Chapter Eleven

 

* JULIA *

 

My hand shook nervously as I held the key up to unlock my front door. My little beach house was clean, but it was tiny and a bit run down. To a billionaire like Logan, this place was going to look like a total shithole.

But it’s not like he didn’t already know that I wasn’t exactly rich. He knew that I couldn’t even afford to pay for Decaf’s surgery, so surely he wasn’t going to be surprised that I didn’t live in a mansion.

“Here it is,” I said as brightly as I could. “Home sweet home.”

Logan stepped into the front room behind me, carrying Decaf in his arms. I was really worried about my dog, but at least Logan was able to get him back into the house without Decaf having to walk any. If I hadn’t won the cake sculpting contest, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’d have to sell pretty much everything I owned to cover the cost of Decaf’s surgery, but if that’s what I had to do, then that’s what I would do. The pain had obviously become more than my poor puppy could bear.

“You can set him down over there,” I said, pointing to Decaf’s plush doggy bed in the corner. Logan carried him over and set him down as gently as if he were a newborn baby. He was rewarded with a couple of tail wags. I smiled at the sight of the two of them together. They had become fast friends.

“This place is cozy,” Logan said as he looked around, and I couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“By ‘cozy,’ do you mean tiny?”

“No, I’m serious. It is small, but that’s okay. It’s very you.”

I shrugged. “Well, it’s all I could afford. But I’ve tried to make it into a home. Of course, if I didn’t win that cake sculpting contest, I might have to sell a lot of this off very soon.”

“You won. Trust me, you won.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“Wanna bet me?”

I rolled my eyes. “I have no money to bet, remember?”

He just laughed again. “I tell you what. Let’s go down to the fairgrounds and look. If I’m right and you won, you have to give me free cupcakes for the next week.”

“And if I’m right, and I lost?”

“Then I’ll take you out for a nice, expensive dinner. Not that I’m not going to do that anyway, regardless of whether you won.”

I shook my head at him. “You’re impossible. But I am dying to know if I won. If you’re really willing to go down there with me, I’ll go. Just let me shower and change real quick, so I don’t look so much like a drowned rat.”

“You look gorgeous.”

“And you, mister, are a sweet talker. I don’t care how gorgeous you think I look right now, I still want to get changed out of these soaked clothes and warm up in the shower for a few minutes.”

“Fine. I’ll just wait out here in my gross, rain-soaked clothes while you get all prettied up.”

“We can go by the hotel and get some new clothes for you, too.”

He sighed dramatically. “No, no. I’m fine. You just take care of yourself.”

He flopped into one of my kitchen chairs, and I rolled my eyes at him again before heading to my bathroom. I was surprised by how at ease I felt with him. I had worried that I would feel awkward after sleeping with him, but if anything I felt even more comfortable. I had no idea what his vision for the future might be, and I was somewhat scared to think about it. We had been pretty irresponsible by sleeping together without a condom. Megan would kill me if she knew I’d done that. What if I ended up pregnant? Would he pressure me to get rid of the baby? He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would do that, but then again, he didn’t seem like the kind of man who wanted to move to an island and raise a kid. I didn’t know too much about him yet, other than the fact that he was filthy rich and was surprisingly nicer than I’d first believed. But I did know he lived in New York and kept quite busy running his resort business. And I knew that I was definitely not interested in moving away from the island. If we wanted to have any kind of long term relationship in the future, that was going to be a problem.

I tried to push these thoughts away and not worry about them right now. I hadn’t slept with him in hopes of anything more than a fling. Sure, I was head over heels for him now that I knew how nice he really was. I probably would have married him on the spot if he’d asked, as embarrassing as that was to admit. But I had known from the moment I decided to sleep with him that nothing was guaranteed. He’d made me no promises. And if he decided to never make me any promises, then I’d live with that. At the very least, I had lost my virginity in spectacular fashion tonight. I could hardly wait to confide in Megan. What girl wouldn’t love a story like mine? A billionaire in the backseat of a luxury car, with a tropical storm raging overhead. It really did have a hint of romance to it.

