Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“That sounds like Ian.”
“Yes, it does. Do you know who it doesn’t sound like?” David asked. “The Malones. They’re always in the public eye, and they’ve learned to navigate it. My stepdad still kicks people in the balls when they deserve it. The Taggarts aren’t the Malones. Ian might know how to put on a tux, but I assure you the minute he can take it off it’s gone. But none of this matters. You don’t owe me a date. All you owe me right now is the promise that you’ll let me do what I need to do.”
It was completely perverse that she didn’t like the sound of that. Wasn’t he offering her exactly what she wanted? He was offering up a completely professional relationship with no hope of slipping up and whoops, we didn’t mean to end up in bed together. The one tent thing was sounding better and better. He was right about Ian not being anything like the Malones. The guys she worked with talked about how he used to get in the ring with them when he was frustrated and let everyone punch him. Of course, he punched back. “As long as it’s safe, I promise.”
“Okay.” He kept his eyes on the road. “And there’s this app I use. It shops around for the cheapest price on the groceries you want, and it even applies coupons it finds online.”
Naturally they even liked the same apps. “Grocery Pro. I love that one.”
“Yeah, I do, too.” He went quiet and took the exit that would lead them to the private airport.
And Tess wondered if she’d made a big mistake. The good news was she had some time to think about it.
* * * *
David yawned as he looked out over the ocean and had to admit that he hadn’t been all that great at tempting Tessa so far. He’d brought out the big guns when he’d picked her up. He’d hoped showing up in the Mustang would buy him points, and then there had been that completely coincidental choice of music.
He wasn’t a man who believed in fate, but damn the universe seemed to be pointing him directly at Tessa Santiago. They liked the same things. He’d never known a person he could talk to as easily as he did Tessa.
Unfortunately, he seemed to be the only one who felt that cosmic pull.
He was never telling his brother he’d thought those words. Nope. Kyle would give him the emotional equivalent of a noogie and never let him forget what a romantic douche he could be.
Except he wasn’t. At least he’d never been before. He was a focused academic. He was the guy someone had to pull away from a book. His mom used to have to remind him to eat at times.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have needs. He absolutely did, and he certainly indulged them, but he was a guy who sometimes scheduled his sexual encounters. Everything in his life was organized. There was study time. There was teaching time. There was perverted fun time. Until now he hadn’t had sit-and-think-about-Tessa time.
He’d had ten hours on a flight, and he’d barely cracked open his notes. When he wasn’t napping, he’d been wondering what Tessa was thinking about and if it was anything but him.
“Is that the island we’re going to?” Tessa had been inside the cabin of the boat trying to get a cell signal for most of the thirty minutes they’d been sailing. “It’s pretty.”
It was a lovely place to be. He would like to show her all the sights. There was a pool in the middle of the island where the water glowed from the phosphorescent algae found there. “Montez bought it in the late eighties. He’d sold his first company for almost a billion dollars, a number unheard of then.”
Her pretty face had a quizzical expression on it. “Why haven’t I heard of this guy?”
There was a simple explanation for that. Americans focused almost exclusively on their own world. Even at the university he taught at almost all the classes were focused on Western history. “Because his business was based outside the US. Tell me how many billionaires do you know who aren’t Americans or Richard Branson? Yet, they exist now and they existed then. Montez wanted to get away from the stress of dealing with his company, so he bought this island as a place to unwind and get back to nature. I don’t think when he started out that he meant to write entire manifestos that would change politics in the Southern hemisphere. He was an engineer, after all. But he was changed by the island we’re about to go to. By the end of his life, he’d given away almost a billion dollars, and world leaders would flock here to get his guidance.”