Chapter Nineteen
Alisha’s enthusiasm grew as she and Brett entered the ship’s jewelry store a few moments later. The woman who had shown her the bracelet earlier smiled and waved them over when she saw them.
“Miss Coventry. How exciting. We don’t have too many raffles this big, but when we do, it’s a reason to celebrate, yes?”
“I guess so,” Alisha said with caution. She glanced at Brett, but his expression remained neutral. She turned back to the salesperson and tried to silence the pessimistic thoughts in her head. Was the celebration the catch to winning the prize? She’d get something, then have to star in a cruise commercial or promotional equivalent? She might normally have thought that was a fun possibility, but all she really wanted to do was enjoy her time with Brett.
“Would you like a glass of champagne?”
Before Alisha had a chance to accept or decline it, the glass was handed to her. Some of the other customers in the store stared. “Thank you,” she said politely and took a nervous gulp. “I can’t believe I won. I didn’t even enter a raffle.”
Without missing a beat, the salesperson answered, “Then you truly are lucky.”
Alisha was about to ask if her name had been drawn from a list of all the ship’s passengers when the woman took out a piece of paper and waved for them to follow her to one of the display cases.
The same display case that held the bracelet Brett had wanted to buy for her.
He wouldn’t have . . .
He couldn’t have . . .
No.
He was a man who played by his own rules, but arranging for her to win something she wouldn’t let him buy her? Just how much do I think this man actually likes me? Enough to spend the day with me? Yes. Enough to want to cheer me up with gifts when he knows I’m sad? Okay. Yes. But to arrange a whole raffle? Just for me? Now who has the bloated ego?
The salesperson opened the back of the display and said, “You won a five-thousand-dollar voucher that is redeemable only in this store. Of course, you can have your pick of whatever you would like, but if I remember correctly, there is something here that you liked.”
“Five thousand dollars?” Alisha’s mouth dropped open. “What do I have to do to get it?”
“Nothing besides claiming it when you return to the United States.”
“Just like that? I seriously won?”
“Yes,” the woman said with a smile.
Alisha hopped up and down as the enormity of her prize sunk in. She turned and hugged Brett spontaneously. “I won five thousand dollars. Thousand.”
He returned the hug and her smile. “Now you can have the bracelet. That’s fantastic.”
Alisha tensed. I can. I won enough to get exactly what I wanted. Coincidences like that didn’t happen. Did they? But what was the alternative? To believe that Brett had somehow arranged for her to win?
When the salesperson clasped the blue diamond bracelet on her wrist, Alisha wanted to believe good things could simply happen. They didn’t have to be part of a master plan. Brett wasn’t trying to manipulate her.
He won money. I won jewelry. Why couldn’t that happen? It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry she’d ever owned, and it would always remind her of this time with Brett. It would be like having a little piece of him with her always.
And the universe wanted her to have it. Why else would she win the amount needed to get it?
Is this my consolation for holding on to my principles? I didn’t take the easy way—this is a sign that I made the right choice.
“I can’t believe I won it. Everything about this cruise has been amazing so far. I don’t wear much jewelry, but you were right, Brett, I’ll wear it every day. It’s perfect.”
He kissed her forehead and hugged her closer. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
There was a part of her that wanted to ask him if he was in any way responsible for her winning it, but she didn’t want to discover he was. Don’t overthink this. He had nothing to do with it. And I don’t have anything to regret. I can wear it and still look Rachelle in the eye. “Me, too.” She rocked her wrist back and forth, admiring the sparkle of the deep-blue stones. “I don’t know how the rest of the cruise will go, but it will be hard to top today.”
The salesperson interrupted just long enough to say that the paperwork for the bracelet would be available on the last night of the cruise and that it would be brought to Mr. Westerly’s suite.
“You mean, Miss Coventry’s,” Brett corrected firmly.
“Oh yes. Of course. All of the paperwork will be in her name.” The woman looked momentarily flustered, then congratulated Alisha again. She rushed off and returned with a box and bag for the bracelet.
