Maizee could listen to Lawrence talk about the sea, and lines, and boat etiquette for hours. He had a smooth, round, deep voice that vibrated in all the right places inside her body. She gripped her water bottle while he finished up, and then turned back to Kara.

“I didn’t know it was a private tour,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”

“Oh, this guy is cheap,” Kara said with a toss of her dark hair and a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Nan arranged it all, but I think it was only a couple of hundred dollars.”

Maizee nodded like that made total sense to be on this luxury sailboat with a billionaire banker as the captain. But Kara nor Nan nor anyone else knew who he was, obviously. And he wanted to keep it that way.

She liked that they had a little secret together, and her hand still buzzed from where his had held it.

She moved over to Nan and asked her about the price. “Oh, it was only a hundred and fifty,” she said. “So divide that by seven, and it’s what? Twenty bucks? Don’t worry about it.”

Nan obviously came from money too—at least a little—because she wore designer clothes to go sailing. Maizee felt underdressed in a simple sundress, and she wished she’d brought an oversized hat like a couple of the other women.

She felt Lawrence’s eyes on her, and she turned toward him. Sure enough, he watched her as he worked one of the lines, and everything in her got set to boil. There were too many pieces of him, and Maizee didn’t know how to put them all together into a complete puzzle.

He hiked in the rain. Saved women. Stayed with them until they were safe. Wore power suits to work. Went into the ritziest hotel with men like him. And sailed his boat for pennies.

Nothing about him made sense, and Maizee really wanted to dig deeper into him and find out more about him. Learn what made him tick.

She wanted complicated if it came with Lawrence Gladstone.

But she didn’t go over to him. She chatted with the other women and let the ocean breeze blow her hair off her face and shoulders. She enjoyed the pear and gorgonzola tarts Lawrence served, and went back to the soda bar over and over again for one of his delicious flavored concoctions.

She flirted with him shamelessly, only when no one else was looking, and he didn’t seem to mind.

“There were whales out here earlier,” he said once he’d pulled in the sails and the boat started drifting. “But I don’t see them now. They often feed in the morning, though we do see them at all times of the day out here.”

He sounded like a tour guide, but the kind she could eat lunch with as he educated her about the island. He was windswept, wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a tank top that showed he spent plenty of time taming sails. Or lifting weights. Anything but sitting behind his desk in that second-floor office in the corner.

Who knew? Maybe he lifted weights up there and she just didn’t know it yet.

He told them a bit about the aquatic life here, but they didn’t see any before he set the sails again and put them on a course back toward land.

The sun was arcing toward the west when he finally docked the boat, and Maizee’s stomach grumbled for dinner. Could she ask him out? Would he go? If he said no, how could she look him in the face come Monday morning?

She hung back as the other women disembarked, until it was just her and Lawrence left on the Tabitha.

“So, did you enjoy yourself?” he asked, working to secure the boat. “Have you ever been sailing before?”

“Lots of times,” she said. “I grew up on the island of Lanai.”

“Oh,” he said, keeping his eyes on his work. “That’s great.”

“But this was amazing,” she said. “We don’t have our own boat. We’d just rent little ones for the day or go sea kayaking.”

“Sea kayaking?” Their eyes met, and Maizee actually fell back a step from the electric current running between them. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It’s actually really fun,” she said. “And East Bay has some great currents.”

“You’ve been?”

“Not yet, but I’ve been reading up on the best places to go here.”

“You have your own sea kayak?” He moved down to a new line and began reeling it in, tightening it like a real pro would on a sailboat.

“Yes,” she said, feeling a bit defensive and then a bit sad. “But it’s at home, on Lanai.”

He nodded. “I’m not what you’d call an outdoorsy guy.”

“No?” She tilted her head to look at him closer, but he didn’t meet her gaze this time. “You were hiking when we first met.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a loose term for what I was doing.”

“What were you doing then?”

He took several long seconds to answer, and when he finally did, it was only with, “Exploring.”

Maizee wasn’t sure what that meant. “You’re a great sailor.”

“Thank you.” He grinned at her and time seemed to stall completely. “Listen, this might be…I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about you since last weekend. Would it be weird if we went to dinner or something?” His dark eyes sparked with intensity, with hope, and Maizee felt a smile fill her whole soul, her whole face.

“I’d like to go to dinner with you.”

“I don’t normally date anyone who works for me,” he said, swallowing as if he was the nervous one. “If it’s too weird, I get it.”

“It can’t be weirder than a billionaire pretending to be a sailboat tour guide.” She bumped him with her hip, surprised at her own boldness. After all, he was her boss.

But he laughed, the sound dangling in the air like musical chimes, sweet and wonderful and making Maizee giggle too.

“Tonight?” she asked when they both quieted. “Or are you busy after this?”

“No,” he said, drawing the word out. “You want to go to dinner right now?”

“Sure,” she said, her flirtation game thriving. “I’m starving.”

He glanced around as if she’d been talking to someone else. “Then I just need to finish up here, and we can go.”

“Did you want to change?”

“Did you want me to change?”

Maizee quite liked him in whatever he wore, so she shrugged. “Up to you.”

Lawrence finished with one more line, and then he said, “I’ve got clothes downstairs. I’ll change and meet you on the dock.”

“Sounds great.” Maizee wanted to stay and ask him another question, flirt with him under the setting sun. But she knew when to make an exit, and it was now, when he wanted her to stay. She walked across the deck and swung her leg over the side of the boat, climbing carefully down the few steps on the ladder until she reached the dock.

Only then did the bird’s wings explode in her chest. A moan leaked out of her mouth, and she thought, What in the world are you doing?

He’s your boss!

No, he owns the whole blasted company!

