I glanced down to my chest, remembered it was bare, and then jumped off Dean. Jeez, I’d just played the role of slutty nurse really well. Oh please, let me help you while I shove my boobs in your face.
“You perv! You could have reminded me that I was topless,” I said, holding my arms over my chest.
Dean opened his eyes and glared up at me. “Yeah, sorry, I was a little busy trying not to throw up from pain.”
Josephine thrust a bright red thing in front of my face. “Here, put this on.”
A normal person would have grabbed a t-shirt or a towel. What did Josephine grab? A giant, puffy life vest—the kind you find on cheap paddleboats. It would cover my boobs, but only barely.
“Seriously Jo? Seriously?”
She glared at me, holding it out for me to take. “What?! It was the only thing I could find. Just put it on.”
I huffed and took it from her. It wouldn’t cover me completely, but it was better than nothing. I turned away from Dean and quickly pulled it on over my head. I buckled it in front of my chest and tightened the black strap as tight as it would go. By the time I turned back around, Dean was staring up at me with a blank expression.
“What?” I asked, glancing down to confirm that the life vest was covering me.
Josephine laughed. “He’s probably just recalling all of his boyhood Playboy fantasies.”
He shook his head and pushed up to stand. He towered over me, tall and lean. I could smell the ocean air mixed with his body wash.
“More like Baywatch,” he corrected with a little smirk.
I groaned with embarrassment. “Could we just pretend that you didn’t see any of that?” I pleaded.
He arched a brow and met my eye. There was an emotion concealed behind his gaze that I hadn’t seen before, at least not from him.
“Not possible,” he said, shaking his head. I watched him take the stairs back up to the deck and realized that the tension brewing between the two of us wasn’t gone. Our time together on the boat had morphed it into something much harder to control…
Chapter Twenty-One
Lily
After the boat ride from hell, I knew it’d be hard to face Dean at work. I stayed in bed late on Sunday, trying to recreate my memory of the events from the day before. Sometimes I could convince myself that I’d looked cool and sexy with my life preserver on, and then other times my brain replayed the moment when my face collided with Dean’s crotch over and over again like a perfectly looped video that never seemed to end.
When I checked my email that night and saw Dean’s name, I half expected the subject line to read “Obviously, You’re Fired.”
From: Dean Harper
To: Lily Black, Julian Lefray, Zoe Davis, Hunter Smith
Subject: LVRW
As you know, we have a very busy week coming up. We leave for LVRW on Wednesday so I’d like to have a meeting at my house tomorrow morning. We’ll go over the flight, accommodations, and our schedules for the few days we’ll be in Vegas.
My address is below. We’ll start at 9:30 AM.
D. Harper
Huh. No mention of how his crotch-el region was healing up. I’d take that as a good sign.
…
I stood on Dean’s doorstep and knocked, but no one answered. I rang the doorbell, but it felt useless. His front door was black, shiny, and solid. There were no windows to peer through, and the windows along the foyer were dark.
I spun in a circle, trying to decide if I was at the correct house. His Upper West Side townhouse was tucked in a row of stately brownstones. Down the block, I’d passed a neighborhood deli with trendy French tables and ivy vines that looked like they’d been growing for the last hundred years. I’d almost stopped inside for a latte, but I hadn’t wanted to run late. Now, however, it seemed the latte would have been useful. I yawned and tried to cover it, telling myself I wasn’t actually as tired as I felt. Sleep had been elusive the last two nights. I’d filled my days with work, but at night, when my head hit my pillow and I had a moment alone with my thoughts, I’d replay my encounters with Dean.
The way we fought, the way he infuriated me, the way he intrigued me. I couldn’t decide where he fit in my mind’s Venn diagram. On the left side, I had people I hated, and on the right, I had the people I loved. Right in the middle, in a category of his own making, there was Dean Harper.
I tried the doorbell for the second time and then reached for the door handle. It was unlocked. I pushed the door open and stepped into his foyer.
“Hello?”
I took a tentative step forward and spoke up. “Dean?”