Hayden

I barely recognized myself and these feelings of longing I had for Avery Walker. It had only been a few hours since she’d been naked on my desk and already I missed her sweet taste and her fingers through my hair. We’d managed time alone each day since Taormina and instead of quenching my desire, it set it on fire. How would I feel back in London without her? It didn’t make sense. After all, I hadn’t known the woman long and I wasn’t one for emotional entanglements, but I couldn’t imagine my world without her in it. I needed a plan.

I wasn’t sure if it was because I didn’t have any other distractions, but she’d become the thing I looked forward to most in my day. Usually the buzz I got from the process of buying companies was better than any drug, better than sex. It made everything else slide away and took my focus. There was something freeing in that. Nothing was more important. I was clear what my responsibilities and objectives were when I was trying to close a deal. Avery complicated that tunnel vision. She seemed to exist outside it, splitting my focus. I basked in the way she cared for me, made sure I had everything I needed, but more, she challenged me, told me what I didn’t need.

I smiled at the knock at the door, which I knew would be Avery. “Come in.” I kept my gaze on the shiny walnut door. The first thing I was normally faced with when that door opened was Avery’s beautiful smile and wide eyes, but when she opened the door only as much as it took for her to slip inside, her face was a little dull, her smile more forced than usual.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said, reaching for her as she pressed the door closed.

“I am?” she asked, walking into my outstretched arms. “Can I get you something?”

I sighed. However close we’d gotten over these past weeks, I couldn’t get away from the fact that she saw herself as the help.

“I wish it wasn’t like this,” I said.

She froze, her knees touching mine as I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her to my lap. “Like what?” she asked.

“You having to wait on me. Pick up after me. You’re worth more than that.”

She huffed out a breath and relaxed in my arms. “I’m worth exactly that. Anyway, I like doing it for you.” She ran her palms over my arms.

“I don’t like the thought of you doing it for other people when I’m gone.”

She tipped her head back and kissed my jaw. “You want me as your own personal chief stewardess?”

“You make me sound like a pervert.”

“That’s because you are a pervert.” She poked me in the ribs and I grabbed her hand, kissing the inside of her wrist as I ground my hips against her.

“You never thought of what you might want to do other than this?”

Her mouth fixed in place, a glaze of professional coating her expression. “This is my job. You ever thought of what you might want to do other than buy and sell companies? At least I get to see daylight in my job.”

She had a point. I worked long hours in personality-less rooms for weeks on end. She was the one on a yacht off the coast of Italy. “Yeah, I accept that my job is ridiculous. You can’t make me feel bad about that—my brother was in the SAS, remember? I’ve learned to live with how shallow what I do can be. But it pays really well.”

“Well then, I don’t see your point.”

I traced the dip between her collarbones and trailed my fingers between her breasts. “I was thinking through logistics.”

She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. “You were thinking through logistics? Did anyone ever tell you how romantic you are?” Her fingers rippled through my hair and I closed my eyes, savoring her delicate touch.

“Is that what you want? I’m not sure I’m very good at romance, but I can work on that.” I was going to have to shift a lot of things. I’d never done relationships, never loved anyone, but I would do whatever it took for Avery.

“But even if I moved the head office, you’re not in one place all the time. We need to figure something out that’s going to work for both of us.”

I bit at her neck and she moved toward me, asking for more. “I’m not sure romance is what you want,” I growled.

She tucked her hand to the back of my neck where it fit so perfectly and stroked her thumb along my jaw. This. I could stay like this forever. It wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t talking. It was intimacy and something I wasn’t sure I’d ever had before.

“I don’t have any answers. You and me beyond the Athena seems impossible. My life is split between three places—Sacramento, the Med and the Caribbean. You’re in London. I have my family to provide for and you have a business to run.” She squeezed her eyes shut and I pressed my mouth to her forehead. “I don’t see how it can work.”

“We’ll make it work,” I said. “I can fly down to the Med between charters if I have to.”

She sighed. “You can’t do that. And what happens when I’m three thousand miles away?”

“I can do that. We’ll figure it out.”

“You seem so sure, but I just don’t see a way,” she said, looking at me as though she wanted a solution right then and there.

“Maybe I’ll buy an insurer based in Florida, so I can work out of the States. Perhaps you’ll get a job in London. We’ll make it work.”

“I don’t know.” She sighed.

Surely she couldn’t doubt how I felt? I’d laid myself bare to her more than I’d ever done in my life. “You don’t realize how special you are to me. I’ll find a way,” I whispered. “I promise. Trust me.” I didn’t want to agree with her, but our situation wasn’t an easy fix. I could give her the money she needed to care for her family or offer to employ her at Wolf Enterprises, but I knew her pride wouldn’t let her take either of those options. And short of becoming a deckhand, how was I supposed to spend time with her if she continued working on yachts? Would I have to accept I only saw her for days here and there during the season? I couldn’t imagine that would work in the long term. Along with closing the Phoenix deal and finding out who the leak was, I now had to figure out how I made sure I didn’t lose Avery. And the clock was ticking. I didn’t have long left.