Chapter 41

Sara

I was mortified all over again and really didn’t know how I could have not expected this to happen. My face was all over social media and the gossip websites as well. Me in that extremely expensive red dress, some flattering pictures, others not so much. I was even in some of the mainstream publications, and I wondered how I got important enough to have a picture three rows down from Oprah. They were talking about one of the biggest galas of the year, which was definitely not small like Ryan had told me in the beginning. Everyone was so curious about me, some making their own assumptions of who I was, and the others leaving it a mystery. They really wanted to know more about the small-town girl who captured the bad boy billionaire’s attention. It kind of made me sound like I was a naïve little country girl, unaware of the ways of the world, and the ways of Ryan Reines before he met me. At the same time, though, I knew Ryan, and I knew he wasn’t the kind of man to boast being a bad boy.

My phone started to buzz over and over again, receiving text after text from Alison, who was sending me links to even more stories and pictures of me from the event the night before. Alison thought it was exciting, but I had other ideas. I glanced up as Ryan walked into the room, sitting down on the bed next to me and reaching out, putting his hand on my leg. I shot him a shocked glance, upset that everything seemed to be happening over and over again.

He was still looking down at the phone for a minute, grimacing. He took a deep breath and looked back up at me. I could tell he was choosing his words carefully, or he didn’t know what to say at all. He shrugged his shoulders and handed the phone back to me.

“It kind of comes with the territory,” he said. “Trust me, you’ll get used to it after a while.”

I was kind of taken back by how nonchalant he was being about the whole situation. I knew he was used to the media, but I wasn’t, and I told him I never wanted to part of the world like that. Sure, it would eventually die down, but what would happen in the meantime? My whole life would be spread out over the New York Times, and everyone would know all of my secrets.

“I don’t know if I want to get used to it,” I said.

“Put down your phone,” he said after a moment of silence. “I want you to come with me. I have somewhere I think you will really like.”

“I don’t want to go back out into public,” I said, looking up at him as he stuck out his hand for me. “When I go out in public, there’s always some kind of camera in my face, breaching my privacy, telling the world the half-truth about everything. These people who read these stories, who push the paparazzi to hunt us down are just as bad as the ones writing the stories, making up the lies and half-truths they think the people want to hear. If that means staying inside, then so be it.”

“Come on,” he said. “Trust me on this. We aren’t going out into public, well, not really at least. I promise no one will be able to follow us where we’re going. Throw on a sweatshirt with a hood, a pair of sunglasses, and let’s go.”

I looked at him for a moment before sighing and reaching up to take his hand. I grabbed a hoodie and some sunglasses and followed him down to his private garage. He grabbed a set of keys from a locker on the wall and put me into an SUV with a dark tint on the windows. We roared out of the parking garage and onto the street, no photographers in sight. At least I was shielded from the world by the dark-tinted windows, even though I felt like I was riding inside of some FBI vehicle going off to some secret location.

I watched out the window as Ryan navigated through traffic. Finally, we ended up at the marina, and he got me out of the car and walked me down the docks. He stopped in front of a boat, his boat, and helped me onto it, and then went to work casting off the ropes. I just stood there looking around, not seeing anyone else in sight. The boat was big, bigger than anything I had ever been on, but in comparison to the ones around it, it was medium on the scale of yachts. The deck was sparkling clean, and there were several fishing rods store up near the front. I held onto the side as some waves came from the open water and bounced us up and down. Ryan looked over at me and smiled, reaching his hand out.

“Come on, let me show you around really fast,” he said.

I walked through a door on the side into a hallway decorated like a house. The luxury vessel, though smaller than the others at the dock, was big enough to have a couple of very meticulously decorated cabins, a small galley which looked like a dining room in a mansion, and a relaxation space. Nothing was too huge, but the décor made it feel extremely grand. After showing me around, Ryan walked us back up top and smiled as a crew of three stepped onto the boat.

“Good evening,” a man in a captain’s hat said. “Where will we traveling today?”

I looked over at Ryan who was thinking about the question. The other two staff were standing by in white skirts and collared shirts with their hands behind their backs, smiling sweetly at me. I wondered if they had seen the papers that morning.

