Hayden

This could have been the very worst idea I’d ever had. There was no doubt Avery had been shocked to see me on the main deck. I should have expected it, I supposed. I’d just thought I might see something other than shock. I thought that her professional exterior might melt a little and I’d see that she loved me—as I loved her.

“Can I get you a top up, Mr. Wolf?” Skylar asked as she tipped the bottle of champagne toward my glass.

“Thank you,” I replied. “Where’s Avery?” I kept my voice low and quiet so only she and I could hear. Avery had disappeared as soon as she’d shown us to our table. Skylar and August had served lunch. Was she avoiding me?

“She’s in the galley,” she replied.

Brad had regularly invited me to join him on his yacht. I’d always declined, but this time I’d preempted his request and told him I’d been very happy with Captain Moss and that he should consider chartering the boat he was captaining. Brad had taken my suggestion and I’d accepted his subsequent invitation, although I’d declined a stay over.

Once I’d started to make things right, attempted to neutralize some of the poisonous things Cannon had done in order to bring me down, I’d been desperate to see Avery, and getting on a yacht was the quickest way I knew how. As soon as I’d laid eyes on her all my feelings magnified and multiplied and more than ever I realized what an idiot I’d been. Avery Walker wasn’t capable of betraying anyone. I knew that, had always known it deep down, so why had I accused her? I’d let the dirty tricks of a business rival color everything around me and in the mindset where everyone was either a suspect or guilty, I’d lashed out. Avery had borne the brunt of my frustration with Cannon and my desire to defeat them.

I’d tried to rehearse an apology on the plane ride over, but I hadn’t been able to get the words to fit together properly. I couldn’t think of a single reason why she’d forgive me. But I had to try. I couldn’t just walk away.

As lunch finished up, I said my goodbyes to Brad and his wife and the other guests and excused myself. Instead of heading straight off the yacht, I made my way inside, making some excuse about using the loo. I spotted the entrance to the galley and my heart began to clatter in my chest. I didn’t want to get her in trouble, but I wasn’t about to leave this boat without having a conversation with her.

I exhaled when I saw her sitting at the table, writing notes in her neat handwriting, the profile of her perfect ponytail exposing that long, soft neck. “Avery,” I said.

She closed her eyes in a long blink, and then she turned and looked up at me as if it were the last thing she wanted to do. Her resistance plowed an ache deep within me. I wanted her, needed her. Did she hate me? Was I irredeemable?

She glanced across the room and my eyes followed hers. There was a guy in the kitchen I didn’t recognize, though his eyes were fixed on me and Avery. He grinned and turned his back on us as he continued with his work.

“Can I have a word?” I asked, focusing my attention on Avery. “Perhaps you’ll see me off the yacht?"

“Of course.” Her professional smile overrode her sadness as she slid out from the table, then led the way off the Venus. I wasn’t sure which I preferred—her sorrow or a smile that wasn’t real.

She led the way as we walked off the deck and down the stairs. She stopped when we got to the bottom, folding her arms and inspecting the wooden slats of the jetty.

“Let’s walk,” I said. I’d forgotten what it was like to be this close to her, how much I liked having her by my side, walking, working, fucking. I liked doing everything with her.

When we were out of sight of the yacht, I stopped.

“I have an apology to make that’s so big it had to be made in person.”

She glanced up at me, her eyes narrowing.

“I know you didn’t accept the money from Cannon,” I said.

She stayed perfectly still. She didn’t even blink.

“I know you’re not capable of such a thing. I should never have questioned it in the first place. I knew you better than that.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. I wasn’t sure if she was blocking me out or telling me she wouldn’t forgive me.

“I don’t know what to say.” I wasn’t used to apologizing. I was rarely wrong, but I’d never been so sorry and I’d never been so wrong. And I needed her to believe me. I needed not to have messed up so badly that I’d lost her forever. “I’m so sorry. I’m an arsehole and I fucked everything up.” The words spluttered from my mouth in a desperate attempt to say everything all at once. “I trusted you. I loved—love—you. I knew you were on my side. I don’t know what happened.” Looking back, I didn’t know why I’d doubted her. Everything she’d said made sense. “I think there was so much going on, my focus was all off and I couldn’t see the truth when it was right in front of me.”

Her brow crumpled, and she uncrossed her arms as she gazed up at me, blinking as if she’d just seen the sun. “You believe me? You love me?”

I nodded. “I do, of course I do. I’m an idiot. A very sorry idiot. I should never have ever doubted you.”

She sighed. “Finally,” she said, her voice quiet with relief. “I couldn’t betray you. Not for any amount of money.”

Of course she wouldn’t. She was too good. Too decent. Too self-sacrificing. I wanted to reach for her, pull her into my arms and protect her for the rest of time. From the likes of Cannon, from idiots like me who didn’t appreciate her.

“Cannon pulled strings to get your brother’s health insurance reassessed. They were trying to make you take the money,” I said, wanting to fill the silence, wanting to earn her trust back.

“Jesus,” she said, stamping her delicate foot on the worn wood of the jetty. “That was them? Fuckers.”

“That we can agree upon.” I wanted to take every drop of her pain away.

“They were trying to ruin my life so I’d be forced to take the money.” She crossed her arms and gazed out at the sea. I wanted her to look at me. I wanted to see forgiveness in her eyes.

