“Hey!” called Erik, waving at her from the top of the gangplank, a beaming smile making her heart—and most of her worries—take flight.

Laire had checked out all the boats in the marina when she got there, relieved to see none that she recognized, but she was still wary of being seen, so she’d chosen to wear a floppy beach hat and sunglasses for their date. Both had been her mother’s, once upon a time, which gave her a little extra courage as she walked toward her beau . . . in the middle of the day . . . in public.

Her daddy’s Stingray didn’t have a forward cabin where she could change, so she’d gotten ready in the ladies’ room at the Pamlico House, brushing out her hair and swiping on a little makeup. By cutting off some old jeans, she’d made herself a pair of cute and trendy denim shorts. She paired them with a hot-pink polo-style shirt, made from leftover material she’d used to make a maternity dress for Issy.

Flip-flops purchased at the Pamlico House gift shop with a hot pink and Kelly green grosgrain ribbon and a matching D-loop belt, rounded out her outfit. All those ladies she noticed the first night she and Erik had dined there passed through her mind as she approached him: she was preppy enough to fit in with any of them now. She just hoped Erik liked the way she looked too, which, judging from the grin on his face, was already a done deal.

“Hey,” she said, pulling off her sunglasses as she got to the top.

“Damn, woman. You look good enough to eat,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her into his arms. He brushed her lips with a kiss. “I can’t decide if I want to show you off or take you to a secluded spot and hide you for the rest of the day!”

“I can’t believe we have the whole day,” she said, breathless from excitement and being so close to Erik again.

“I brought my chariot,” he said, glancing toward the parking lot. “Want to see my kingdom?”

“Your kingdom?” she said. “The Banks is more mine than yours!”

He chuckled. “Fair enough, but we’re not allowed in your part.”

True. “So where did you have in mind?”

“Ever been to the Elizabethan Gardens up in Manteo?”

“Never even heard of it!” she said, grinning at him with genuine delight. As long as he planned to go north instead of south, she could relax. King Triton didn’t deliver north of Avon and Manteo was a fair ways north of there. She’d know absolutely no one there, and more importantly, no one would know her.

“Well,” he said, glancing at his watch, “it’ll take an hour and a half to drive up. Want to stop in Rodanthe for lunch first?”

She nodded eagerly. She’d never been to Rodanthe either.

“I know a decent spot called the Good Winds Café, and I checked the menu online; they have mahi-mahi, crabs, and oysters today.”

“Online, like, you checked the menu on the internet?” she asked, touched by his thoughtfulness.

He nodded. “Please tell me you know what the internet is.”

She chuckled, slapping him on the arm. “I’m not that backward! There’s a computer at King Triton, and I know how to use it.”

“Then promise not to Google me.”

She screwed up her nose at him. To be honest, she didn’t know what Googling was, so she changed the subject. “The mahi will be fresh, but the oysters will be farm raised, not fresh catch.”

“Then mahi it is!”

A wave of unbridled, unadulterated happiness swept through her being, and she leaned up on tiptoe, her eyes closing when her lips came into contact with his. She arched her back, pressing her chest to his and winding her arms around his neck. She’d learned how to kiss him, how to elicit that soft groan of pleasure that made him hold her tighter, his muscles—all of them—hardening into stone against her. Her breath hitched as her tongue found his and a million butterflies took flight in her belly. But he suddenly drew away, and she looked up at him, opening her eyes in confusion.

“I’m goin’ to embarrass myself,” he said, licking his lips, looking like he would kiss her all day if they weren’t in public on full view.

She could feel the way he prodded into her and looked down to find his shorts dramatically tented outward.

“Oh,” she said, giggling up at him. “Sorry.”

He shook his head, his lips pursed and sour. “Now she says she’s sorry . . . when I’m so turned-on, I could practically change the tides by pivotin’ back and forth.”

Her shoulders shook as she laughed silently. “I’ll turn around and give you a minute to . . .”

“To what? Look at your gorgeous ass? Won’t help.” He looked down at his erection and sighed. “Let’s just make a run for it.”

Taking her hand, he ran for the parking lot, pulling her behind him until they reached a shiny black car. He opened her door, and she sat down on the supple tan leather seats with a sigh, fastening her seat belt as he rounded the car and sat down beside her.

She’d never been in a convertible, let alone a car this clean and fancy, and she turned to face him. “This is your car?”

