Page 16 of The Billionaire's Teacher

“The treasure dive?”

“Yeah.”

Wes scowled. “Can you report him?”

“Not really. Technically it’s in international water. So it gets murky. Who do I report it to? I can assume I know what port he’ll return to and maybe have someone waiting to try and check things out, but it’s easy enough for him to lie. At this point, if he’s willing to take people to rummage around a shipwreck, I don’t think lying about it is going to be out of the question.” I was frustrated, too. Luca and I used to do the good Samaritan thing. He was convinced that if enough people made a fuss, eventually word would get out and everyone would somehow realize they needed to stop. His optimism was something I’d loved about him.

Even if it was stupid.

“I’m sorry.” Wes laid his hand briefly on my shoulder.

I was glad for the wetsuit, because even with it, I had to fight the urge to shiver. Which meant it was all in my head. And that was ridiculous. It was probably also responsible for my gruff voice when I spoke. “Yeah, well. Can’t win ’em all. You ready to dive?”

There was a tiny beat of space where he looked at me with concern before grinning widely and rubbing his hands together. “One hundred percent.”

We both bent and reached for his tank-BCD combo and our hands brushed. Dang it.

“I’ve got it.” Wes slid one of his arms into the BCD and hitched the tank up while getting his other arm through in a motion smooth enough that I realized he was definitely a well-practiced diver. At least as far as getting gear on.

While he closed his vest and checked his dive computer and gauges, I got my own BCD on and did the same. Convinced I was as ready as I was going to get, I stepped down onto the swim step and sat on the deck. I pulled my goggles over my head and let them dangle around my neck as I put on my flippers.

Wes sat beside me and did the same.

“Ready?”

He nodded.

I put my goggles in place, popped my snorkel in my mouth, and stood. I circled my index finger and thumb and took a big step out into the water. I dropped down under the surface for a second before the air in my vest popped me back up. I spit out the snorkel and treaded water while I waited for Wes to join me.

When he was in the water, he flashed the OK sign back at me with his thumb and index finger.

I reached around behind my neck for the group of hoses connected to my air tank, found my regulator, and put it in. A quick exhale to clear out water and I was ready. I pointed my thumb down, waited for Wes to return the motion, then began to slowly let air out of my BCD, letting gravity and the weights integrated into the system pull me under the waves.

This was my favorite thing.

It was as if all the cares and worries of the world stayed above the water. So now, as I descended, I just had to focus on my rate of descent, clearing my ears, and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation.

Curious angelfish darted over to investigate our bubbles and the bright splashes of color on the sides of our wetsuits. As we neared the reef, I slowed my descent even more until I hung suspended at the best depth to move around without having to make a ton of adjustments.

Wes overshot slightly and it took him a minute or so to tweak his buoyancy to match my depth. He flashed OK. I returned the gesture and signaled in the direction that we needed to go if he wanted to see the sunken glass-bottomed boat.

I wasn’t sure that he cared about that, but it was a nice path through the area that would show off the animals who made their home here. And he could get a feel for the current, such as it was, at this dive site.

Wes swam beside me. I appreciated that he didn’t lag behind or zoom ahead. And he had a good mastery of the kicking technique needed to propel himself through the water without stirring up a lot of the ocean floor. As dive partners went, he was the closest to ideal that I’d had since Luca.

My mind shied away from that comparison.

Instead, I focused on breathing easily and admiring the fish. A flash of color made me pause and reach for Wes’s arm.

He turned and I pointed to the green snout of a moray eel that had darted back into its hiding place as we swam by.

Wes’s eyes brightened.

It was almost more interesting to watch him watch the fish than it was to see them myself. He had a visible appreciation for everything around us, despite the scuba equipment he wore. I couldn’t explain it—years of diving with groups had honed the instinct. It was something in the eyes. And the speed that he swam. Wes was enjoying being down here, not simply zipping from one thing to the next to say he’d done it.

I waited until he made eye contact again and we swam on, the warm water surrounding me like a gentle hug.

As the main section of this reef began to wane, the bump of the sunken boat appeared in front of us. It wasn’t a large boat—when it sailed it had probably held ten or so tourists huddled around a giant pane of glass in the bottom to see the fish that they were too nervous to snorkel with.

---