“It would seem so. Again, it was my fault. If I hadn’t been on this yacht, your brother’s health insurance would never have been affected.”

“Wow,” she replied. “These people have so much power.”

“Too much power.” She shouldn’t have to live with the sword of Damocles hovering over her family. She’d done nothing but do right by everyone in her life.

“For a second, I imagined what my life would be if I’d taken that money,” she said, squinting at the sun. “I took the phone. I thought about it.”

“Don’t feel bad about that. They made it as tempting as they could for you, and you know, if it had been my brother, I probably would have taken the cash.”

She laughed, and I couldn’t help but smile as I saw that open, genuine joy on her face, but she stopped herself abruptly and turned to me. “But your deal went through, right? They didn’t win?”

I couldn’t believe that with everything she’d been through, the way I’d treated her, she was still worried about me. “Everything is fine with Phoenix, but I don’t care about that. I’m here. I want to make things right with you.”

A breeze interrupted the still, hot air and blew a stray strand of brown hair across Avery’s face. Instinctively, I brushed it away.

“I missed you,” I said, cupping her face and sweeping my thumb over her cheek.

She closed her eyes as if it were too painful to hear the words.

“I missed you,” she replied.

“I know I don’t deserve it, but forgive me.”

She leaned into my palm. “It’s done already. I couldn’t be angry at you, even before you came here. Well, I was at first, but I saw the pressure you were under, the betrayal you were having to deal with.”

My heart soared. I knew I didn’t deserve her forgiveness but to have it? To hear her say it? This was the summit of Everest. Looking at her was the best view in the world.

“Forgive but don’t forget, that’s what my dad always says.”

My stomach flipped over. Of course she couldn’t forget. What I’d done was question who she was. But did that mean there was no chance of a future together?

“Did you find your leak?” She placed a hand on my chest and I stepped forward so there was just an inch separating us.

I nodded. “I did. They’d been paid very well by Cannon over this last year or so.”

“What people will do for money, huh?” she said.

“I’d do anything for you,” I whispered. “Rob a bank, bury a body, whatever you want me to do.”

Her silence expanded as her palm seared into my chest and my thumb stroked her cheek.

“I should get back,” she said eventually. “I can’t leave Skylar and August on their own any longer.”

Were we done? Had whatever she’d felt for me fizzled and died as my accusations took over? I needed a way back. I couldn’t give up. “Come back? Later? Tonight?”

“I can’t leave the yacht. You know that.”

By forgiving me she’d given me more than I could have possibly hoped for. But I still hoped for more. I wanted her heart, her body, her soul. “Then I’ll wait. When can I see you again?”

She tilted her head. “Go back to London, Hayden. I’m here all season.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “You have a life there.”

“I want you in my life. I just—”

“This . . . We’re . . . I don’t know what you want or what you’re expecting, but I have responsibilities. I have five months here and then . . . We’re not compatible.”

I hated hearing her say that. I’d never met anyone I was so compatible with. “That’s not true and I don’t think you believe it, either. If you can forgive me, then we can go back to—”

“To what? We had a fling on a yacht for a few weeks. You said yourself that the ‘logistics were challenging’.”

“If you’re telling yourself it was just a fling then you are a liar.”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. We both knew what we had wasn’t some kind of fleeting, throwaway connection.

“I’m not saying it won’t have challenges,” I said. “But I like to face my battles—and win them. I’m not going to slink away because it might be too difficult. You’re worth more than that.”

She glanced back to the boat. “It’s not just that.” She paused and as her eyes flickered over my face, I could see she was trying to decide whether or not to tell me what she was thinking. “I just don’t think I can. I saw the promise of something when you and I were together, Hayden. I need you to be the man I thought you were. The one who was in my corner, who respected me, believed me to be on his side. I deserve that man.”

“You do,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from breaking. She was right. I wasn’t good enough for her. “And I want to be that man for you. Perhaps I wasn’t then but meeting you has changed so much for me. More than that, losing you turned my world upside down and made me reassess everything. I can’t lose you. I want to spend the rest of my life working to be the man who deserves you.”

Silence surrounded us. I didn’t want to even breathe in case I missed the next thing she said.

“I need to go,” she said.

Had I lost her? I couldn’t just walk away. I pulled out a business card. “My mobile number is on this card. Promise you’ll meet me when this charter is over. That’s just five days away.”

“You’re going to fly back in five days?”

“No.” I shook my head and I was certain I saw a trace of disappointment flicker over her face. “I’m not leaving Miami. Not until I’ve convinced you that I love you.”

Her teeth caught her bottom lip, but she reached out and took the card. I wanted to grab her, kiss her, hold her, but I held back. I shouldn’t push her, no matter how hard I wanted to. Not yet, not now.

“I have to go,” she said.

“Promise me. Five days.”

“I won’t make promises I don’t know if I can keep. But I promise I’ll call to let you know.”

It was a small victory, but I’d take it. I was impatient to get to the bit where I could kiss her, hold her. When she’d be mine.

She looked back down the jetty. “I really have to go.”

I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I didn’t want to say goodbye.

“I’ve missed you,” I said. She nodded and turned, then made her way back to the yacht.

She glanced over her shoulder as she walked away and gave me a small smile. I’d do anything it took for that not to be the last smile of hers I saw.