He nodded. “My twenty-first birthday gift.”

Laire’s eighteenth birthday was last month, and she’d been given a parcel of new fabric, spools of thread, and replacement bobbins from her father and all the latest fashion magazines from Kyrstin. With a homemade cake from Issy to round out the festivities, she’d felt like the luckiest girl alive.

She could barely fathom a world where someone was given a luxury car as a birthday gift. And yet, here she was—experiencing that world for herself.

“It’s very beautiful.”

“You’re very beautiful.” He pressed a button, then leaned across the bolster to kiss her as the car started without a key.

She was too distracted to kiss him back and stared, slack jawed, at the car’s console.

“How did your car just start?”

He leaned away, pointing to a plastic thing in the cupholder between them. “As long as this is in the car, I can just press a button to start the ignition.”

“Well!” She looked up at him, shaking her head with wonder. “That’s amazing!”

He chuckled softly, shifting the car into reverse. “You’re amazin’.”

“You’re a broken record,” she said. “I’m not that beautiful or that amazing.”

The car jerked to a halt and he stared at her, all kidding wiped free from his face, his lips turned down. “Yes, you are.”

“Erik,” she said gently, “don’t put me up on a pedestal just because I’m different from you. I’m just a girl from a small island. I know who I am, and I’m not special. I know my place in the world.”

“Your place, right now,” he said, his face still dark, “is sittin’ next to me. And I say you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen—”

“Erik—”

“—and amazin’. And special.”

She tilted her head to the side. “The higher you put me, the steeper I’ll fall.”

“Just for today,” he said, his voice deep and thick with longing, “you’re mine. And to me, Laire, you’re perfect.”

Laire took a deep breath, shaking her head with disapproval as her lips tilted up of their own volition. “Fine. I won’t argue with you if you’re going to be stubborn.”

“Excellent. Glad we got that settled,” he said, pushing his sunglasses onto his nose and backing up the car again. “Now tell me all about you. Every detail, and don’t leave anythin’ out, you hear?”

“Yes,” she said. “But first, how was dinner with Pete and Van last night? We got sidetracked when you picked me up, and I didn’t get to ask.”

He cleared his throat, pulling out of the Hatteras Landing parking lot and onto Route 12 north. “Good. Van sure does give ole Pete a hard time.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Pete has a thing for Van, but it’s not goin’ anywhere.”

Laire thought this over for a second, trying to figure out Erik’s meaning, then suddenly a light bulb went off in her head. “Oh, gosh! I didn’t know that Pete was a homosexual!”

Erik almost swerved off the road as he looked over at her. “What?”

“My cousin’s girlfriend’s brother was a homosexual too, but honestly we don’t have many on Corey.”

“Wha—Why do you think Pete’s gay?”

“Because he has a thing for Van.”

“Riiiiight . . . and . . .?”

She certainly hadn’t expected to have to explain this to Erik, who was so much more worldly than she. “When one man has a thing for another man, that’s called homosexuality.”

“But Van’s not—”

“Into Pete?” She shrugged. “Poor guy. I guess Pete can’t help who he likes.”

“Hold up. You think that Van’s a . . . Oh, God. I think I get it now.” Erik tugged his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Sure.”

“Would it bother you if I hung out a lot with another girl?”

Laire swallowed, a surge of jealousy making her feel downright jittery for a second. “Yes.”

“Even if she was just a friend?”

She looked at him—at his profile, which was so handsome, it made her stomach flutter like crazy. How could any woman have Erik Rexford for a friend? She would eventually fall in love with him, wouldn’t she? Of course. He was everything a woman could ever want—handsome, thoughtful, sweet, wonderful. Yes, it would bother her. Very much. Because she knew something Erik didn’t: he’d never be able to have a woman friend who didn’t want him the way she did. As far as Laire was concerned, it was impossible.

“Yes,” she admitted.

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Okay . . . what?”

“Okay, Pete is gay and he’s really into Van,” he said quickly.

“Yeah, I know. I figured that out.” Something felt off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “So why’d you ask me about other girls?”

“Because I wasn’t sure if my little mermaid had a jealous streak or not.”

A jealous streak. Hmm. Suddenly she wondered if Erik had one too, and she squirmed in her seat, thinking about Brodie and the goddamned rumors he’d started. “Would it bother you? To hear I was spending time with another man?”

Erik’s neck whipped around to face her so fast, she wondered his head didn’t snap off. “Are you?”