Damn. I would have loved a round two right about now. But I was too shy to hint at that. What if he turned me down? What if the sex hadn’t been that good for him, and he wasn’t interested in more? But even as I had these thoughts, I knew deep down that I didn’t have anything to worry about. He had made more than one comment about how amazing and perfect I was, and I knew he wasn’t the sort of man who said things like that if he didn’t mean them. He wanted me just as badly as I wanted him, and that realization was thrilling.

I thought about how sexy and strong he had looked when he carried Decaf into the house. It would be nice to have a man that strong around all the time. Of course, one way or another I was going to have to get Decaf’s surgery taken care of, so hopefully I wouldn’t need someone to carry my dog around after next week. I would do what I had to do to take care of Decaf and get him out of pain.

The thoughts of Decaf brought me back to reality, and I realized I’d been taking quite a long shower. I hurried to finish washing the rest of the conditioner out of my hair, and then got out and got dressed. I towel dried my hair as best I could, then put it up in a bun. I didn’t bother with makeup. If there was one thing I’d always been confident about, it was that my suntanned face looked good even without makeup. There were benefits to living on an island, and one of those benefits was always sporting a bit of a sun-kissed glow.

After quickly pulling on some fresh clothes, I stepped back out of the bedroom and into the front room, where I was surprised to see that Logan had also changed clothes.

“Wait a minute. Did you have a change of clothes in your car?”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “No. But I have assistants who will bring me whatever I ask at any time of the day or night. I called one of them up and asked him to bring me a change of clothes from my room at the resort. I wasn’t expecting it to get here before you were done with your shower, but you took longer than I thought you would so I just went ahead and changed.”

I felt my face heating up. “Sorry. I don’t usually take such long showers.”

“No worries. It wasn’t a complaint. And I’m glad you had a minute to relax. Are you ready to go look at the cakes?”

I nodded my head. In truth, I was nervous as hell about going to look at the cakes. I wasn’t sure how well I would handle the news if I hadn’t won a prize, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by crying in front of Logan. I’d already done enough of that tonight. But Logan’s confidence that I had won had me curious, and I was dying to know if there would be a little blue ribbon next to my cake’s display.

“Come on. Don’t look so scared. I promise this will be good news.” Logan took my hand and started tugging me toward the door. The feeling of his strong hand covering mine sent a little thrill through me. How was it possible to be so turned on just by a simple touch? I couldn’t bear to think about his leaving the island. I wanted him to stay here forever, holding my hand.

“See you in a bit, Decaf,” Logan called back to the dog, earning another few thumps of Decaf’s tail. I shook my head in amusement. My dog already had Logan wrapped around his paws.

Logan drove me the short distance to the fairgrounds in silence. I nervously chewed my lip as he turned into the parking area, which was quite a muddy mess at this point.

“I hope you didn’t wear your good shoes,” he quipped.

“Just flip-flops, which probably aren’t even going to stay on my feet in mud like this. I’ve never seen everything here be such a mess!”

“Yeah, everyone kept drinking and partying once the storm came. At some point when people started leaving, the dirt out here must have been completely turned to mud. Look at all those tire tracks!”

“Your car isn’t going to get stuck here, is it?” Some of the grooves in the mud looked pretty deep, although it was hard to tell in the darkness. The skies had cleared by now, but the moon was just a sliver, so there wasn’t much light to see by.

“Eh. If I do get stuck I’ll just call someone to come bail us out. Come on. We’re already parked so there’s no use worrying about it right now. Either we’ll get stuck trying to leave or we won’t. Fretting about it won’t change that, so let’s go see your cake.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes nothing.” I kicked my flip-flops off and stepped out of the car. I didn’t see the point in even trying to keep my shoes on at this point. They were just going to sink into the mud.

