Chapter Three
Half an hour later, Olivia felt a good deal more human. She'd showered and washed her hair, put on the fluffy bathrobe she'd found hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and was now sorting through her suitcase rather despairingly, wondering what on earth she could wear. Everything she'd brought now looked far too formal, even though she'd selected the most "casual" items from her wardrobe before putting everything into storage back in New York.
A light tap on the door leading out to the veranda made her look up. She could only make out a vague shape through the sheer curtain. "Who is it?" she called.
"Rosie!"
Smiling, Olivia went to let her new friend in, her smile widening even further as she saw the armload of clothes Rosie was carrying. "Oh, you star. I was just wondering what to wear in order not to look completely overdressed."
Rosie smiled shyly back at her, piling the clothes on the bed. "I think you look great. Your clothes are just gorgeous."
"They are," Olivia agreed, "and they're perfect for New York City life, or even Sydney, but here on Sunfish I'll just look... I don't know. Like I think I'm better than everyone else. I want to fit in here, be part of this lovely staff-family vibe you all seem to have going on."
"You will! Everyone's really nice and welcoming. And... well, to be honest, probably falling in the harbor really helped, because now they all know a funny story about you and it'll be a good icebreaker for you to get to know everyone."
Olivia smiled wryly, choosing a pair of shorts and a flowered blouse from the pile Rosie had put down and taking them to the bathroom to dress. "And here I was thinking I'd made a disastrous first impression," she called back.
"Well"—Rosie looked at the laptop and tablet lying on a soggy towel on the desk—"I mean, it was a disaster in some ways, but in others it could be a blessing in disguise?" She looked up at Olivia as she returned from the bathroom.
"I've seen the funny side now, anyway." Olivia grinned back at her. "When Luke said he wished he'd seen it, I got a mind's-eye picture of how I must have looked and almost cracked up laughing on the spot."
"That's the spirit," Rosie said warmly. She took a pair of pink rubber flip-flops—thongs, Olivia remembered, sternly telling herself not to snicker—from the pile of clothes and held them out. "These ones are fairly new. Should last you awhile."
"I'm only borrowing these until I have a chance to go back over to Hamilton Island and go shopping," Olivia told her, accepting the shoes.
"Oh, don't. Everything there is really expensive because it's all brought in for tourists. Take the other boat over to Airlie Beach on the mainland—that one goes every day too. The supermarket is only a five-minute walk from the marina, and there are plenty of other shops too."
"That's good to know, thanks!" Olivia made a mental note to ask Luke which day she could do that. "And how about doing laundry?"
"I'll show you where the staff laundry is on the way to lunch. You ready?"
Olivia scooped her keys and access card off the desk. "I am now."
As they left the cabin, Rosie pointed to their right, away from the main resort building. "I'm in the next cabin, by the way, number 7. Jill and I share it. Suze, your roomie, is a close friend; she often comes over and hangs out with us. You're welcome too, anytime."
Olivia nodded. "Thank you," she said genuinely.
They girls turned to walk back toward the main resort, and a deep voice stopped them in their tracks.
"Well, well, it's the Little Mermaid! How's tricks, Ariel?"
Cory leaned on the veranda rail of the cabin next to her own, a broad grin on his face. Remembering the way he'd apologized to her as she left the boat, and thinking of Rosie's advice to look at the whole incident as a blessing in disguise, Olivia flipped him the bird with an answering grin. Cory laughed, vaulted easily over the rail, and fell into step beside them.
"Good to see you can laugh about it." He smiled down at Olivia. She had to fight not to be knocked sideways from the impact of his good looks again; that combined with an intoxicating, spicily masculine scent as he stood close to her made her head reel.
"I can laugh about it, but call me Ariel again and you won't be laughing," she said in a mock-menacing tone, narrowing her eyes at him.
Cory laughed again and nodded amiably.
