If I ever make it big, I’ll even take you to the Great Barrier Reef. How does that sound?”
“Awesome,” I said, not bothering to point out that she didn’t need to make it big for us to be able to do it. “He mentioned a few other places, too, but I like the idea of making a separate list for it. At the rate we’re adding things, we’re going to need several lifetimes to get through it all, though. Know any vampires we could ask for a bite?”
“I wish.” She sighed. “On the other hand, vampires can’t go out in the sun, so we’d have to settle for night diving. Did you know we could do that? Night diving? There are actually a bunch of specialty diving courses we could do. There’s night diving, but there’s also a specialty for wreck diving and for photography, which could be really cool.”
I grinned. “I’m in. Just name the place and the specialty, and I’m there.”
As soon as we walked into our room, she started shedding her clothes and then turned to me, walking backward completely naked as she smiled. “I’m going to take a shower. Join me?”
“With pleasure,” I said. “I’ll be there in a minute. I just need to check my phone first. There are a couple of emails I’m expecting and I haven’t been able to check it much with us being mostly underwater for the last few days.”
She pouted, but then winked. “Fine, but don’t take too long or I’ll get started without you.”
“Oh, the horror,” I joked. “Don’t you dare. I’ll be there very soon.”
Smiling, she turned and walked into the bathroom. Then she started the water a few seconds later and I practically fell over my own feet in my haste to get to my phone so I could get the emails out of the way.
As I’d expected, there were two urgent emails waiting to be answered. Both were for tournaments I had coming up, and I needed to confirm my participation before they gave my spots away.
The first tournament was in about six weeks, and I knew I was going to have to get back to practicing eventually if I wanted to win. Back in Egypt, there’d still been more than enough time and there still was, but even if things went well later, I might not be able to extend our trip for as long as I’d originally thought.
We’d still have a couple of days at Maddox’s house, but while I’d planned on staying for as long as we wanted—if we wanted—that probably wasn’t possible anymore. We’d have to take things as they came, but like with Serenity and her singing, e-sports were my passion.
The fact that she was one of the few women I’d ever met who actually understood that and supported me in it instead of just thinking of me as some gamer stuck in his mother’s basement was just another reason to love her.
