Page 15 of The Billionaire's Teacher

But it didn’t.

6

SUNNY

Ireached behind myself for the ribbon attached to the zipper of my wetsuit and tugged it up. If I was diving for pleasure, I’d probably skip the wetsuit and simply wear my swimsuit. But with Wes…it felt like neoprene was the smarter choice.

I picked up my buoyancy control device, BCD for those of us who dive, flippers, mask, and snorkel and headed up to the main deck. I made my way over to the swim step and set my gear down. I’d strapped air tanks there and took the opportunity to work them free and lay them gently on the deck.

I glanced over toward the stairs. Wes was taking his sweet time getting ready. Not that we were on a clock. We could always head back to the dock here for the night if he wanted. Or I didn’t mind sailing through the night and making some progress to our next port of call. Wes didn’t seem overly concerned with keeping to a strict schedule, and that worked well with the idea of island time.

I gave Joe a hard time about it, but he wasn’t wrong. Everything moved a little slower—a little more easily—here. It was one of the reasons Luca had wanted us to stay and make it our home.

I hadn’t objected.

Of course, I would have followed him to the ends of the earth without needing any justification for it. Because Luca himself had been my home. And now that he was gone? I was…rudderless.

I pushed the thoughts away. They were ridiculous. I was a forty-three-year-old woman. I shouldn’t feel adrift like a kid just out of college with no idea how the world worked. Even if it wasn’t unreasonable, now wasn’t the time. I had a job to do here. I should get to it.

I stood one of the tanks up and slid the straps of my BCD over it, then tightened them down. I hooked up the hose to my regulator, spun the handle to set the air flowing, and took a couple of deep breaths through the regulator to ensure it was working like it should. Satisfied, I laid the tank, now with my vest attached, back down.

I was ready.

Where was Wes?

For that matter, where were Joe and his set of clients? Hopefully, he hadn’t decided to take them to the deeper wreck dive after all. There was talk of treasure hunting there. If old forks or the odd key could be considered treasure. Maybe it gave people a thrill to show something like that off and talk about having rescued it from the ravages of the ocean and time.

Never mind that it was illegal.

Never mind that, rightfully, it belonged to someone else.

Finders, keepers was the battle cry of the treasure hunter, and most of the time they got away with it.

Those who tried to fight for the right thing often ended up in the hospital. Or worse.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to take so long.” Wes crossed the deck quickly and dropped his fins and mask. “My mom called.”

I smiled. “Is she worried about you?”

“She’s my mom, so yeah. But mostly she wanted to tell me some news about my dad before he got to me.”

My eyebrows lifted.

“It’s complicated. They’re not together. Dad…I love him. But he’s got some problems. And he’ll always try to spin it so it’s someone else’s fault, you know?”

I laughed. “I know several people like that. Yeah. Good times.”

“Anyway, she wanted to warn me that he was probably going to be coming around—metaphorically—looking for some cash.”

“Ah.” Thankfully, neither my parents nor Luca’s had ever done that, but Corinna had some stories from her own family. It was part of why she’d finally moved to the islands and essentially cut contact with them. “Will you give it to him?”

Wes shrugged. “I’ll let him make his pitch, but probably not.”

I tipped Wes’s tank up so it was standing and kept a hand on it. He obviously had plenty of money. I hadn’t done any sort of research on him—the company frowned on it, for one, and I really didn’t care—but our charters weren’t cheap. Usually, I had groups that maxed out the occupancy and only took a couple of days. Something that made a split a reasonable enough undertaking if people saved up. But he’d scheduled three weeks, with me at the helm, all alone. So, yeah, he had money.

Wes squatted and fixed his BCD onto his tank. He turned on the air, inflated the vest a little, and took a quick breath through his regulator. After a nod, he leaned it back down beside mine. “Did you want to wait?”

“Not unless you want to. I can show you around, same as Joe. And…” I paused, frowning as I turned to scan the ocean around us. “I suspect he got mad and decided to stick with his original plan.”

---