Page 26 of The Billionaire's Teacher

“Okay. Fine. You don’t want to know. I respect that.” Zee waited a beat. “I’m just going to say it starts with the second letter of the alphabet.”

“Zee!” My mind reeled. Surely she didn’t mean billion. But of course she did. And there was no way I would have been able to get her to keep that piece of information to herself. Now that I had it, what was I supposed to do with it?

Forget.

Put it away.

Because it didn’t matter.

“I’m just saying,” Zee said, “even if he was ugly it might be worth it.”

“Zee. What’s gotten into you?”

Zee laughed. “I just think it’d be a treat to see my girl on the arm of abillionaire. Think about it.”

I probably wasn’t going to be able to avoid thinking about it now. But I also wasn’t going to tell Zee that. “You know I’m not interested. I had Luca. And that’s enough for one lifetime.”

I glanced over at his photo and my heart panged. We should have had so much more time together.

“Honey, you know I loved Luca, same as you. But it’s been a lot of years. You’re young yet. You deserve to live.”

“I am living.” My voice was firm.

Zee knew me well enough to stop pushing. “Okay. Make sure you update your plan in the system so we have your new route.”

“I will. Thanks, Zee.”

“Mmmhmm. Be safe.”

I ended the call and set my phone beside me. Then I hunkered down and got to work plotting a new course that would, hopefully, keep us out of any storms.

9

WES

Iwatched Sunny disappear below and tucked my hands in my pockets. She obviously needed time to figure out what we should do, but I wasn’t sure how to make myself useful. If that was even possible.

Maybe all I could do was stay out of her way.

I climbed to the top level and looked out over the island, then turned to watch the ocean. It was hot, but on the water there was a breeze that made it bearable. Birds flew overhead, calling out to one another as they did whatever it was birds did with their lives.

What would that be like?

Even now that I had my dive shop, I woke up every morning with a list of things that I needed to accomplish during the day. I was glad that they were now things I enjoyed doing—even the less delightful tasks, since they went into running the shop.

My phone rang. I glanced at the readout and wrinkle my nose. Ignoring it wouldn’t do any good, but I just didn’t feel like dealing with my dad right now. Guilt and a tiny bit of hope that this time it might be different made me answer.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Wes, my boy!” Dad was in full salesman mode.

I cringed. “How was church this morning?”

“Good, good. I like this new place that Glenna is taking us to. The pastor’s great. He gets it. Today he was reminding us that we were children of the King, so it was our destiny to have everything we asked for. Good stuff.”

Oh boy. I wasn’t going to touch that. I should be glad he was going to some kind of church. Right? Although maybe staying home was better than getting his head filled with whatever that was. I cleared my throat. “And Glenna? How’s she?”

I meant “who’s she,” but Dad could read the subtext.

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