“Hey, little sis,” I cried as I charged back up the beach, picked her up in my arms and spun her around.

Sammy’s red hair flung out around her as she gripped hold of my shoulders, dropping her phone into the sand in an instant.

“Marcus!” she yelped before slapping me on the head, causing me to wince and laugh at the same time. “My bloody phone.”

Dropping her to her feet, I watched her as she scrambled around in the sand before she picked up her precious phone and dusted it off in a panic.

“Woah, Sam. What’s with the stress? Who could you possibly be texting while on holiday with everyone you already know?”

“None of your business,” she huffed out, tucking one side of her hair behind her ear.

I could have taunted her some more, but I didn’t want her to confirm that she was, in fact, texting my butch Viking mate. I had no place to tell her who she could and couldn’t date after spending five years chasing her best friend, but still… I’d been the guy who’d had to listen to Cam’s tales and conquests since he first stuck his wick in the heat. I didn’t want to imagine them doing the shit that guy did. Instead, I turned to look around the group and found the only other person I could rely on to bring me back to life.

Danni.

She was standing in the middle of two local, much older men, throwing her charm out at them as they fell completely under her spell like the two hypnotised puppets they were. Her hands were everywhere as she told them a tale with her usual enthusiasm for life.

“Mind if I cut in?” I asked no one in particular as I slid in front of her and held my hand up in the air while the other went behind my back.

She glanced at the one I was holding up before she looked back at me and frowned. “Are you being some kind of butler, standing like that?”

“A butler?”

“You look like you’re about to serve tea.”

“I’m asking you to dance.”

“You? Dance?”

“Have you seen my moonwalk? I got skills, baby.”

Her grin grew bigger and brighter before me. She was officially comfortable to be around, and the more I saw her face light up that way, the more I realised she was becoming one of the few people I actually enjoyed spending time with.

“Okay,” she said softly, looking unsure as she took a step forward and placed her hand in mine.

I pulled her to me instantly, wrapping my other arm around her waist and snapping her hips to mine before I called out over my shoulder. “Someone turn that music up.”

It didn’t take long for it to happen. Maybe a minute of staring down into the eyes of an almost vulnerable-looking Daniella before I heard the volume rise through the speakers and everyone begin to laugh. It was a fast-paced song—much faster than the others—and I bounced in time to the beat.

“Ready?”

“I was born ready.”

She was right. She was born ready. Moving quickly to the right, I led us around in a manic circle, pushing my feet off the sand as I spun her around, guiding her into a happy dance, feeling the weight of her loose limbs falling securely into my tensed muscles as she let me take charge completely. The girly giggle that fell free from her every time I changed direction had my heart beating faster and faster, and when the rest of the crowd started to clap in time to the music, it dawned on me that we had an audience watching our every move.

I focused on Danni, curling my fingers into both her hand and the small of her back, holding her close as I let myself get lost in the moment, the music, and the friend.

“You’re crazy!” she shouted.

“I used to be.”

“What happened?”

“I forgot how much fun it was.” I winked, quickly changed direction and whisked her off to the other side before I let her go and spun her out under my arm, watching as her hair fanned out around her like a damn blonde tutu.

When she came to a stop, still holding onto my outstretched hand, she paused and stared at me with a twinkle in her eye.

My lips parted as I sucked in a breath, waiting for her to say or do something in true Danni fashion, but it was one of the local men who eventually broke the stare-off when he clapped his hands in the air and shouted “Opa!”

Before I knew it, cries of Opa filled the air, and everyone else in the crowd had grabbed a partner and started to dance.

My grin grew as I tried to steady my breathing. “I think they’re trying to outdance us, D.”

Her chest bounced as she, too, tried to control her breaths. “I’ve got the stars, I’ve got the moon, I’ve got the music, and we’ve got the groove. Let’s kill ‘em,” she said, her eyes turning dark and her smile turned seductive.

“Bring it on, baby.”

It took her a split second to roll back into my arms, and when her chest hit mine, I didn’t waste a moment. It was time to have some fun and just be. There wasn’t anyone else who could keep up with me but her.

