*****
“Wow, look at that one,” Jodie exclaimed as she held Matthew up so that he could see over the wall and watch the turtles. They'd arrived at Turtle Farm, a conservation facility for turtles. While Aaron was busy making phone calls about some deal in Los Angeles, Jodie was showing Matthew the pools where the turtles were kept. There was one small pool where children could paddle among the turtles and pick them up while under adult supervision. Jodie put Matthew next to the pool and watched what he did. His eyes expanded, and she noticed him connect with something for the first time. His eyes followed the turtles, and he seemed fascinated by them. As they were walking past one of the enclosures that housed some of the large adult turtles, one of them jumped from a wall into the water, sending a torrent of water over them.
Matthew screamed and Jodie gasped. Jodie was wet through, Matthew less so because he'd been protected by Jodie.
Aaron was waiting for them outside on the sidewalk, and when they arrived, he laughed. “What happened to you two? You're soaked.”
“A turtle decided to do some diving and splashed us. Apparently there's a warning that they do that sometimes.”
Aaron looked at her. She noticed his eyes fix on her chest, and when she looked down to see what he was looking at, she froze. Her nipples were sticking out like bullets and pointing right at him.
“Oops,” she said. She smiled at him and, despite her embarrassment, remained calm. “Maybe we out to go and sit in the sun of a bit so I can dry out. I can't go back to town like this,” she said.
“Well, you can, but you'd have to put up with men gawping at you.”
“Like you were, you mean?” she said. “Sorry. That was rude of me.”
“I couldn't really help it. Anyhow, you look very beautiful like that. There isn't a single person who would object.”
“Men,” she said. “All the same.”
That evening Aaron sat at the same bar he'd gone to the previous evening, and he was surprised to find himself thinking about Jodie and the incident that afternoon. She was a hell of a beautiful woman, he thought. Just the sight of her legs gave him ideas he probably shouldn't be having. The sight of her breasts highlighted so beautifully by the water the kind turtle had splashed over them that afternoon took his lurid thought process to another level altogether.
“Jesus, no,” he muttered under his breath. “Not Matthew's nanny for Christ’s sake. What kind of perv are you?”
The following day Jodie took Matthew into the kids’ pool and splashed around with him. Aaron pretended to be looking at his laptop, but his eyes weren't on the screen most of the time. Try as he may, he was unable to take his eyes from her long, sensual body. When he imagined her shapely legs wrapped around his back as he made love to her, he took off his T-shirt and jumped into the cold pool. It helped, but only for a while.
As the vacation passed, Aaron found that his feelings toward Jodie were developing in a way he had neither expected nor wanted. But he was powerless to stop them. She was beautiful, and kind, and he wanted her. He'd seen countless beautiful women on the island, but none had come up to her standard.
*****
More weeks went by, and Aaron began to hate himself. He hated himself for being totally and utterly in love with Jodie. He couldn't think about anything or anybody else. When he was at home in the evening, he always hoped she would come and sit with him, and when she didn't he sulked. He likened himself to a teenager. In fact, he felt just like he had when he'd met Lindsey as a sixteen-year-old.
“You've got to do something,” he said to himself. “You can't go on like this.”
The next evening he had too much to drink in a vain attempt to summon up the courage to speak to her about his feelings. He was the owner of a multimillion-dollar enterprise, but he was scared to death of talking to a young woman he liked.
“Are you okay? You look a little tipsy,” Jodie said when she appeared to go swimming.
“Sit down. I want to talk to you,” he said. The way he said it, she thought she was in trouble.
“Sorry, have I done something wrong?”
“No. Sit down. I want to talk to you.” She sat down and waited for him to speak. “I'm in love with you,” he said directly, “totally and utterly in love with you.” He would never have dared say it if he'd been sober. He was able to say it in an inebriated state, but he sounded like some sleazy guy chatting up a young girl at the end of a drunken night in a disco.
“I can't, Aaron, not with you. You're Matthew's dad. I like you, but I can't.”
“Why not? You would never have to worry about money ever again. You could have anything you wanted.”
“That's not the point. You are talking about material things. What's important is Matthew's welfare.”