Page 14 of The Billionaire's Teacher

Joe held up his hands. “No. Of course not. That would be illegal.”

Ah.

“See you remember that, or I’ll put the word out.”

“Aw, Corinna. Come on—”

“No.” Corinna cut Joe off. “We have a code. You agreed to it when we added you to the group. If you want to break the code, we can revoke your membership.”

Heads around the table nodded.

“No. I keep the code.” Joe’s shoulders hunched.

I was completely lost. A glance at Sunshine netted me a tiny headshake. So I didn’t ask. If I posed my questions later, would she answer? I honestly couldn’t say.

Either way, Joe’s response had eased the tension around the table and the casual conversation resumed.

“So you going to come along, Sunny? Make sure I’m swimming the straight and narrow?” Joe’s teasing words held an edge.

She glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “What do you think? It’d be a good spot to take your groups. It’s not a hard dive, but it’s got a lot of beautiful fish and a small sunken boat that often draws harder to find species. It’s down about forty, maybe forty-five feet.”

I nodded. That was a good depth. It didn’t feel like you might as well be snorkeling, but it wasn’t so deep that you needed extra training. “Sure. Is it beach or boat?”

“Boat. We can meet Joe out there.” Sunny looked over at him. “An hour you said?”

He nodded. “About. Island time.”

“Do your clients know that?” Sunny tipped her head to the side.

Joe frowned. “You’ve changed since your husband died, Sunshine.”

Corinna punched his arm. “Watch yourself.”

“What? Am I wrong?” Joe rubbed his arm where he’d been hit. “When Luca—”

“Enough.” Corinna interrupted, but not soon enough to keep Sunny’s face from losing all its color. “Idiot.”

“Sorry.” Joe muttered as he pushed his chair back with a loud screeching noise. “Guess I’ll go get things ready. Will I see you there?”

I looked at Sunny. She was staring down at her hands. I tentatively touched her arm. “We can dive somewhere else. Or not at all.”

That jolted her out of her thoughts. “No. It’s a good site, but don’t wait for us. I’m not sure what else our schedule holds.”

Joe’s face flushed but he nodded once and left.

“I’m sorry, Sunny.” Corinna reached across the table and squeezed Sunshine’s hand. “Why don’t you dive the Pot instead? Avoid him altogether.”

Sunshine loaded another chip with ceviche. “We’ll see. I need to show Wes the good spots for his tours. The Pot’s advanced.”

I wanted to say something comforting. Encouraging. But I didn’t know what that would be. Maybe silence was the better choice. I scooped some more of the ceviche for myself and told myself to that it didn’t matter who Luca was.

Except I knew.

She had his photo in her stateroom.

And that meant she was not just too old and out of my league. She was still in love with her deceased husband.

That should have been enough to convince me I needed to move on.

---