Throuple In Paradise - Faleena Hopkins Page 0,41

curvy, Troy?” She steps back, throwing fists onto dancer-hips. “I am able to eat feta and still be a ballerina because of how hard I work out. But don’t think that every time I do, it is not in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t have it! Or that if my lines change I’m out of a job again! So don’t you dare plant that bullshit in my brain. I am exactly the right weight for my chosen profession and I work hard for it.”

I throw my hands up with a grin. “Whoa now!”

“Whoa now?! No ‘whoa now.’ I am completely and totally serious. Women have a hard enough time with all the pressures put on us. If you’re skinny, you’re too skinny. Eat a sandwich! If you’re fat, you’re too fat. Don’t eat anything!” Stepping closer, Mar narrows her eyes. “The only person who gets to decide if I’m a good weight or not, or what I should be eating, is me.” She storms off, every sway of her hips telling me to go fuck myself because she won’t fuck me anytime soon.

Well, shit.

Jack returns to me, eyebrows lifted in her direction. “She pissed that I’m working?”

“You didn’t hear what she said?”

He shakes his head.

“It was all about you. When is the other car showing up?”

He groans, rubbing his face with levels of frustration. “I promised her I wouldn’t work, but I have no choice. I’ve gotta deal with this until we’re back on track. I’ll make it up to her. That’s him.”

I follow his approving eye-line to an enormous vehicle, flawless gold paint job winking in the sun as it slows. “Jeezus, gold? You want me to tell the other guy to beat it? We’re covered with just that thing, right?”

“And take away his job without warning? Don’t be a dick,” Jack flatly says as he strolls over to the vehicles and motions for the second to park near the first.

I’m a dick, huh?

Chuckling to myself, I rake my long hair back and follow them.

Chapter Twenty-Four

JACK

Troy whistles as he stares out from a private terrace that overlooks both our own personal pool and further past that, the clear blue glass of Greece’s Aegean Sea. “You ever see a view like this before?” He throws me a warning look. “I’m not asking you, Jack. I’m asking our girl.”

I motion for our drivers to stack our suitcases inside the door. We’ll get to them later.

I’ve got other things in mind.

Cavo Tagoo earns its five-star hotel rating, I’ll give them that. This isn’t my first time here, but it’s been about seven years so the effect is strong. And I’m enjoying the look on Marion’s normally aloof face.

I like to win. It’s why I’m good in business, why I was able to build wealth up from nothing. Winning is what gets me out of bed every damn day and keeps the television off, healthy food in my fridge, and a trainer well paid.

But seeing my Marion smile is a success all its own. Nothing prepared me for how I’d feel about this woman who most would consider highly challenging.

I’m not most.

I need a challenge.

It’s a must.

I love her more every damn day and I’d never have predicted that was possible. Especially from a loner like me.

As she glides through succinctly decorated, clean white lines and only the basics of elegant furniture, Marion’s dark beauty in a black, full-length, cotton sundress, long hair the sheen of a raven, makes her absolutely stunning in contrast. “It’s the entire ocean right there, spread out for just us!”

I inform her, “That’s a sea, not an ocean.”

Through an awe-filled smile she whispers, “It’s so big it might as well be one,” fingers sliding down the archway, Troy standing to her left in it. “And so clear!”

Proud I could impress her as I’d hoped, I cock my eyebrow at the drivers who are waiting for my order. They bow out, bill already paid in full and then some.

Strolling up to Marion’s backside, I casually inhale the warm breeze, its intoxicating promise of dives into the deep blue, and into her as often as I want for as long as we’re here.

That foreman fucked up royally, by threatening my crew. He managed them but I signed their paychecks. He should’ve spoken to me before making that big a move. I don’t threaten unless it’s the last straw, not the first. And I never get that far. There are other ways to inspire people that provoke loyalty,