“I’m so proud I could burst. And so are they.”
He smiles and kisses me. “Thank you for that. Means a lot.” He kisses me again. “Want to hit the beach?”
“Would it be okay if we hit the deck instead of the beach?” Despite the security people who met us at LAX and surround us at the house, I’m not ready to be seen in public quite yet.
“Whatever you want, sweetheart.” He kisses my forehead. “Come on, let’s go get changed.”
“Flynn?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for bringing me here, for knowing what I need before I need it. For everything.”
“I can’t believe you’re thanking me when I feel like the luckiest bastard who ever lived because I get to spend today and tonight and tomorrow and the next day with you.”
“We’re both lucky.”
He wraps me up in his strong arms. “Yes, we are.”
Chapter 5
We pass a magical, relaxing day at Hayden’s pool. The housekeeper, Connie, serves us a delicious lunch that includes a bottle of ice-cold chardonnay from the Quantum Vineyard in Napa. After she serves our lunch, Flynn tells Connie to take a paid vacation and that Hayden will call her when he needs her to come back to work.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Flynn. You enjoy yourselves.”
“Who is paying for her vacation?” I ask when we are alone. “You or Hayden?”
“Hayden of course,” he says cheekily, making me laugh.
“Does he know that?”
“What he doesn’t know will never hurt him.”
“Any connection between the vineyard and the production company?” I ask after Flynn opens a second bottle. We’re sitting together on a double lounge chair next to the pool, which overlooks the ocean below. Between the stunning scenery and the gorgeous man snuggled up to me, I’m on sensory overload. Fluff is curled up between my feet, enjoying the warm sunshine.
“Yep. We own it.”
“What else does Quantum own?”
“A lot of real estate, most of it in New York and LA, a couple of restaurants, four radio stations, six TV stations. I think that’s everything.”
“Wow. I figured you were all about making movies.”
“For the most part, we are, but we believe in diversification.”
“Your life is fascinating to me, and not because you’re famous. It’s the scope that’s mind-boggling. Right when I think I’ve got the full picture, there’s more.”
A strange look crosses his face, but he quickly erases it with one of his trademark smiles. “We also believe in living life to the fullest.”
“How did the five of you come together to form the company?”
“I’ve worked with Hayden from the beginning. We’ve made six films together and produced five others. Marlowe was in two of our early films and was interested in getting into producing. Jasper, who’s a cinematographer, and Kristian, a producer who came along later, were a good fit for us because we share a similar vision about the kinds of films we want to make and produce. It sort of happened organically.” He tops off both our glasses. “This is a tough business. It’s nice to work with people I trust and who trust me.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting Jasper and Kristian.”
“You’ll fall in love with Jasper’s British accent. We call him the Panty Dropper.”
“Dare I ask?”
“We joke that panties drop every time he opens his mouth.”
“The British accent is extremely sexy.”
“Oh jeez. Spare me. My sisters are positively smitten with him. Last year at Christmas, Ellie asked him to read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and then made a flaming fool of herself panting and moaning over the accent. The kids thought she was having a stroke or something. It was mortifying.”
I’m laughing so hard, I nearly choke on my wine.
“You know,” he says, swirling the wine around in his glass, “I love talking about my friends and my business, but I’d much rather talk about you and your family.”
Just that quickly, my stomach knots and my body tightens with tension.
“Nat?”
“Yeah?”
“Look at me, sweetheart.”
I force myself to meet his intense gaze.
“I want to know you. I want to understand you. And more than anything, I want to protect you so nothing can ever hurt you again.”
“Not even you are that powerful.”
“You’d be surprised at what I can do when someone I love is hurting.”
“You’ve already shown me what you’re capable of.”
“I’ve only shown you the start of it.”
I can’t put this off any longer, not if I hope to have a meaningful relationship with this amazing man who has repeatedly revealed his heart to me and shared his truth. He deserves nothing less than my truth in return.
“Tell me about who you were as a kid. I want to know everything.”
“My name was April then. They named me that because I was born on the fifteenth of April, and the joke was that I was destined to work for the IRS because I was born on tax day.”
“Ugh, nothing funny about taxes. The joke in my family is I single-handedly support the Pentagon with what I pay in taxes.”
“Aww, poor baby.”