Can you believe that shit?”
“Ford!” the girl I’d met earlier yelled. I think her name was Sierra. “Can you help us carry these chairs down to the water’s edge?”
He shook his head. “They think I’m their cabana boy, apparently.”
“But if you do it, they won’t be sitting up here on the deck with you.”
He pointed to me. “That’s very true. I’ll be right back.”
I watched from the deck as Ford lugged lounge chairs down the stairs to the beach. When he was done, Sierra gripped his arm and tried to pull him into the water with her. She wore a thong string bikini bottom and two small triangles up top that barely covered her nipples, and she did her best to get him to notice. The girl definitely had her eye on him.
“I think you have an admirer,” I said when he returned.
“Sierra’s a pain in my ass. On my sister’s twelfth birthday, she had a sleepover. That one snuck into my bed while I was sleeping. I was eighteen and woke up with a twelve-year-old next to me.”
I covered my mouth. “Oh my God. It’s a long-running, unrequited crush then.”
“Lucky me,” Ford grumbled. “You want some wine or something?”
“Actually, I’ll take a water, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded. While he went to fetch us drinks, I watched the girls on the beach. Sierra was doing cartwheels and back handsprings. She really had an incredible body. She may have been a girl when she first tried to get Ford to notice her, but she was definitely a woman now.
Ford returned with my water and leaned on the railing next to me, watching what I’d been watching.
“Your little crush is quite limber.”
He turned to face me, still leaning. “Is that a hint of jealousy I detect in your tone?”
How could I not be jealous of that girl’s body? “She’s pretty. With the body of a nineteen-year-old.” I shrugged. “I can’t compete with that.”
“You mean she can’t compete with you.”
I wasn’t being insecure or jealous. I honestly didn’t comprehend how Ford could say such a thing—yet I really believed he meant it.
“I don’t understand, Ford. How could you want to be with me, when you could have that?”
He looked me up and down and shook his head. “You look in the mirror and see the woman your ex made you feel like—a thirty-seven-year-old mom. I look at you and see what you actually are—a sexy-as-fuck woman who has a killer rack, curves I want to memorize in the dark, and a laugh that’s contagious. She can’t hold a candle to you, Val.” He cupped my cheek. “And if our summer together is all you want, I hope that at least by the end you can look in the mirror and see the woman you are.”
God, this man was absolutely intoxicating. I ached for him, and I was exhausted from trying to fight it.
I leaned over to him. “How about we order takeout and you stay at my house tonight, so Blondie doesn’t make a second attempt at climbing into your bed?”
Ford searched my eyes. “What if Bella asks where I slept?”
I placed a gentle kiss on his lips. “Then lie…or tell her the truth. I’m not even sure I care anymore.”
Chapter 18
* * *
Valentina
We sat on the floor in the living room eating Chinese.
When I’d gone to set the table, Ford put the plates back in the cabinet and brought the bag to the living room instead. He then pulled out the coffee table to make room for us to sit and tossed two pillows on the floor.
I was never good at eating with chopsticks, but he gave me a lesson and opened his mouth wide to test my skills. Of course I bumbled the saucy Szechwan shrimp, and it splattered all over his white T-shirt. That turned out to be a good thing, because he’d tugged it off for the rest of our meal.
God, he was more delicious than the food—and Chinese was one of my favorites.
I managed to get three grains of rice into my mouth. “I spoke to Ryan this afternoon.”
Ford’s chopsticks were halfway to his lips, and he stopped. “Your son?”
I shook my head. “I wish. We have to get some work done on our support pilings, and he wants to be here when the contractor comes to give an estimate.”
“When’s he coming?”
“Tomorrow at two. I just wanted to let you know before he showed up.”
He nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
We talked and passed takeout boxes back