The night ended far too soon.

When we arrived back in our temporary home, Paul and Suzie retreated to bed with parting words of “we’ll try to keep it down” floating through the air. Sammy went to her room, claiming to be tired and faking a yawn. One look from Danni told me enough. She was going to text, or sext, or whatever the hell kid sisters did these days.

I shuddered just thinking about it.

Alex and Natalie decided to turn on the lights to the pool area and carry on the party with Danni and me for a while. The four of us sat around in our hoodies and blankets, fighting off the slightly cooler chill of the late night breeze while drinking wine like real grown ups do.

“Is that pool heated?” Alex asked Danni at some early hour of the morning. “There’s steam coming off it.”

“How drunk are you, baby?” Natalie laughed. She turned in her chair to look back over her shoulder before she deadpanned. “Oh, shit, no, you’re right. There is steam. Wow.”

Danni lifted her glass to her lips and took a small sip of her drink before she unleashed her grin. “It’s totally heated. Late night swims are a go. I repeat: late night swims are a go.”

“I’m going in,” Alex snapped without any reservations whatsoever.

Within a few minutes, he’d stripped out of his clothes, thankfully leaving his boxer shorts on, and dived in head first before coming up to the surface and gasping for air.

“Is it nice and warm?” Natalie asked him, releasing a little tipsy hiccup from her throat.

“Come in and find out for yourself.” He grinned at her, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I can’t…”

“Why not?”

Natalie glanced back at me, biting down on her lip before she eventually made a decision for herself and jumped up from her chair. “Okay, wait.”

She stripped down to her underwear, and even though I’d seen her naked a thousand times before, eaten fruit from her stomach, shaved her in places, bathed with her, kissed every inch of her skin, I forced myself to look away. She wasn’t mine to see that way anymore.

I heard the splash of the water as she dove in, followed by the squeal of delight she released when she broke the surface and swam into Alex’s arms.

“I’ve got you,” he told her.

“Forever,” she answered in a girly, dreamy voice.

“All the damn way.”

“You okay?” Danni asked me quietly, her foot rising to rest on the edge of my chair and push into my thigh.

I gave her a small nod and smiled weakly. “Peachy.”

“Weird, sometimes, huh?”

“Little bit.”

“Do you still—?”

“No,” I answered quickly, shaking my head to back up my response. “No, I don’t see her that way anymore.”

“Just old habits dying hard, hey?”

“Something like that.” I reached over for my wine glass. “A lot has changed in such a short space of time.” I inhaled a deep breath before taking a big drink and closing my eyes.

“Easy, tiger."

I took a peek at her before I let out a small laugh and placed my drink back down on the table. Danni was cold, that much was obvious. Her hands constantly tugged the blanket around her shoulders in an attempt to make herself warmer.

“Here, take mine,” I offered, unwrapping myself from the loose blanket on my back before draping it over her knees. She grabbed hold of it without much thought and curled into her self-made blanket fort.

“Thank you.”

“What about you, anyway?” I asked as I shuffled down in my seat and allowed her feet some more space to get comfy next to my legs. Our chairs were facing each other, and now that Alex and Natalie were occupied, it felt as good a time as any to try to get to know this girl even more.

“What about me?”

“Well, it appears you know everything about me, Miss Pretty. You know about my turbulent love life. You seem to finish my sentences for me a lot. You’re weirdly in tune with my reactions to, well, almost everything, in a really freaky way, actually… And yet here I am, facing you, cosying up to you, and I don’t really know you that well at all.”

She smiled, and I felt her toes curl into me as her smile shone brightly. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“There has to be a starting point.”

“Okay.” I nodded, pretending to need time to think about it. “Let’s talk about your love life. Any exes you thought you’d spend your life with, only to realise they, too, were in love with either themselves or some other handsome wanker?” I grinned.

Danni laughed. “No.”

“None? Oh, wait. I bet you’re the one who always breaks their hearts, right? Of course you are. No one messes with a future supermodel.”

“Wrong again.” Her brows rose high.

“No exes?”