My toes squished down into the cold, wet mud as soon as I hopped out, but I didn’t mind that much. The sensation was surprisingly soothing. I wriggled my toes and enjoyed the way the mud squished between them. When I looked over at Logan, he was doing the same thing. He grinned when he caught me looking at him. “It’s kind of fun, isn’t it? Reminds me of making mud pies when I was a kid.”

“You were allowed to make mud pies?” I asked in mock horror. “I would have thought that as a rich kid you’d be forced to be prim and proper all the time.”

“Well, I don’t know much about what rich kids are forced to do, since I was never a rich kid. My family didn’t actually have a lot of money growing up. It all came later, when my brother and I managed to get our resort business to really take off. If I ever have a kid of my own, though, I reckon I’ll let him or her make mud pies. My childhood was filled with those sorts of shenanigans, and I seem to have turned out okay.”

I could only stare at him in shock. “I thought you grew up with money.”

He shrugged. “Most people think that. But nope. I was just a poor kid, making mud pies. Now come on, enough with the mud. Let’s go find your cake.”

He took off toward the fairground tents at a rather brisk pace, clearly not interested in talking any more about his money or his poor childhood. I stared at his back for a moment before I started hurrying after him, putting my feet in the footprints left behind by his much larger bare feet. I was embarrassed at how much I had misjudged him. I guess it was easy to be jealous of him now, and to assume that everything he had had been handed to him on a silver platter. That’s what everyone else in town did. But when I stopped to think about it, there was no real reason for me to think that way. The resort here on the island had only been around about ten years, and as far as I knew it was one of the oldest of the Evans brothers’ resorts. That meant that their company was fairly new. It wasn’t a generations-old thing Logan and Zach had inherited. It was a business they’d worked hard to establish.

I felt like the more I learned about Logan, the more I admired him. I might even be falling in love with him, although I was trying really hard not to let myself think that way. Our lives were too different to ever hope to make anything permanent work between us. Weren’t they?

I found myself hoping that maybe, just maybe, there was something more for us on the horizon than just a whirlwind summer fling. Luckily, I didn’t have long to agonize over what the possibilities might be, because we were stepping into the tent where the cake sculpting entries were displayed, and my worries over the contest were quickly overtaking any other worries percolating in the back of my mind. This was it. The moment of truth, when I found out if had managed to sculpt out a first place win and secure the money I needed for Decaf’s surgery. This was a big deal for me. It felt like my Hail Mary pass, and I hoped I hadn’t failed. If I had, it was time to start selling things. I would never take a cent from Logan for Decaf’s surgery, no matter how much he insisted the money was no big deal to him. It was a big deal to me. I took a lot of pride in making it on my own, and wasn’t going to let some billionaire swoop in and take that away from me, no matter how good in bed he might be. I especially didn’t want anyone saying that I’d slept with Logan for his money. Not that I was going to broadcast around town that I had slept with him, but still…this island was basically like a small town. If things continued between Logan and I, even just for a few weeks, people were bound to realize something was going on and start talking.

“Look! Free cupcakes for me!” Logan’s triumphant voice startled me out of my thoughts, and I realized that we had already made it to the table where my cake was displayed. I held my breath as I looked down at the cake and saw a deep blue ribbon next to it, along with a little cardboard sign that read “Julia Price, First Prize in the First Annual Cake Sculpting Contest.”

My jaw dropped, and I picked the little sign up reverently, as though if I grabbed it too firmly it might disintegrate at my touch and I would realize that this had all been a dream.

“I won,” I whispered. And then, the tears came. I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t help it. The relief was too great. “I won,” I repeated in a choked voice. “Decaf…his surgery. I can help him now.”

“You did it,” Logan said, drawing me into his arms. He wrapped himself around me and kissed the top of my head as I sobbed. “I’m so proud of you. You found a way even when it seemed impossible.”

