Page 19 of Devotion
Christopher Vale.Shirtless. Swimming in the pool.
Trisha glanced at the scene and said, “I’ll leave you two to it.”
And then, she was gone.
I walked a few steps then stopped. My feet made the decision before my brain caught up.
He was mid-stroke, cutting through the water with smooth, steady strength.
He surfaced at the near edge and pulled himself out of the pool in one motion. Water ran down his chest, his stomach, pooling briefly at the waistband of his black swim shorts before dripping onto the stone. His hair was slicked back, darker when wet, and water droplets rolled down his neck and along the line of his collarbone.
He was built the way men were built when they had personal trainers and the discipline to actually listen to them. Lean and defined, every line of him visible, every muscle doing exactly what it was designed to do. His shoulders were broad and his waist was narrow. There was a trail of dark hair below his navel that my eyes followed for approximately one and a half seconds before I forced them back to his face.
His face was looking directly at me, catching me mid-stare like a tourist at a museum who’d wandered into the wrong exhibit and couldn’t find the exit.
“Miley.” He said my name like he’d been expecting me, which he had,but did he have to say it while standing there dripping wet and half-naked? Was that necessary? Was this a meeting or an unsolicited cardio moment?
“Hi.” My voice came out higher than I would’ve wanted. I cleared my throat and spoke again.“Hi.”
Smooth. Really smooth, Torres.
He grabbed a towel from a lounger and dragged it across his face, then his hair, then slung it over his shoulder without any apparent urgency to cover himself. Because why would he? He looked like that. If I looked like that, I’d never wear clothes either.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
He walked past me toward the villa. I sat down on one of the terrace chairs and pressed my palms flat against my thighs. Then took a very long, very deliberate breath.
Get it together. This is a meeting. A professional meeting. About your career. Your future. Your restaurant. He is a person. A regular human who happens to be extremely tall, extremely wet, and has a stomach you could grate cheese on. Focus.
He returned ten minutes later wearing linen trousers and a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to his forearms. His hair was still damp, pushed back from his face, and he looked like he’d just stepped off a yacht in the south of France rather than out of a pool in Miami. The casual clothes should have made him less intimidating. They did not. They made him look relaxed and so handsome it hit on a delay, where you think you’re fine and then thirty seconds later your brain catches up and you realize you’ve been staring.
“Thank you for coming. Please, sit,” he said, even though I was already sitting, which he noticed with a small smile. “Or, stay sitting. You’re ahead of me.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, settling into the chair across from mine. “What happened at your restaurant should never have happened. It was a failure on my end. Not yours.”
I opened my mouth to say it was fine.
“It’s not fine,” he said, before I got the words out. “Don’t do that. Don’t minimize it.”
I closed my mouth.
“You were assaulted in your own restaurant,” he continued. “By someone associated with me. Your business was destroyed by a public reaction to an incident that wasn’t your fault.” He braced his forearms on the table. “I want to compensate you. The restaurant, the lost income, the cost of rebuilding if you choose to. Whatever the damage is, I want to make it right.”
I sat there with my hands clasped in my lap and my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. This wasChristopher Vale. He was looking me in the eye, treating me like I mattered.
My eyes stung. I blinked fast and looked at the pool.
He leaned forward. “What do you want, Miley? I mean it. Whatever it takes. Name your terms.”
I looked at him and couldn’t help but think of the fact that he knew my name. Those blue eyes were steady on mine, and up close they were more complex than they looked on camera, darker at the edges, lighter in the center.
He was breathtakingly handsome.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Anything.” He held my gaze, and the corner of his mouth lifted, just barely. “And in return, can I ask you for something?”
