Page 16 of Resurgent
I grin. Damn, she’s a firecracker. “I wouldn’t say keeping you alive is keeping you hostage. But okay.Ournext step. As long as you keep in mind I have the final say.”
She frowns. “Why do you get the final say?”
I reach over and wipe a fleck of foam off her upper lip. “Because I’m in charge.”
She huffs with indignation, but there’s something about the way she shifts self-consciously in her chair that has me wishing things were different. “Control freak,” she mutters. “You like to be in charge of everything.”
“You have no idea, sweetheart.” I ache to be in charge of her body and her pleasure. But of course, that’s out of the question.
Even though I’m not going to touch her, I’m looking forward to spending some time alone with her in Mexico.I know things don’t look too good for me, and this might be the last time I enjoy flirting with a beautiful woman. Or maybe it’s her. There’s an electricity whenever we touch, an undeniable chemistry and connection I’ve never felt before.
“Playa Aislado is a popular honeymoon destination. We’ll pretend we’re newlyweds from Denver.” It’s a stroke of genius if I do say so myself. This whole debacle is going to be infinitely more fun flirting with her and playing the part of the newly wed groom. Just then, we pass Diamond International and I impulsively grab her hand, pulling her inside. “You need a ring.”
“No, I don’t.”
Before we can argue about it, we’re greeted by an elegantly dressed woman who seems accustomed to sucking up to tourists with money burning a hole in their pocket.
“I’m Giselle and I’ll be happy to assist you today,” she says. Turning to me, she says, “You are looking for something for the lady, yes?”
“Yes. An engagement ring.”
She claps her hands with delight. “Puerto Vallarta ismuy romantica, si?Un momento. I will get my best for you. A woman this beautiful needs something equally beautiful.”
As she disappears into the small stockroom, I turn to Charlotte. She looks like the proverbial deer in headlights. “Anything in particular you like? Round? Square? Triangle?”
“Triangle? It’s called a marquis, and no. I—do we really have to do this?”
The irony isn’t lost on me. Most of the girls I’ve dated would have given a kidney for a ring and a commitment, and here I am actually buying a ring for a girl and she doesn’t want it. Perversely, her reluctance only makes me more determined to buy her the biggest and best diamond I can.
“Absolutely. Who’s going to believe we’re newlyweds if you don’t have the requisite rock on your hand?” I lower my voice. “I’ve got money to burn. It’s not mine. I might as well put it back into the Mexican economy where it belongs. Now come on, tell me. You’re a wedding planner for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t believe in marriage,” she says crisply.
I almost burst out laughing. A wedding planner who doesn’t believe in marriage? But before I can respond, the saleswoman returns with a tray of rings and a bottle of tequila. She pours us each a shot. “Diamond International tradition,” she says with a wink.
Charlotte stares at the two shot glasses dubiously. “This doesn’t seem like the best time to get drunk. It’s not even ten o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s always a good time to get drunk, sweetheart. That’s what you do on vacation.”
I pick up one of the shot glasses and hold it up in a toast. “To second chances.” I down the shot, and then nod at hers. “You going to drink that?” Obviously, drinking alcohol before ten o’clock in the morning isn’t part of Charlotte’s master plan, but it’s a shame to waste good tequila. I’m about to take hers, too, when she surprises me by picking it up and smiling at me for the first time since we walked into the store. “You’re right. Why not? To second chances!”
Giselle shows us several rings, and while Charlotte no longer looks like she’s going to run away, she tries on each of the rings with a certain sense of detachment.
“Which one do you like best?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “I don’t care. You choose.”
“Have it your way.” I wink at her. “See? It’s not alwaysmyway.” I pick a two-karat round cut diamond with smaller diamonds set in an infinity band, and hand Giselle a wad of cash.
“Li—” Charlotte catches herself before she says my name. In a loud whisper, she says, “That is way too much for a fa—” She stops again, frustrated by her inability to say what she really wants to say. I don’t help her out. It’s kind of fun shaking up Charlotte. She takes a breath and says more calmly, “I don’t think you should spend this much money.”
Giselle overhears her and fusses, “It is the man’s prerogative to spend what he wishes for the woman of his heart.”
I grin at Charlotte. “What the lady said.” I could have gone with a cubic zirconia, but I have a shit ton of dirty money that I don’t want, and some perverse part of me wanted Charlotte to have something real, something beautiful, something to show her she is worth it. Something that makes her mine, even if only for a few days. Taking her slender hand in mine, I slide the ring onto her finger. There’s that current again, and I feel a tug of something both familiar and absolutely foreign. “You’re mine now, sweetheart.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but somehow, it comes out in a deep rasp.
She’s the kind of girl you could spend forever with.
Where the hell did that thought come from? She’s not for me.That’snot for me, not even if and when I sort out this gun running fiasco. When I chose to be a Navy SEAL, I chose to put my country first, even before myself. I can’t ask a woman to give that, too—marriage to a man who’s gone more than he’s home, unable to provide the kind of emotional support a woman deserves, the years marked by a series of goodbyes. Sure, some of the other guys on the team make it work, but I see the toll it takes on their marriages. Most don’t last. It’s even worse for the ones that do. Those sorry S.O.B.s have too much skin in the game. I stay strong, and I’m the SEAL that I am because I have nothing to lose.
I like my life exactly the way it is. I don’t need a woman. At least not one I give my heart to. Why would I want that? I get plenty of pussy when I want it, and then I say goodbye and go back to doing what I do best—unencumbered. But Charlotte…she could make a man doubt everything.