“No!”

His eyes were wide and dark as he turned them back to the road, adjusting and readjusting his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yes. It would bother me, Laire. It would fuckin’ gut me, darlin’.”

Growing up around fishermen, Laire wasn’t a stranger to such profanity. She’d even used the f-word a time or two to shock her sisters, but she’d never heard Erik use it before. She reached over and touched his arm. “I’m not. I’m not seeing anyone else. I promise.”

He took a deep breath and sighed, cracking his neck as he stretched it, touching each ear to his shoulder before relaxing again. His voice was tender when he said, “I meant what I said last night, Freckles. I only want to be with you.”

“And I only want to be with you,” she reassured him gently.

He sighed, looking over at her with a happy grin. “Now tell me everythin’ about you.”

“Why? You looking to be bored to tears for a while?”

“Trust me, darlin’. I won’t be bored.”

“You asked for it,” she said, taking off her mother’s hat and letting the wind rush through her hair as she started talking.

***

Erik listened carefully as they drove up to Rodanthe, as they ate fresh mahi-mahi over grilled vegetables, and got back in the car headed for Manteo.

Her voice was musical as she spun tales about her corner of the world, telling him rumors about pirates’ gold buried somewhere on Corey and describing the cast of characters that called her island home. Populated almost exclusively by fishermen and their families, most of the islanders had lived on Corey for generations. Laire’s family had been there for ten generations, since sailing over from Scotland in 1685.

Erik, who appreciated history in general, could barely fathom that sort of certainty about his own heritage, which was a blurry mix of upper-class Southern stock, originating in England on his father’s side and Germany on his mother’s. Hard-pressed, he remembered something about a cotton plantation from the 1800s on his father’s side and lauded university folk from Greensboro on his mother’s, but these weren’t really facts, just impressions. Laire’s family history was easily traceable, vibrant and living, with a thread still intact that started in Edinburgh and existed, in her, this very day.

She explained to him that, unlike Ocracoke, another remote island in the southern Outer Banks, Corey didn’t have any ferry service, which made it very difficult to reach. And because it didn’t have ferry service, Corey didn’t have the sort of tourist amenities—a public marina, restaurants, shops, inns—that the other islands, including Ocracoke, offered. The influx of tourist dollars into the Banks had fueled the surrounding economies, which had, to some extent, given up on commercial fishing as a livelihood and lifestyle. But not Corey. Corey was still fueled by the same traditional work, and work ethic, that had existed for over three hundred years. Virtually untouched by time, like some remote communities he’d heard of in the mountains of Appalachia, the Corey Islanders had grudgingly invited some modernity onto their island—telephone, television, and even the internet (dial-up, for Chrissake!)—but by and large, they still managed to maintain an extremely traditional culture, not completely unlike whatever culture would have been found there twenty or forty or even sixty years before.

Laire spoke respectfully of her father, of whom she was clearly in awe, explaining that he and his brother (Uncle Fox, unless he’d misunderstood her) had started their own business on Corey, selling fresh catch to the surrounding towns, including Ocracoke, Hatteras, Buxton, and Avon. This was, he gathered, the mark of some local social standing—that they’d managed to figure out a way to sell their fish off-island—and he grinned at the pride he heard in her voice  and saw on her face as she explained that they had their own dock and shop and even a website where nearby restaurants could place daily orders.

She spoke affectionately, though not without a little bit of eye rolling, about her two older sisters: overprotective Isolde, whom she called Issy, and Kyrstin, who was getting married next weekend to an island boy named Remy.

But her voice was markedly different—warm, wistful, and a little heartbroken, if he wasn’t mistaken—when she spoke of her mother, who’d passed away when Laire was very young. He sensed an active ache of loss, and it made his heart thrum with sympathy and tenderness. But her mother had done something quite shocking, apparently, by Corey standards: she’d attended college. Time and again, Laire inserted this fact into conversation about her mother, her eyes shining with pride. And he sensed, though she didn’t articulate it, that Laire wanted to be like her, and he wondered how that longing would eventually manifest itself.

And somewhere along the way, between Rodanthe and Manteo, between fresh mahi-mahi and the Elizabethan Gardens, Erik Rexford, the prince of North Carolina, started to wonder if Laire Cornish, the commercial fishing princess of Corey Island, could love him someday—because everything about being with her felt awesome, felt predestined, felt so fucking right. With her sitting beside him, zooming up the Carolina coast on the most beautiful early-summer afternoon he could ever remember, he made a wish that he’d never, ever live another day of his life without her. He made a wish that she would, somehow, someway, be his forever.

