Dylan grinned, said, “I agree,” and for the next few hours enjoyed working side by side with his brother on a boat that he had no idea was already his.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Grace wrote like crazy the next day while Mason napped. She hadn’t yet finished transcribing yesterday’s interview with Dylan, but she wanted to make some forward progress, so she started writing. The saying went that it was easier to edit a page with words on it, rather than a blank one, and doing the bulk of her writing while Mason slept meant she’d gotten used to creativity on command. Unfortunately, ninety minutes later, as she reread what she’d written so far, she wasn’t particularly impressed with any of it.
Maybe she simply needed to get up from her computer for a little while. She went into the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee, but as she brought it to her lips she realized she didn’t want it. It was the same with the trusty Hershey’s Kisses she kept in the freezer. A little chocolate melting on her tongue wouldn’t do anything to cure her restlessness, or a mind that was jumping around.
It wasn’t creativity on command that was messing with her productivity. Nor was the problem the fairly tight deadline for the cover story. It was the fact that her head—and body—were still reeling from being with Dylan yesterday. From the risks they’d taken…and how much she’d loved every second of taking those risks, even if she shouldn’t have, and they’d nearly been caught naked in each other’s arms by his brother.
She’d been spinning from Dylan’s taste, from everything he’d said both during the interview and then after, when her clothes were coming off and his were, too. Now, she forced herself to admit the real reason she hadn’t wanted to transcribe the interview today: She’d been afraid of what hearing his voice would do to her. Of what it would make her feel.
Because she was already feeling so much. Too much.
Grace had never fallen so fast for anyone. Never thought it was possible to begin to care so deeply for someone so quickly—or to crave him so wholly—especially when she, of all people, should know better than to lose her head, or her heart, over another handsome, charismatic man.
Only, even as she thought it, she knew she wasn’t being fair to Dylan. Yes, he was handsome. Yes, he was powerful. But he was so much more than just that. He was fun. He was sweet. He was talented. He was devoted to his family. He was adorable with Mason. And he wanted to protect them both.
Yesterday in his boathouse, when she’d taken him the same way he’d taken her, she’d hoped that giving him pleasure would help her feel more in control. Less off-balance. But it hadn’t worked. Not in the slightest, given that she’d left his boathouse as far off-balance as she’d ever been.
Mostly because she couldn’t stop rethinking everything—everything she’d been so sure about since Mason. Namely that she had to be strong all by herself. And that she had to pay for her stupidity with her ex by always doing the safe thing, by remaining in perfect control forevermore.
Knowing Mason would be up soon, and that her deadline wasn’t going anywhere regardless of how twisted up she felt inside, she was sitting back down behind her computer when she knocked her notebook to the floor. Reaching for it, she realized it had fallen open to a William Shakespeare quote from Much Ado About Nothing.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men are deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Dylan, she already knew, would never willingly deceive her, would never reel her in just for a laugh. But at his core he was a sailor. One whom she doubted would ever be as happy on land as he was out on the sea. Sailing was considered to be the great escape. And after all, wasn’t that when Dylan had turned to sailing—when his father had lost his job, times had been rough for his family, and it had become his passion, as well?
And yet, at the same time, how could she forget what he’d said yesterday during their second interview: “The magic of a night sea is one that can only be matched, and transcended, by one thing. By love.”
As if Mason knew that his mother was desperate for a distraction from thoughts that were careening from one end of her mind to the other, he woke up from his nap. After a quick diaper change, she gathered up a snack, a bottle, and a change of clothes and put them all in the bottom of his stroller.
“What do you say you and I head out to the park and let some fresh air clear our heads?”
Her son’s eyes lit up at the word park just as her phone rang. When she saw Dylan’s name on the screen, she knew she lit up in exactly the same way.
She should probably let it ring, give herself a little space to keep thinking things through. But from the first, Dylan had been a gift she hadn’t been able to deny herself. Or her son, whom she’d seen laugh more with him than with anyone else.
“I was sitting here missing you and Mason,” Dylan told her when she picked up, “so I thought I’d call.” Mason giggled as she handed him his stuffed giraffe and accidentally knocked him in the nose with its fluffy tail. “Your kid has the best laugh.”
“He really does, doesn’t he?”
“He gets it from his beautiful mother.”
It felt as though Dylan knew every secret code to unlock all the locked-down parts of her heart. And even when she knew she should make sure the two of them stuck to slow, it was the last thing she wanted—and not just because every kiss, every caress he gave her felt so good. Just being with Dylan made her happy.