Afterward, they returned to the shower, this time with the intention of getting washed and dressed to meet his family waiting for them downstairs. As she looked in the mirror afterward, styling her freshly straightened hair before applying a light layer of makeup, she didn’t miss the bruised look of her lips, or the satisfied gleam in her eye. For the first time, she wondered if she would survive this week. The sex was so good, it might kill her. Her lips twitched, and
she decided that was an okay way to go.
Slowly, the grin faded as she realized just how addictive Sawyer was. She could easily come to crave the intense passion he inspired, and she had a new appreciation for the women who fell for him despite his clear lack of desiring anything more than sex.
Tightening her mouth, she swiped on some lip-gloss as she vowed to herself she wouldn’t be just another notch on his bedpost. She wouldn’t be stupid and fall for him. Knowing him as she did, it should be a cinch to separate her heart from her body when it came to interacting with Sawyer.
After breakfast, Caitlin and Kiersten spirited Sawyer away somewhere. Nadia had gently declined the invitation to accompany them, knowing he needed to spend time with his family alone. She could use a breather from him as well. She was feeling everything too intensely around him after they had become intimate. It was difficult to keep her hands off him, even in a casual fashion, such as brushing her hand against his when they sat down to eat. It would do her equanimity some good to have distance and time for reflection.
That’s what she told herself anyway, as she went to the gardens and began exploring in more depth than yesterday. She had been searching for him then, but today she just wanted to clear her mind, so focusing on the plants seemed like a good way to do so in lieu of chartering a boat to pursue calm reflection on the water.
She spent thirty minutes walking among the blooms, smelling and admiring those for which she had no name. As someone who had lived every moment possible on the sea, she had never taken time to grow plants. Her father hadn’t bothered either, and she didn’t recall her mother ever doing so.
Nadia had a few hazy memories of Carla, but none involved gardening. She remembered her mother teaching her how to swim, and she recalled her mother used to fuss at her to eat vegetables. Her most vivid memories were of the soothing nighttime ritual of bath time, followed by combing her curly hair before confining it into two matching pigtails.
She also recalled the first moment when she’d realized her mother wasn’t coming back, which had actually been several days after the other woman died from cancer. Her father had told her she was gone. Before her death, neither one had ever tried to hide from their little girl just how serious it was, though of course they had softened the news. Nadia had known her mother’s death was coming, but hadn’t fully understood at the time what that had meant.
It had been a stark moment, staring at her ratted hair in the mirror and realizing her mommy would never be there again to comb it for her, that had made it sink in. It was one of the few times reserved Nadia could remember truly crying, having hidden away in her closet to sob into her pillow so as not to disturb her father, who had seemed so distant then. As an adult, she realized he must have been immersed in grieving, but as a child, he had just seemed unapproachable.
That had been the only time she remembered not being able to go to her papa for something though. As Nadia sat on a stone bench to admire a pink and yellow blossom shooting upward nearby, she hoped she would be as good a parent someday when she had children. Not that she planned to do so anytime soon. After all, there were still qualifying events she would have to prepare for and enter to have a shot at being in the challenging team racing against the defenders for the next America’s Cup.
Abruptly, she found herself picturing what a baby with Sawyer would look like, with golden-brown curls, light-brown eyes, and skin a perfect blend of her darker brown and his paler cream. A pang of envy during shot through her, which was disconcerting. At thirty-two, she wasn’t hearing her biological clock tick by any means, and Sawyer Sinclair was the last person she would choose as father for any future child.
The quiet whir of Harold’s electric scooter heralded his arrival before he came into sight and forced her thoughts to veer in another direction. She was relieved to shed the morose thoughts of her parents, and idle speculation about future children, though tense about facing the older man.
She didn’t think it was an accident he’d come across her in the garden, and she had been expecting some kind of third-degree from him since arriving at his family’s home. He wasn’t as laidback as Kiersten and Caitlin. Harold hadn’t been unkind, and she didn’t expect him to try to bribe her to leave Sawyer or something equally horrible, but she knew he was tougher to fool than his daughter and granddaughter.
He stopped beside her, waving off his sexy blonde secretary whose heels tapped on the paver bricks as she followed a few feet behind. “Find something else to do for a while, Paige,” said Harold sternly.
Looking unruffled, the blonde simply nodded and turned on her heels—heels that seemed ridiculously high for secretarial work—and headed back toward the house.
He stared at her for a long moment, and she struggled to remain cool and composed. There was something piercing in his eyes that made it difficult not to shift like a guilty teenager. Finally, she decided to break the silence first. “I’ve been expecting this, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Harold,” he said gruffly, one of his bushy eyebrows arching high on his forehead. “And expecting what, Nadia?”
She smiled. “I’ve been expecting you to interrogate me.”
He chuckled, and the rich, warm sound had the effect of diffusing some of her tension. “It’s hardly an interrogation, my dear. I simply want to know more about you, and how you fit into my reprobate grandson’s life.”
She couldn’t resist the urge to fidget, his words making her question if he had figured them out. Had their pretense done nothing to fool the older man? She wet her full lips before replying. “What would you like to know, sir?”
He let the “sir” slide as his brows furrowed. So large and dynamic, they were practically a focal point all on their own, and strangely entrancing. She had to fight back a giggle at the thought of being unable to look away from his eyebrows. Perhaps he used them as a negotiating tool in the corporate setting, distracting enemies with the caterpillar-like extrusions of white hair while moving in for the kill.
“I’d just like to know more about you, Nadia. Where you came from? Your family history. The usual.”
She nodded, though she had never been through this sort of ritual before. There had been a couple of lovers whose families she had met, but the meetings had been casual and had never led to heart-to-heart conversations.
In her own way, she was as distant as Sawyer. He pursued anything in skirts, always with the intent of moving on to the next one. She had been far more choosy in her partners, but she had never intended to linger either. Her eyes was always on the ultimate price, and she hadn’t allowed romance to distract her from her goals. It was strange to realize she had something in common with Sawyer.
“I was raised by my father after my mother died when I was just a little girl. I was almost five when she passed away from cancer, and I remember bits and pieces of the time I had with her, but not as much I would have liked to retain.” At his encouraging nod, she continued, “My parents met in foster care when they were both in their late-teens and moved out of their foster parents’ into their own home after graduation. My dad went in the Navy and became a SEAL. They were poor before that, but they had a better life after he finished training.”
“Is the Navy why your father became a sailor?”
Nadia shrugged. “I assume so, but I think he also had a job as a younger boy doing something on the docks where they lived. I don’t know, since he never talked about that part of his life very much. He was a man very much focused on the future, not the past.”
The sole exception she had observed had been regarding her mother. Nadia supposed Gideon probably had dated women, at least casually, but there had never been another serious relationship for him of which she was aware after Carla had passed away. Perhaps he just became too focused on his own dream of winning the America’s Cup, or maybe he had simply loved her too much to contemplate moving on.
“How long was he a SEAL?”