Sophie (The Boss 8)

“I’m not kidding. Stop being cute.”

He finally took me seriously. “Olivia is around the age I first took Emma. She’ll be fine. You know she understands breathing, she does all those yoga workout videos with you.”

“Okay, that does make me feel a little better about it.” I watched as Molly grabbed her towel and followed Rashida to the docks. “But she also watches Finding Dory and The Little Mermaid, both of which have led her to believe some fucked up things about the sea.”

Amal approached us, tying her beach towel around her waist.

“Are you going with us?” Neil asked her.

She scrunched her nose. “No, thank you. If the rest of you want to be shark bait…”

“Exactly! See, Neil? Sharks.” My mind boggled. The man who’d had the nursery rewired, so all of the outlets were four feet up the wall, was just going to take our precious ward into the ocean full of sharks.

And he looked at me like I was the one being ridiculous. “There aren’t going to be any sharks. And if there are, this is the Caribbean. The sharks here are notoriously chill.”

Amal made the face of someone gripped in the throes of increasingly urgent digestive need. “Did you just say ‘chill?’”

“Chill sharks?” I folded my arms across my chest and lifted my chin. Time to play my ace. “Tell that to the shark that ate Ian and Penny’s neighbor.”

“Oh, for Christ’s—it wasn’t their neighbor, it was their neighbor’s dog. And I’m not sure I even believe that story,” Neil snapped. With a calming pause, he went on. “Please, trust me. This is a wonderful experience for Olivia to have. She will be safe with me. I promise.”

I sighed, still not entirely comforted. “That’s hard to argue with.”

From the docks, El-Mudad shouted, “Are you coming?”

“Not me, Baba!” Amal called back.

Neil kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. All of our parts intact.”

“Mmm, I hope so,” I teased, giving him a little push.

“No.” Amal turned and walked down the beach, adding another, “No!” for emphasis at a distance of about fifteen feet.

I glanced out at the boat. Molly stood at the bow, watching Amal head back toward the picnic site.

“That’s disappointing,” Neil remarked. “She was just saying that she loves snorkeling.”

“Maybe she’s smarter than the rest of you?” I suggested bitterly. How could the man who freaked out if Olivia sneezed more than three times in a row actually think tossing her in the ocean would be a good idea?

“She’s like you. She needs to unwind after too long with too many people.” Neil gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and grimaced. “Perhaps you should see about a massage.”

“Good idea.” Maybe Amal would want to join me. Although, that would defeat the purpose of being alone. “Please, be careful. All of you.”

Neil leaned down, inclining his head to kiss me as I rose on my tip-toes in the sand to meet him. We kept things PG, but leaned toward the PG-13 when he put his arms around me and brought me up against his chest. My white bikini and sheer caftan cover-up were a little too close to being naked.

With a final peck on the tip of my nose, he stepped back. “You said you’d trust me.”

“It’s the sharks I don’t trust,” I grumbled. I held his hand until the very last second as he walked away, and he turned back to wink at me.

I trudged over to the wood and canvas beach chairs Amal had retreated to.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with them?” I asked when I got close enough to be heard. I nodded toward the boat. “I’m going to be boring while they’re gone.”

“Yeah. I could use some boring.” She said, watching me almost suspiciously as I dropped into the chair beside hers. “Please don’t interpret that as a slight against Molly. It wasn’t.”

“I know.” Neil was right; she’d stayed behind for the same reason I had. Well, besides the sharks, at least. “You’re just peopled out.”

She nodded and pulled her sunglasses down, tilting her head up to the sky. After a brief silence, she said, “You don’t think Molly thinks I don’t like her, do you?”

I frowned. “Because you didn’t snorkel?”

“Yeah. And I thought about how it looked like I was storming off.” She chewed her thumbnail and fell silent again. After another long moment, she said, “I just wanted to make sure. Sometimes, I come off as cold.”

“Do you?” I asked dryly.

Her wounded look triggered a shame response in me that made me absolutely hate myself. She was just a kid. It was sometimes difficult to remember, but that wasn’t an excuse to be callous about her feelings.

“Sorry. It was a bad joke,” I tried to apologize, but the hurt had already been inflicted.