“I’m not really the girl people look to spend the rest of their lives with, Marcus.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true.” She glanced at me from above her blankets, mischief shining brightly from her eyes as she reached out to grab her glass and take a sip of her drink.

“That must be your decision.”

“You think I decide to be alone?” she challenged with amusement.

“Danni, there’re a million guys out there that would kill to have you on their arm.”

“Oh,” she gasped, swallowing her wine and smacking her lips together as she placed her glass back on the table. When she leaned back, she slid down in her chair, pushing her feet under my thigh and wrapping her arms around her chest. “I know that. I’m not one of those girls that is fishing for attention over here. I know that I’ve been blessed with a certain… look. I’m a model, for Christ’s sake. You don’t get into this business unless you think you can compete.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why assume men wouldn’t want you?”

“First of all,” she began, pausing to blow a stray strand of hair out of her way. “Dating, or at least anything other than a regular booty call, is hard in my line of work. I’m lucky that my agent got me out here for a few months. It gave me a base, a place to grow, to learn some new things and just be… But I know more than anyone that my gig here is an anomaly.”

“Big word,” I interjected with a grin.

“Thank you.” She beamed back, her smile bright and dazzling as the lights from the pool twinkled against every feature on her face. “But here isn’t my future. If I continue to grow, get some decent contracts, let my name become something more than just a few letters put together on application forms, I could become something. I could be travelling the world in four days. I could be in Australia when my boyfriend turns thirty, and I’ll be the shitty girlfriend Skyping him because I can’t be there to help him celebrate in person. He won’t have seen me for three months, and there’s a chance it could be another four months after that before he gets to kiss a girl or have sex again…”

“The right man would know you were worth the wait.”

“Maybe,” she mused. “But it would wear thin for him eventually.”

I thought on what she said for a moment, unable to find a solid argument that I could win, which meant she was right. That was a lot to ask from anyone. Let alone the kind of men that Danni no doubt found attractive.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Fair point. What’re your other excuses?”

“Well, secondly, no one wants to take a model home to their mother.”

“Why not?”

“Because… no mother in their right mind wants their son married to a girl who is constantly flashing half of her body to the world in magazines and on television screens. And no mother, whether they admit it or not, wants their son to be with someone who is too pretty.”

“They don’t?” I frowned, completely and utterly confused.

“No.” She laughed. “Mothers want their sons to have the girl-next-door, not the girl who is only going to remind said mother that she’s not twenty-two, wrinkle free and on the face of an international magazine, cosying up to Leonardo DiCaprio like she once dreamed she’d be.”

“That’s bullshit,” I scoffed, imaging my own mother’s ambitions to be the exact opposite of that.

“It really isn’t,” Danni replied calmly. It was like she knew a million facts and secrets about life that still remained a complete mystery to me.

“I can’t imagine any parent being unhappy if their son was on cloud nine—no matter who they brought home.”

“That’s because you’ve had a good upbringing. You still feel confident that the world is good because that’s all your parents have ever shown you—love. Pure love.”

“Yours didn’t?”

Danni shrugged a shoulder, her face indifferent as the silence fell like a wall between us.

I opened my mouth to argue but quickly closed it again. Next to us, Alex and Natalie splashed around in the late night waters, not caring that their love was on display for all us alone people to see. I couldn’t look away from them as I tried to think of something to say to Danni. It seemed neither could she. Alex was right for Natalie. They were a fit. Too right to be seen as wrong.

Maybe that’s why Tom had always been on edge with me. Maybe he’d seen what I was now seeing with Nat and Alex, and he couldn’t ever really allow himself to be happy that I was in her life because I hadn’t been what he saw in her future.

“I’m lucky to everyone else, you see, Marcus,” Danni finally whispered, bringing my attention back to her. “But to me, I’m just Danni. I’m just the girl I’ve always been. I have my own issues, my own thoughts about myself, much the same way every human being does. People just don’t realise it.”

“Danni,” I said quietly.

“Yeah?” She turned her head against the cushion of her chair, and when I saw her sadness staring back at me, I felt a stab in my chest that I hadn’t been expecting.

“Are you happy?”