Stop being nice, you're making it very hard for me to keep my mind out of your pants, Olivia thought with an internal sigh, and resolutely turned her eyes away from his chiseled, handsome features. She caught Rosie giving her a speculative look and did her best to smooth her face to neutrality.
"Cory's single, y'know," Rosie murmured as they stood in line for the lunch buffet in the staff dining room. Cory had peeled off to go speak to someone else and was thankfully out of earshot.
"Oh?" Olivia tried to keep her tone light and disinterested. "Why?" she had to ask. "I mean..."
"I know, and trust me, it's not like he doesn't get offers." Rosie gave her a conspiratorial grin. "Every week there's a few tourists trying to throw themselves at him, but Cory's not the sort to have flings." She handed Olivia a plate. "I've known him forever. We were in school together in Cairns as kids."
That explained how comfortable the pair of them seemed; they really were childhood friends. Olivia did her best to divert the subject, though. "You grew up in Cairns, so you're a North Queenslander?"
"Spent my whole life on or near the Reef," Rosie confirmed. "I'd never want to be anywhere else."
"Hear, hear," Cory affirmed, rejoining them and collecting his own plate. "It's 'beautiful one day, perfect the next,' don't y'know." He quoted the Queensland advertising slogan at Olivia.
"I haven't been here long enough to confirm the truth of that," she pointed out, "but I'm looking forward to finding out."
"You'll see." Cory sounded utterly confident. Looking at both him and Rosie, incredibly healthy-looking, tanned, and practically glowing compared to her pasty-pale self, Olivia could quite believe it. "Although you'll need to use some pretty heavy-duty sunblock," Cory continued, "or that lovely creamy skin will be lobster-red."
"I bought a bottle in Sydney," Olivia agreed, "and I'll get more when I go into Airlie Beach to shop Rosie's been kind enough to lend me a few things, but I'll need to make a trip."
"Thought I recognized that blouse." Cory grinned at Rosie as the three of them left the buffet and headed over to a table. "Looks better on Olivia, I'm afraid."
Rosie made a face at him, but she also gave Olivia a sideways glance and a surreptitious nudge in the ribs. Olivia rolled her eyes in return.
"We are not thirteen," she hissed in Rosie's ear as another man paused by their table, distracting Cory briefly. "Stop trying to matchmake!"
Rosie laughed but turned her attention to her food, which was well worth paying attention to, Olivia conceded. The buffet had a huge variety, everything beautifully presented and perfectly fresh. She scooped up a forkful of pasta salad and hummed with pleasure at the taste.
The other man who'd stopped to speak to Cory took the fourth seat at their table then, and Olivia swallowed hastily as Cory introduced him.
"Olivia, this is Bryce, the resort's dive master. Bryce, meet Olivia."
Bryce was younger than the other two; Olivia estimated him to be about twenty-three or twenty-four. His dark hair was buzzed close to his scalp, and his deep bronze tan set off grass-green eyes.
Involuntarily, Olivia wondered whether all Australian men were this attractive. Cory, Luke, and Bryce, the three she'd met on Sunfish Island so far, were all good-looking enough to be models... though if she were completely honest, Cory was the only one who'd sparked more in her than a mere aesthetic appreciation. She smiled at Bryce's cheerful greeting.
"Nice to meet you too."
"So when are you coming out for your first dive with me?" Bryce asked. Olivia blinked, another forkful of food on her way to her mouth.
"Uh, what?"
"No way can you effectively market this place without seeing its primary attraction. The Reef. And you can't really see the Reef without diving on it."
"Technically she already made her first dive," Cory said, grinning, and Olivia had absolutely no compunctions about kicking him in the shin under the table.
Bryce frowned with confusion, and Olivia realized that news of her plunge hadn't reached him yet. Prudently moving his shins out of her reach, Cory promptly filled Bryce in. Olivia settled for glaring at him, though the way Cory described her had her inwardly glowing. Or maybe not so inwardly, considering the way Rosie was smirking at her.