Alisha took it and met Brett’s eye, noting the lack of guilt. The staff on board tended to go out of their way to please him as if they’d been given specific instructions to do so. “Do you know the owner of the ship?”
He smiled. “The CEO of the ship line.”
Am I wrong?
Stop. The best way to ruin anything is to dissect it.
Mom always said, “If you dig long enough, you’ll always hit dirt.”
Oh God, now I’m using her advice to justify my actions? I really am in trouble.
Brett neither confirmed nor denied that his association with the cruise line had been the reason for her winning. “I hear they’re showing a movie at the pool tonight. If we hurry, we can catch the start of it.”
“I’d love that. Let’s do it.”
When they arrived on the deck just above the pool area, they were met by a man with a blanket. The usual reclining chairs had been replaced by round canopy daybeds. One of them had been reserved for them. None of the blogs about cruises that Alisha had read ever mentioned anything like this. “Did you arrange for them to change out the seating?” she asked.
His blue eyes held hers, but he didn’t answer her question.
She watched the opening credits begin to roll on the screen below. “You knew this was my favorite movie. I remember telling you it was.”
His expression remained carefully impossible to read. “You may have mentioned it.”
“And I told you I’d always wanted to go to a drive-in.”
A corner of his mouth curled in a sexy hint of a smile. “If you hate the idea of lying in my arms under the stars, we could go watch it below with that herd of children.”
“Oh, you’re good.”
His smile widened. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Are you sure there is enough room for me, you, and your ego on that daybed?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Only one way to find out.”
Brett hoped Alisha wasn’t going to quiz him on the plot points of the movie, because with her curled up to his side, he sure as hell wasn’t able to concentrate on anything. His senses were in lustful overdrive. He remembered once reading an article online about how postponing one’s pleasure intensified it. He’d dismissed the article as a load of New Age crap, but he had to admit he was physically attuned to Alisha in a way he’d never experienced before. It wasn’t just about wanting to have her calling out his name while he thrust his cock deeper and deeper into her. It had become about the pleasure of her breath caressing his neck when she turned to speak to him. He was aware of every place their bodies made contact, every beat of her heart against his chest, every time she adjusted and her hardened nipples brushed against his arm.
His body begged to roll over and take what it was painfully craving to plunder. Her mouth. Those amazing breasts of hers. It would take only a shift of his weight for him to be able to slide a hand under her skirt and sink a finger into her pussy. He didn’t, though. When they came together, and there was no doubt in his mind that they would, there would be no reason for either of them to regret it. He’d make sure of that.
Alisha’s hand was absently caressing his chest as she watched the movie. She turned her head so she could see his face. “Thank you for tonight. No one has ever gone out of their way to make me feel special the way you do.”
He couldn’t stop himself; he leaned in and kissed her lips gently, but forced himself to pull back before he lost control. If she knew the real him, not the vacation him, she wouldn’t look at him with so much trust in her eyes. “I’m not a nice man.”
Her hand stopped and splayed across his chest. “Really?” There was a beauty to her that affected him on so many levels. He wanted to have her, but he also wanted to protect her from any hurt that might come from being with someone like him. She deserved a man who believed in forever.
“I have impossibly high standards for everyone around me, as well as for myself.”
“Okay.”
“People fear me in the business world, and I’ve given them reason to. I’ve always won, no matter the collateral damage.”
“And?”
“And I’m a fucking miserable bastard. Just like my father. Just like his father before him. I like you, but I wonder if I’m not a bull trying to carry a crystal vase. Is there any version of us where you don’t end up hating me when it ends?”
She laid her head back on his shoulder without answering and hugged him. He blinked back an emotional response to the simplicity of her support.
When she spoke, her tone nearly broke his heart. “I have spent half of my life worrying that I’d become my mother and the other half hating that I didn’t save her from my father. I know a bastard when I see one, and I don’t see one in you.”
His kissed the top of her head. “My family would debate that point.”