“I’m very happy.”

“When was the last time someone asked you that?”

She paused again, her eyes closing and her smile growing, causing her cheekbones to rise high. “You know… I don’t think anyone ever has.”

“Wow,” I whispered, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “So, you get attention for how you look on the outside, but no one ever sees how fucking beautiful you are on the inside? No one thinks to ask what’s going on with you?”

“I guess not.” Her eyes fluttered open, her smile remaining in place despite the way the conversation had gone.

Danni turned to face the pool again, watching Alex and Nat as she spoke. But I couldn’t take my eyes away from her even if I’d wanted to. She held my attention.

“Natalie is the kind of girl a mother wants her son to come home with. Natalie is that girl who bloomed right in front of everyone’s eyes. She’s the girl who started off shy, and nobody ever really saw her for so long. She was like a prop in this world. There, but never really serving much of a purpose because she didn’t know who she was or what she wanted from life. She didn’t understand how much good she had to offer the world. Then Alex came along and suddenly there she was. She’d found her glow. Now, every time anyone sees her, including me, we’re in complete awe at how much she’s grown… how much she has changed.” Danni sighed softly. “But you see, with me, I’m the girl that’s been there from the start. I was the blonde haired cutie in nursery. I was the pigtail queen in junior school. I won smile of the year in the little darlings’ competition every year for five years running. I’ve been a face from the start. There’s been no development, no shock or surprise. I’ve always been this way—confident—so people just…” She shrugged and her eyes creased in the corners as though she was about to laugh, but somehow managed to hold it back. “... they just don’t acknowledge it anymore. I’m expected to do good. To be the best. To stay on top. And if I so much as hint or ask for any more attention, it’s kinda frowned upon because they think I already have too much.”

“Frowned upon by who?”

“Everyone. I’m not sure, but I think people assume I’m greedy if I ask for anything outside of the modelling world.”

“And that upsets you?”

“Upsets me?” She frowned, pulling her chin back before she eventually shook her head.

A shriek of happiness from Natalie pulled our attention back to the pool just in time for us to see Alex curling her in his arms before he sank them both beneath the water again.

“I’m not upset by anything,” Danni said. I turned to look at her again, resting my head back on my chair as I chose to give her my undivided attention. “I know I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“Then what is it?”

Her eyes found mine again as she tilted her head to one side and smiled. “It would just be nice to meet someone who would make me glow. Someone who would… change me.”

“You’re one of the most incredible women I know. Why would you possibly want to change a single thing about yourself?”

She smirked, and when she answered, her voice was so soft and innocent, so genuine and true, I felt like my whole world stopped the moment it floated through the air towards me. “Marcus, why on Earth would anyone want to stay the exact same way forever?”

I stared at her openly then. I couldn’t help it. In just a few minutes, everything I thought I knew about Daniella Marston had changed. She was different now. She was deeper. Insightful. Intelligent. Vulnerable yet so damn strong. She was…

She was fucking beautiful.

“Uh-oh.” She chuckled.

It was embarrassing how long it took me to blink back into consciousness. “What?”

“You’ve got that look on your face.”

“Look?” I croaked. Inside a full circus ran loose, while on the outside I fought to stay in control. “What look?”

Reaching over, Danni slid her cool palm over my forearm. “The look of a boy who wants to try to save me.”

“Save you?” I whispered.

“Mmhmm. But there’s one thing you need to know about me, Marcus. I’m just not the kind of girl who needs to be saved.”

With a slightly drunken giggle, she closed the distance between us and dropped a kiss to my cheek. I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to see her climb from her chair in a flourish, down her drink, and gasp before she flashed me a genuine smile and went back inside.

But the second she was out of sight, I closed my eyes and let out a low throaty groan of frustration.

I had a thousand things I wanted to ask her.

My feet had the urge to follow her.

My hands itched to embrace her.

Her kiss on my cheek throbbed as the wind brushed the moisture her wine soaked lips had left behind.

And my mind took me back to a place where my friend sat in front of me on a cool summer’s eve and said…

You need to go for the one chick who doesn’t need saving.