"You should have seen her. She dived off the boat like an Olympic champion," Cory concluded. "I half expected her to turn a double somersault on the way in. I'd give her a 9.9 for execution. She sure was a sight for sore eyes coming out too."
A little puzzled at that remark, Olivia frowned at him; at least until Rosie murmured in her ear, "Your blouse went transparent. Cory got quite the eyeful."
Olivia hoped the two men interpreted her flaming cheeks as being caused by Bryce's laughter. Picking up her water glass, she took a deep gulp. "I daresay people will be telling stories of my arrival for years," she said, "getting more exaggerated with each telling."
"It's a good enough story that we don't need to exaggerate." Cory grinned at her. She considered the position of his shins with a tilt of her head, making him chuckle. She picked a cherry tomato off her plate and flung it with deadly accuracy at his forehead instead.
"Now, now, children." Bryce caught the tomato as it bounced off Cory's skull, "settle down. You've got to work together."
"Quite," Olivia said. "You've had your fun at my expense," she told Cory directly. "Now can you just let it go—at least when I'm in earshot?"
"Fair enough." He shrugged amiably. "God knows I make an idiot of myself regularly enough that you'll soon have plenty of ammunition for return fire, anyway."
"I can certainly attest to that," Rosie agreed. "I have a million embarrassing stories about him from our schooldays I can share if he keeps being obnoxious, anyway."
Cory's blue eyes widened comically. "I'll behave," he said hurriedly.
Olivia had to laugh at his schoolboyish dismay. "You better." She pointed her fork at him.
"Yes, ma'am." He saluted her smartly. She didn’t miss the warmth in his eyes as he looked back at her; a matching heat bloomed low in her belly. Pressing her knees together, Olivia looked away from those mesmerizing blue eyes and prodded at her lunch with her fork. Strangely enough, she no longer felt hungry.
Bryce and Rosie mercifully started talking, filling in the silence, and Olivia was content to just listen to their chatter. She glanced up at Cory through her lashes and found him pushing his food around his plate as well. He seemed to sense her eyes on him and looked up at her.
Their gazes caught and held.
She half expected him to make a quip or some sarcastic remark, but he just stared back at her, holding the fork still in his hand. For an endless moment they stared at each other, oblivious to the chatter and noise around them.
This is a terrible idea, Olivia thought. I have to work with him.
Cory smiled, the expression almost shy.
Oh, fuck it. Terrible idea or not, I'm not going to live like a nun for the next twelve months.
She smiled back.
Shortly afterwards, Rosie said apologetically that she had work to do, and Bryce left to take a new-divers class in one of the resort pools. They headed off leaving Olivia and Cory still staring at each other over the remains of their lunch.
"Do you have somewhere you need to be?" Olivia asked finally.
"Not until four thirty. Um. Luke actually asked me if I'd show you around a bit, but... if you'd rather someone else, I'm sure I can rustle someone up."
Time to make the call, Olivia.
"I wouldn't rather anyone else."
Cory's smile was slow and sure, warming through her. "Good," he said softly. "That's good. C'mon, then."
He offered a hand as she stood. Olivia debated taking it and decided she'd given the resort staff enough gossip for her first day. Besides, if she stepped a little closer, she could thread her hand through his arm instead and rest it on the pleasing bulge of his biceps. She got a few interested looks as she made her way out of the dining room on Cory's arm.
A row of golf buggies was parked behind the resort. Cory handed her into the passenger seat of one before going around to the driver's side.
"Please tell me that you don't drive like Rosie," Olivia thought to say suddenly, grabbing the dash as Cory started the engine.
He burst out laughing. "I promise I don't drive like Rosie. She's a maniac. Never has passed her driver's test; she can't drive anywhere except here or on Hamilton, with the golf buggies... and she's banned from driving one here too."
"That's a relief." Olivia took her hands off the dash before saying tentatively, "I've never learned to drive. It wasn't really necessary living in New York. The subway goes everywhere. Maybe you could teach me?"