He took that wish and he buried it deep inside and freed it from his mind, to nestle safely and grow on its own, left only with a lingering hope that someday the children of wildly different neighboring kingdoms might create a whole new world of their own.

“Lord, I’ve been going on all afternoon,” she said, plucking her pop bottle from the cupholder, unscrewing the cap, and taking a sip. “It’s almost four. You should’ve told me to shut up an hour ago.”

“No way! I think your life is interestin’.”

She chuckled. “Like watchin’ paint dry.”

“A lot better’n that. I promise.”

“You know what?”

“Nope. Tell me,” he said, glancing over at her pink cheeks and tan freckles, falling wildly for her with every second they spent together.

“It’s your turn to answer some questions for me.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Or else?”

“Hmm.” She tapped her index finger on her lips in thought.

“I’ve got it!”

“Tell me,” she said.

“I get a kiss for every question I answer.”

Her eyes widened and she giggled happily, nodding her head. “Can I get thirty questions in before we get there?”

“I’ll drive slower,” he said, passing a sign saying that they were eight miles from the Washington Baum Bridge, which would take them across the Roanoke Sound to Manteo.

“Fire away, woman! Time’s a-wastin’.”

“Okay, okay! Let’s see. Um. Oh! One, what’s it like bein’ the governor’s son?”

“Mostly I hate it,” he blurted out. “I mean, there are times I enjoy the perks—end zone tickets for a Panthers game or ice time with the Hurricanes—”

“You ice-skate?”

“That’s question two, and yes, I do. I’m a Duke Blue Devil, darlin’!”

“Devil sounds right enough,” she shot back with a grin. “I didn’t know people ice-skate in North Carolina.”

“We have an NHL team, Laire.” She stared at him blankly. “The National Hockey League?”

“Oh!” she said, grinning at him. “I don’t know much about hockey. Mostly they just watch NASCAR on Corey. At the Fish Pot.”

“The Fish Pot?”

“The local bar.” She giggled softly. “They call it the Piss Pot when they’re drunk.”

Erik chuckled, then asked, “Ever been to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte?”

She shook her head, feeling her cheeks flush. “I’ve never been that far inland.”

They stopped at a red light, and he turned to stare at her for a second. “You are a rare thing.”

“Is that bad?”

“That’s question number three, and the answer is no. It’s amazin’. It keeps me wonderin’ about you . . . every minute, all the time. I never know what you’re goin’ to say next to blow my mind.”

Warmed from his compliment, she grinned, thinking of another question. “Why do you hate being the governor’s son?”

He seemed to mull this over for a second before the light changed and he laid on the gas. “I don’t have much privacy. Everythin’ I do at Duke is reported on: which girl I’m dating, if I screw up a game play, if I—”

“Are you datin’ someone?”

“That’s five. And yes, ma’am, I sure am.”

Laire’s breath caught. “You are? Who is . . . I mean—”

“You,” he said, darting a glance to her. “I’m datin’ you, Laire.”

Feeling like a complete idiot, she took a deep, somewhat ragged, breath and nodded. “Oh, I . . .”

“There’s that jealous streak again.”

“Don’t play with me, Erik,” she said softly. “I don’t know enough about boys to know when you’re kidding.”

“I didn’t mean to mislead you, and I’m not kiddin’,” he said. “You’re the only girl I’m with right now.”

Which only made her wonder . . .

“How many have come before?”

He cringed, then huffed softly. “I don’t want to answer that question, Freckles. Next.”

“Is it a long list?”

“That’s question six. And no, in my world, it’s not. But in yours . . .”

“How many?” she asked softly. “How many who meant something?”

He was silent for a while, staring out the windshield as they crossed the bridge to Roanoke Island. Finally he sighed. “I’ve had about six girlfriends.”

“And how many have you slept with?”

“Laire, come on.”

“I need to know,” she said softly.

She didn’t know she was going to say those four words before they came tumbling out of her mouth, but she knew the truth of them right away. Since meeting Erik and learning about his less conservative views on intimacy and sex, Laire couldn’t stop wondering how many women he’d bedded, and her imagination was starting to get the best of her. What if the number was ten or fifty or—goddamn it!—one hundred? How many was a few? How many was a lot? She had no idea. And for whatever reason she couldn’t articulate, she needed an idea.