She hugged him again. “Not if you showed them the side you’ve shown me. I’ve never met a more caring man. Since the first time I met you, even when your words were cutting to Spencer, I knew you wanted the best for him. You’ve stepped forward time and time again to take care of me, to keep me safe. Bring that approach to your brothers and sisters, and they’ll adore you.” She raised her head and met his eyes. “Unless you already have and they don’t know it.”
He tensed.
She continued, “Just before college I qualified for financial aid, but Rachelle was denied. We wanted to go to the same school, so we scrambled to find a place we could both afford. At the last minute a scholarship came through that made it possible for her to go to Boston College with me. I remember thinking that when she or her family needed something, miracles abounded. Doors slammed shut for them just like the rest of us, but then they would open and everything would work out. I used to joke that their guardian angels worked overtime. Was that you? Did you watch out for them? Pay for their schooling?”
Brett didn’t answer. He didn’t want to lie, but he had never wanted to be applauded for taking care of his family. He remembered finding paperwork proving that his father had paid for the nurses who’d cared for Mark during the last months of his life. His father had never told a soul, nor had he. He cleared his throat. “My father was wrong about many things, but he got a few right. He always said that the best good deed is one that no one knows about.”
“That’s beautiful.” She chewed her bottom lip. “It also explains why he let everyone think it was him and not your mother who cheated. So, he funded Rachelle’s education?”
Brett met her gaze, but held his silence. It was probably better if she believed Dereck had been the guardian of the next generation of the family. He wasn’t used to anyone considering him anything but a cold-blooded shark.
She shook her head. “No. It was you. But how much of it? Did you help Nicolette along the way? Tell me you didn’t rig the contest she won. She’s so proud of that.”
“No, I didn’t rig it. I don’t believe in handing success to anyone. All I’ve ever done was make sure they had what they needed. They brought the talent. I merely removed obstacles.”
“With Spencer, too?”
Brett didn’t admit to it. He didn’t need to. She knew.
She said, “He has no idea.”
“Exactly.”
“You need to tell him. All of them. They grew up thinking you didn’t care about them. Imagine if this brought you all closer.”
He loved that she believed the world worked that way, but he didn’t want her to discover herself in hotter water with his family. “How would Spencer handle discovering I had anything to do with his success?”
She whistled. “He’d hate it.” She sat straight up and turned to look down at him. “But they deserve to know. It might change everything.”
He sat up as well and took her hand in his. “Things are already changing, but the last thing Spencer needs right now is another reason to doubt himself.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Because of me. You’re right, your family is still reeling from the last time I tried to help them. I need to learn to mind my own business.”
He hated the sadness that had entered an evening he’d planned to make her happy. “You didn’t make the mess my family is in.”
She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “You didn’t, either.” After a quiet moment, she said, “Your family deserves to know how much you love them.”
He held her eyes. “They will. Someone came into my office and made me see that they need more from me. I intend to be more visible in their lives now.”
“Yeah, you’re a real bastard,” she said with a chuckle as she wiped another tear away.
“A miserable one,” he added. At least, I was before I met you. He kept that last part to himself. He wasn’t ready to verbalize how she made him feel.
The expression in her eyes changed. Desire replaced sadness, and he felt the power of it like a punch in the gut. One kiss was all it would take for him to put aside the reasons he was holding back. One kiss would likely be enough to topple her resolve.
And it would be so fucking good.
But then what?
She loves my family. Genuinely, wholeheartedly loves them. And they love her.
Being with me could destroy that.
“I’m ready to call it a night. Ready?” He edged off the daybed and held out a hand to her.
She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet. She searched his face, then nodded. “I’ve seen this movie a hundred times, anyway.”
They stood there simply staring into each other’s eyes. Her breathing was as shallow as his, and he could almost hear her questions. She’s wondering if I’ll leave her at her door without a kiss or carry her to my bed.
He turned and started walking. She fell into step beside him.
He let out a harsh breath.
I’m asking myself the same damn thing.