If things “got weird” with him and they broke up, Maizee wouldn’t be able to simply transfer to another Gladstone Financial branch.

She’d be out of a job completely.

Maizee actually left the dock, thinking she’d just head on home. Lawrence didn’t have her number, and she could barricade herself behind her front door. He wouldn’t look up her personal information anyway. She wasn’t sure why she thought that, only that he seemed like the kind of guy who’d realize what had happened when he disembarked and found her gone.

They could go on pretending not to see one another when he walked right by her glassed in office, and she could figure out the timing of his schedule so their paths didn’t cross.

Worry gnawed at her stomach, making it more upset than it already was that she’d underfed it.

She wandered along the tree line that bordered the parking lot at the dock, her car still calling to her. Begging her to get behind the wheel and drive until she figured things out. She avoided it, clenching her phone in her fist, startling when it chimed.

Had to be one of her sisters, and Maizee seized onto the idea. She could call Evelyn and ask her—hypothetically, of course—about dating the owner of the company. Evie would know what to do.

But when she lifted her phone and looked at it, the message was not from Evelyn or Juliet. It was an unknown number, and it read Where did you go? This is Lawrence by the way. I called my secretary to get your number.

Before she could tap out a single letter of a response, another message came in. I’m not a stalker. I’m just hungry, and you looked so great in that dress.

Maizee’s stomach settled with such a sweet message, and she turned back to the docks. Went for a quick walk, she texted back. Trying to work my ankle a little bit.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. She did like to give her ankle a workout every few hours, otherwise it stiffened up and caused her pain.

I can meet you at my car.

Maizee didn’t need to ask which one was his. Only a handful of cars remained in the parking lot, and only one of them looked like it cost six figures.

I see it. Meet you there. She added a little limp to her left step as she approached his midnight blue Mercedes-Benz. It was sleek and stylish, and she supposed it was meant to show others that Lawrence was strong and not to be trifled with.

He sidled up beside her, and said, “Hey.”

When Maizee looked at him, she found a strong, masculine man who also happened to wear a sexy meekness right on his face.

“Still starving?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Their eyes met, and Maizee ducked her head, a giggle coming out of her mouth even though she was much too old for such sounds.

“How’s your ankle?” he asked, ignoring both the comment and the girlishness. “I saw you limping.”

“It’s good sometimes and then it hurts a little sometimes.” Maizee lifted one shoulder in a shrug, noticing that Lawrence’s gaze lingered there.

“What do you like to eat?” he asked.

“Pretty much anything,” she said, her pulse swinging around in her chest like a pendulum. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this excited about a date with Winn, and she’d kept an eye on him for six months before he’d asked her out.

Lawrence had only taken seven days, and Maizee liked that. Maybe he’d been wrestling with his feelings too.

“I know a great Polynesian place,” he said, reaching past her to open the door. “Sound good?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “My mother makes a killer poi.”

He smiled at her, his teeth as straight and white as only good money could make them. She dropped down into his car, glad she hadn’t worn heels and wondering how she’d ever get out of this car even wearing her flats.

He sauntered around the front of the car, and she drank in the dark slacks he’d changed into. The sky blue shirt, open at the throat, with a suave jacket over that. No tie. No cufflinks. Windblown hair.

He was devastatingly gorgeous, and Maizee wondered—again—what in the world she was doing with him. What she really wanted to know was what he saw in her.

He got in the car, and she noticed he wore loafers, not his shiny leather shoes. Everything about him said casual in a very extravagant way. The car started with a roar and then a purr, and he said, “So let’s start with basics. I know it’s impolite to ask a woman her age, so I’ll start and you can say older or younger.” He cut a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “I'm forty-one.”

Maizee may have looked up some information on him throughout the years, and she was ready to say, “I’m just younger than that.”

“Ever been married?” he asked.

“No. You?” she asked, though she knew he hadn’t. The marriage of Lawrence Gladstone would be the event of the century, wouldn’t it?

“No, ma’am.”

“Ever been close?”

“Not even a little bit.” His fingers squeezed the steering wheel. “You?”

Maizee waited for him to make a right turn, and then she said, “Yes, actually. I was engaged before moving here.” She didn’t say that her failed engagement was the reason she’d left Lanai and come to Getaway Bay, but Lawrence was a smart guy. He could hear the words behind what she did say.

“Not wearing a ring now,” he said. “Any chance of that rekindling?”

Maizee laughed and shook her head, her hair tickling her bare arms. “Not even a little bit.”

He smiled at her, pulled into a restaurant that was bursting at the seams, and parked right at the curb.

“Oh, I don’t think—” Maizee cut off when someone opened her door. A man in a uniform stood there, someone she hadn’t even seen. Now, the two dozen people milling outside the restauarant were definitely visible.

“Hello, Mister Lawrence,” the man said even as he extended his hand to help Maizee from the car. “Two tonight?”

“Yes, Kael. Thank you.”

Maizee used Kael’s strength to help her stand, holding onto his hand while her weak ankle adjusted to holding her weight. Before she could let go, he passed her to Lawrence, who had come around the car to the sidewalk.

“Right this way, sir.” Kael led them right through the throng, and Maizee’s senses felt like they would cause her head to explode. The scent of delicious food and Lawrence’s cologne. The feel of his hand in hers had every cell in her body firing on all cylinders. The way the onlookers watched as she and Lawrence walked right past them and inside the clearly busy restaurant.

Kael stepped over to the hostess and spoke a few words Maizee couldn’t hear. He returned a moment later and said, “Katia will take you back, sir.”

“Thanks,” Lawrence said again, and even though Maizee was busy taking in every little detail around her, she noticed him press a tip into Kael’s hand before they followed Katia back to a private table in the corner.

She sat across from him, hoping she wasn’t about to make the worst mistake of her life.