Was he apologizing for the ring? The nickname? Both sucked. For a few brief moments, she’d thought they’d had something. It turned out, though, that both at the Star Bar and here on Discovery Island he was simply playing games she didn’t know the rules to. Trusting Tag had been a mistake. She’d let him in and he’d...let her down.
There was a lesson there that she needed to learn. She turned and started to walk away. Stopped.
“Tag?”
He shifted, but he didn’t come after her and that right there was lesson number two. “What?”
“Next time, make sure you insure it,” she said and left.
* * *
“YOU UP FOR some shore diving?” Tag strode into Deep Dive and stopped in front of Daeg. It was time to go all in.
“Sure. When did you have in mind?” Daeg acted like Tag hadn’t just slammed into Deep Dive as though he’d spotted the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Or they hadn’t just spent eight hours flying and diving. “Count me in.”
“Now.” Because with every passing minute, the risk increased of the current moving the ring farther and farther offshore. “Cal?”
Cal looked up from the pile of gear he was sorting. “Group field trip?”
“Mission,” he said shortly. The guys didn’t ask questions, just helped him grab fresh tanks and their gear bags. He did some quick calculations. He had enough surface time, and he wasn’t going too deep. Diving would be fine.
Please, God, let it be fine.
Daeg slanted him a look as they slogged across the sand toward the pier “So who are we rescuing this time?”
He’d rather jump gearless from the Blackhawk than have this conversation. “Me.”
Cal folded his arms on the back of the front seat and poked Daeg’s shoulder. “He’s the king of one-word answers today. What are the odds the next word is Mia?”
Bull’s-eye.
“Got it in one,” he admitted.
“I’m assuming she’s not drowning or trapped on a burning vessel,” Daeg drawled. “Because, if that’s the case, I’m going to remind you to dial 911 first.”
“Okay, smart-ass. You want me to say it? Fine.” He took a breath, let it out. “We hooked up once in San Diego. She let me take her home from the Star Bar, and we spent the night together. The attraction was still there when she showed up here, and the whole damned island kept trying to set me up. She said she didn’t mind pretending to be my fiancée and it just seemed like a good idea.”
Daeg punched him in the shoulder. “Here’s a clue, dude. When someone asks you out on a date, you should feel free to use the word no.”
He’d had hot sex.
He’d had the best night of his life.
But they hadn’t had a relationship. That hadn’t come until Discovery Island.
“So, just for our edification, at what point did ‘fake engagement’ become ‘real engagement with a real ring?’” Cal asked.
He didn’t know. He tightened his grip on the tank, because damned if he could figure it out. He and Mia had had chemistry from the moment they met, an out-of-this-world sexy attraction for each other. He’d never felt like that for anyone else, before or since, and he got the impression she shared those particular feelings.
And then...what he’d felt had been more.
He was leaving in a week, and he wanted to stay. There was nothing fake about his feelings for her. She was his. His one and only. His pain-in-the-butt, take-charge, stubbornly fantastic woman. Or she had been, and then he’d thrown it all away, as easily as she’d chucked his ring. She made him think about things he’d sworn weren’t on the table for him. Things like longer than six damn weeks and possibly forever.
Okay. Definitely forever. He cared about her in ways he had no intention of explaining to Cal and Daeg, although, judging by the sympathetic looks on their faces, they already knew. Funny how the beach looked the same—albeit Mia-less—and the riptide was still alive and kicking just offshore. The rocks would make the shore entry tricky, and then they’d have to deal with the currents.
Cal eyed the water and shook his head. “I can give you a few words. Boneheaded. Stupid. Doomed to failure. Take your pick. FYI, those apply to this dive site as well as to your relationship skills.”
He was all that. The thing was, when he was with Mia, he was also something more. Someone more. He wanted to be that man all the time.
“I’m not disagreeing, but I’m getting her back.” Somehow. When he came up with a good plan, which might take the next ten or twenty years, by which time she’d definitely have moved on. Damn it.