“I know,” Ryan said. “Why don’t you take us as close to Ellis Island as you can get? We can get an up-close-and-personal look at Lady Liberty. Would you like that, Sara?”

“That would be nice,” I said, still kind of shocked to be standing on his yacht. “I’ve only seen it from far away.”

“Perfect,” Ryan said.

“Of course,” the captain said, nodding at both of us before all the crew dispersed.

We walked up to the front of the boat and stood there looking out as the vessel began to move across the water. The wind blew through my hair, and I closed my eyes, sensing Ryan walk up behind me and wrap his arms around my waist. He hugged me tightly, keeping me firmly in place as we bounced over the water. Slowly, I started to relax my shoulders and my mind. I took in a deep breath and let it out, allowing some of the stress from earlier melt away and blow off into the wind. I loved being on the water and could remember my father taking me out when I was little, though it was on a much smaller boat and with a lot less riding on my shoulders. Either way, the trip was very much needed, and again, Ryan had saved me, only this time it was from myself.

I ran my hands over his arms as we stood there, thinking about how good it felt to have him there with me. I really liked the way it felt to have his arms wrapped around me. In fact, I was starting to think that maybe I liked it a little too much. I had let go when he took me to that gala, when he held me tightly and showed me off to the world. I had let myself slip out of the mode of short-term fling, and I could now admit to myself I was pretty sure I was starting to fall in love with him. I could feel the palpitations of my heart, the butterflies in my stomach, and that magnetic pull that made me want to be around him at all times. I had never fully been in love before, but there was no mistaking this feeling.

That thought itself, knowing I was able to admit I was falling in love with Ryan actually worried me more than anything else had between the two of us since I’d met him. It was a nervous ache in my stomach, a feeling that made me feel like crying or screaming or just running in the opposite direction. I had known since the first moment I met him that there was no future for the two of us, at least not anything long-term. Our relationship just couldn’t last. It was the cold, hard truth of the matter. We had two completely different lives. I lived in a small town, helping animals and having “galas” that included a female auction and Christmas lights. Ryan lived in a penthouse apartment, drove his luxury cars, and owned a damn yacht. We were as far away from each other as two people could get in terms of lifestyles.

I really was enjoying my time here in New York City. The lights, the people, the places, it was all so grand and beautiful. It was a taste of a life that I had never known before. It was like something out of a storybook, but it wasn’t something that could last. I couldn’t stay in New York permanently. I couldn’t even stay there long-term. My life, my real life, was back in Bonanza waiting for me. And while it was fun to play dress up, go out for expensive dinners, and be the belle of the ball, eventually, I was going to have to get back to the people and the animals who depended on me back in my hometown. My life was and always had been in Bonanza. It was where I was born and raised, and I loved it there. I built my life there fully knowing I could have gone anywhere I wanted to. I wasn’t willing to give that up, not even for a billion dollars and the boy who came with it. Money had never been important to me. I had always put the needs of others before my own, and I wasn’t ready to stop doing that just because I fell in love.

Besides, Ryan was a playboy, a bad boy billionaire who went through women like water. I was just one of the many who would fall in love with him and dream of a future that would never happen. He cared about me. I didn’t doubt that, but I had a really hard time believing he was in it for the long haul. He’d said himself, he never really had a long-term relationship besides Natasha and even that was “just for fun.” I was different, not the normal rich socialite he had gotten used to chasing around. Maybe he was just intrigued by me, thinking the grass was greener on the other side of the tracks. Eventually, though, he would tire of it, and everything would come crumbling down around us. I just wasn’t willing to stay around and watch that happen. It was a sad thought, one that made me seek solace in his arms again.

“I’m cold,” I said, looking back at him. “Can you take me below decks?”

As soon as we were down in his cabin, we started kissing, lying on his bed and kissing passionately. He was about to reach up to take off my shirt when the captain came over the loudspeaker. I sat up on the bed, feeling the boat waving up and down heavily.

“Sorry, Mr. Reines,” he said. “But there’s a storm blowing in, and the water’s incredibly choppy. We’re going to have to head back to shore.”

I took a deep breath and sighed, wondering if that was a sign. Would our relationship hit choppy water? I had this gut feeling it was going to be sooner than I thought.