“Five,” he said, his voice low.

She gasped softly.

Five.

Five.

Five women had lain naked with him, feeling the heat of his skin flush against theirs.

Five women had spread their legs and felt the fullness of Erik Rexford inside them and looked into his eyes when he reached his climax.

Five women had known—had experienced—the most intimate, private, sacred part of Erik.

My Erik.

Five.

There was never such a hateful number on the face of creation.

No, it wasn’t one hundred or fifty or even ten, but Lord, how a spike of white-hot jealousy skewered her heart, making it race with fury and disappointment and ridiculous, unrealistic regret. Why wasn’t I one, two, three, four, and five? Why couldn’t I have been there instead of someone else?

“Laire?”

She’d been holding her breath, but now she exhaled and breathed in quickly, the air brackish and dirty as they continued west on Roanoke Island, traffic rushing at them and by them, tall grasses and marshland to her right, and beach houses in the distance.

“I wish you hadn’t asked me,” he muttered.

“Did you love them all?” she asked, watching the scenery slip by, unable to look at him.

“No.”

“Did you love any of them?”

“I thought I did at the time. Now I don’t know for sure.”

“How many of them did you love?”

“Please—”

“How many?”

“Two.”

She gulped. Lord, she wanted to hate those two girls, but hate didn’t come quickly. She ached with the knowledge that he’d given his heart to them, but she was strangely comforted to know that he’d cared for them before sharing himself.

“Laire,” he said, interrupting the miserable silence between them, “I’m sittin’ here feeling like I should apologize for somethin’, but frankly that’s bullshit.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t come from a place where sleepin’ with someone before marriage is wrong. And I know you do, and I respect that, darlin’, but I’m not going to say I’m sorry for playin’ by the rules of the world I live in.” He paused again, as though waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t. She didn’t trust her voice. “I will say this: I treated all five girls—women—with kindness and respect.” Again he paused, adjusting his hands on the steering wheel. “Maybe you wish I’d say that I regretted sleepin’ with them, but I won’t say that, even for you. Every experience I’ve had, every person I’ve known, every step I’ve taken, eventually led me here, to this car, sittin’ next to you. And I wouldn’t trade that for anythin’, Laire. So it is what it is. And if knowin’ that I slept with five women means that you don’t want to know me anymore, I’ll be sorry. But it’ll tell me that we’re too different to meet in the middle. It’ll tell me that this wouldn’t have worked out anyhow.”

“Shut up,” she blurted out in a whisper.

“I’m just tryin’ to—”

“That was beautiful,” she said, blinking her eyes furiously but unable to keep tears from slipping down her cheeks.

She didn’t love it that he’d slept with other women.

But his words.

Oh, God, his sweet, careful, candid, heartfelt words about his past determining his future made her want to embrace those women and thank them for helping to make him the man sitting beside her today. And then she knew: that’s how she would live with it. That’s how she would accept his experience—as a gift, not a curse—because this man sitting beside her was her first love, and he wouldn’t be who he was today without all the days that had come before.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, reaching blindly over the bolster to hold her hand.

She took his hand and anchored it between hers, raising it to her lips to press a sweet kiss between the strong grooves of bone and vein.

“And you just about gave me a heart attack, darlin’.”

She kissed his hand again, then settled it on her lap, cradling it between her palms like a treasure. “Me? How?”

“That’s questions twelve and thirteen,” he said, turning right at a green sign that read “Fort Raleigh National Historic Site” and below that, “The Elizabethan Gardens.” “I was more than half afraid you were going to make me turn this car around and drive you back to Hatteras.”

“You think I could give you up so easily, Erik?”

“That’s fourteen. And darlin’, I’m still learnin’ who you are. But, my heart . . .” He paused. “It fuckin’ hurt to think you might.”

“I’m . . .” She gulped, swiping at her damp cheeks as she took a deep breath. “I’m already in too deep, Erik.”

He turned into a parking space, pressed a button to shut off the engine, and turned to look at her. He reached for her face, cupping her cheek, his dark eyes searching hers.

“Laire,” he whispered. “I’m falling in love with you.”

Her heart lurched with the sweetness of it.

“Erik . . .”

“Madly.”

She reached for his face, and their lips met hungrily, sealing their new bond, their new love, with a passionate, furious kiss.