I struggled for at least a full minute to get control of my emotions, but it wasn’t easy. All I could think about was how much pain Decaf had been in lately, and how he wouldn’t have to put up with that anymore. When I finally managed to stop the tears, I looked up at Logan and smiled. “You can have your free cupcakes. But don’t think this means that you can come load hours’ worth of Christmas music on my jukebox.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re such a Grinch! I don’t understand why everyone wants to relegate the most joyous holiday of the year to just December. We should spread the cheer over to the rest of the months, too.”

I gave him a playful punch. “I’m all for cheer. But it doesn’t have to be Christmas cheer. Hey! Should we see if you won anything?”

He groaned. “I doubt it. My cake was really awful.”

“Come on. I want to at least see it. I’m curious what a billionaire chooses to carve when he takes on cake sculpting.”

Logan bit his lip, but then shrugged. “Okay. Come on then. You can see what I thought was worth putting into cake form.”

I followed him as he walked to the next table over and pointed at his cake, which definitely did not have a ribbon next to it. He groaned again.

“It’s even worse now than it was when I brought it in. The longer it sits out, the worse the lopsidedness seems to get. Gravity is not a friend of this cake.”

I hardly even noticed what he was saying. My jaw had dropped once again at the mere sight of the cake. Yes, it was lopsided, and it looked like the frosting job had been completed in a bit of a hurry. But it didn’t matter how awful it was on a technical skills scale. One look at the cake made my heart melt for Logan all over again.

“It’s Decaf,” I whispered. Logan stopped his dramatic groaning and carrying on and looked over at me with a small smile.

“Yeah. It’s him. I’m glad you can still tell, even though he’s sort of falling headfirst into the coffee mug.”

I felt tears stinging my eyelids, and I tried to blink them away, but it was no use. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m a total weeper with all I’ve cried lately. It’s just that I’ve been so worried about Decaf, and you’ve been so helpful with him. I can tell you truly care about him and that’s kind of amazing.”

Logan pulled me into his arms, letting his warmth surround me. With his body pressed against mine, I felt protected. I felt stronger than I did on my own. I felt loved.

“I do care about him, and I care about you. I know this might sound crazy, but I want to find a way to make things between us work. I’ve been wanting to take a step back from the craziness of life in New York for a while now. I never envisioned myself living on an island, but after talking to a bunch of local business owners today, I can see that there’s so much potential here. This isn’t just a sleepy, boring little town. It’s a vibrant community. And I want to be a part of that community, if it will have me. If you will have me.”

I stared up at him in shock. This was more than I had dared to hope for. “You want to stay? Here? On Driftwood Island?”

His blue eyes crinkled up at me in that adorable way they did when he smiled. “Yes. If you’ll have me.”

“I…of course. I’ve been trying for the last hour to figure out a way for us to still be together even though we live worlds apart. I never dreamed that you would want to live here permanently.”

Logan’s smile widened. “To be honest, I would have never dreamed that either until a few days ago. But I’m starting to see that I was wrong about island life. It’s better than I thought, and besides, you are here. I really couldn’t ask for more than to wake up next to you every day. I know there are some details to work out, but they’re just that: details. The important thing is that I want to be with you forever, and I hope you feel the same about me.”

My jaw had dropped at this point. My life had gone from feeling like a total shit show to feeling like some sort of modern day fairy tale. I’d finally lost my virginity, and it had been with a man who was truly special. And now, that man was telling me that he wanted to spend his life with me. He cared about me. He cared about my dog. And even if he was pretty horrible at sculpting a cake, he’d put in a lot of effort in his attempt to reach my heart. I was feeling pretty damn lucky right now.

When he bent his face down and put his lips over mine, setting me on fire once again with his kiss, I felt even luckier.

Good thing the fairgrounds were empty right now, because I had a feeling Logan and I weren’t going to be able to make it back to my house before going for round two with each other.

Even though I hadn’t attended any of the actual fair activities yet, this was turning out to be the best Summer Fair ever.

And I had a feeling it was only going to get better from here.