"Sure," he said cheerfully, "want to start now?"
She laughed. "No, let me figure out my way around from the passenger seat first. I don't think I can concentrate on trying to drive while gaping like the tourist I am."
"Gotcha. Well, if you're the tourist, let me play tour guide." Cory slowed the golf cart as the path they were on intersected with another; he looked left and right before turning left. "First thing to note for when you do start driving: all our paths here are two-way and we drive on the left here in Oz."
"Noted," she agreed. "What's that?" She pointed off to the left at a small white building standing alone on a small rise.
"One of the wedding chapels. We have three, and an average of just under two weddings a day here. We have facilities for a lot more, and that's part of what Luke wants you to push in the marketing, I know... that this is one of the best wedding destinations in Australia."
"I can see why," Olivia agreed as Cory pulled the buggy off the path into a small parking area near the chapel. They got out and walked up to the small building. On closer inspection, she could see it was open on three sides, facing out over a small palm-fringed cove. The white sand and blue water were a stunning backdrop.
"Wow," she breathed, taking in the surroundings. "Just wow."
"Yeah." Cory placed his hands on the low railing at the side of the chapel, looking out over the water. "I see this view every day and I never get tired of it."
"I can imagine." Leaning into the railing as she stood beside him, Olivia gazed out at the ocean in wonder, taking in the colors in the water as the depth changed. "I've never seen anything like it. So many colors!"
"Beautiful," Cory agreed, but he was looking down at her now, not out at the water. Lifting one hand from the railing, he gently brushed a strand of curly, brown hair back behind her ear. "I was knocked sideways when I saw you walking down the dock today, Olivia," he said quietly, "and I feel like maybe you feel the same way, a bit."
She turned big dark brown eyes up to his but said nothing. He plowed on stubbornly. "Physical attraction is one thing, and I could put it to one side easily enough, but... everything about you has hit me for six. The way you dived back in to find your passport; the way you put me in my place for laughing at you. This might be crazy because we have to work together, but I'm seriously attracted to you. And I'd like to make that clear now, before we even get started. I don't want there to be any misunderstandings. If you're not interested, or if you want me to keep my distance because we're work colleagues, I can respect that, but I need you to set a boundary here. Because I don't want there to be any boundaries. I feel like you've been giving me some signals, but I need to make sure I'm not misinterpreting you."
He was being incredibly honest and direct, laying his soul bare to her with the heartfelt words. Olivia took a deep breath. "I think I might feel the same way. Except... what does 'hit for six' mean?"
Cory's serious expression dissolved and he let out a hearty chuckle. "It's a cricket term. Like... hitting a home run in baseball."
"You do know that hitting a home run has another meaning altogether, right?"
"I know." Slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away, he put one arm around her, settling it lightly on her waist. "We can take this as slow or as fast as you like, Olivia."
She looked up at him and smiled coquettishly, turning to face him fully and lifting her hands to set them on his shoulders. "Slow's never been my style."
"I'm really glad you said that," Cory murmured, arm tightening around her to draw her close. He sank his free hand into her curly hair to hold her head still as he bent to kiss her.
Cory's mouth was hot and sweet-tasting as it moved over hers; gentle at first, at least until Olivia nipped his bottom lip. He let out a little growl at that and deepened the kiss, tongue sliding into her mouth possessively. She slid her fingers into his blond hair and gripped, nails scraping at his scalp, going up on tiptoe to push her body firmly against his, crush her breasts against the hardness of his chest.
They were both breathing raggedly when the kiss finally ended. Cory's hand shook as he brushed his knuckles over Olivia's cheek and traced a fingertip over her kiss-swollen lips.
Neither of them spoke; words would have ruined the moment, and they knew each other too little as yet to really know what to say. Instead Cory dropped his hand from Olivia's face reluctantly as she took a step back. He smiled as she slipped her hand into his.
"Why don't you give me the rest of the tour?"