because I suddenly realize I’m not alone.
I lift the lid and bolt upright, tossing the cucumbers aside and making salt water slosh onto the floor while Teddy narrates Rock Ludlow dirty-talking the innocent princess on their fake wedding night. “Who’s there?”
“No one who’s planning on saying that to you,” comes a familiar voice from the bedroom as Rock asks if he can lick the princess’s pussy. “Can you shut that off? We have a problem.”
It takes me a minute of fumbling to shut off Teddy’s voice and the princess suggesting she needs Rock to stroke his hard member while he eats her out, which would normally be fine, but West and I have been getting along amazingly well since the choking incident a week ago, sharing breakfast and dinner most days, and we even hung out together at the pool half the weekend, where I flirted with him without overtly flirting with him, and I think he actually flirted back. So I don’t want him to think that all I ever think about is sex.
Plus, he said the word problem.
“What? What is it?” I throw on a sparkly unicorn robe for his sake and dart into my bedroom. “Is Remy sick? Did the social worker get here early? Oh my god, the cats ate his face. Did the cats eat his face?”
West lifts a single brow, telegraphing that I’ve clearly lost my mind, and holds his phone out to me.
Headlines assault my eyeballs.
Playgirl Heiress Drops Baby On Head!
Daisy Carter-Kincaid’s Nanny Tells All!
The DICK’s New Marine Boy-Toy Actually A Woman!
“This is the problem?” I ask. “Tabloid stories?”
“They have pictures of my family.”
He’s not breathing fire out his nose or stomping his foot like an angry bull, but I realize this calm façade is exactly that—a façade.
His magic eyes are the color of pissed-off headstrong alpha male with all protective instincts activated, and it’s making that omnipresent pull in my nether regions stronger this morning.
I’m debating between reminding him that his mom is a celebrity—anyone with a Netflix show qualifies in my book—and offering him use of my legal team when he continues.
“Bad pictures.”
And now I’m intrigued. “Like snorting coke with drug lords bad, or like this kind of bad?” I half-close one eye, tilt my head, and stick my tongue out and try to lick my nose while scrunching one cheek and shoving a finger into my ear.
When I blink back to normal, he’s closed his eyes and is taking a long, deep breath.
Huh.
He’s not wearing a shirt.
That’s lovely. And it’s a testament to how good of a friend and mother I am that I didn’t notice before now.
Okay, I’m lying.
I noticed.
I just didn’t get a chance to look closely at all the intricate inkwork until he closed his eyes.
“The second,” he grits out.
Is he—oh. My.
He is.
He’s sporting morning wood in those gray sweatpants while fuming about tabloid stories.
Despite my best bad photo face.
Or because of it?
The many facets of Westley Jaeger are fascinating.
I snap my focus back to his face before he opens his eyes and claims this is my one chance to hit on him today. “Where’s Remy?”
“Having breakfast with Alessandro.”
I fling open my balcony doors and step outside to drop into the fluffy butter-yellow love seat by the wide window overlooking Biscayne Bay and tuck my legs underneath me, then pat the cushion beside me where I’d normally stretch my legs out. The ever-present sound of rolling waves greets me like an old friend, as does the scent of salt water and flowers. We’re due for a nasty storm tonight—borderline tropical strength—and the wind’s heavier, the sky darker than normal. “Sit. Relax. I can solve this.”
He follows me out. “I’m not having Remy grow up with his pictures plastered all the fuck over trash rags.”
If he doesn’t stop talking, I’m not going to stop swooning. “Sit.”
He glares, but he sits. Glances around quickly. His eyes linger on my bed just inside the door, with the covers tossed willy-nilly everywhere behind the gauzy bed curtains because I am so not a make-your-bed type person.
Which probably annoys the hell out of him, except when he snaps his face back to the bay, there’s something more intriguing than irritation in the way his Adam’s apple bobs.
I shift on the love seat until I’m right next to him, then go up on my knees and settle my hands on his shoulders. “Relax. Being pissed never solved anything.” I knead my thumbs into the tight muscles, which tighten even harder before he gives