late-night swim. The one when they’d kissed.
“There was music coming from that party across the street,” he added.
Memories flooded through her. They’d been in the water, standing and facing each other, when the faint strains of a slow tune had wafted to their ears. Rand had jokingly asked her to dance. The joke had been on him, because she’d leapt at the chance to be in his arms. They’d rocked together, standing waist-deep in cool water, swaying to the faint music they could barely make out over the night breeze. Their wet young bodies had been pressed together, from neck to knee. Even before Rand had kissed her, she had noticed his body’s reaction, that long, powerful bulge in his swim trunks, and had understood what it meant.
“I remember,” she murmured, unable to pretend she wasn’t experiencing the same magnetic pull she’d always felt around Rand. Long before he’d been rich and famous, long before he’d become a sex symbol, he had appealed to the very core of her being the way no one had, before or since. She’d wanted him from the moment they’d met.
“I remember everything about that summer,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like the day Seth and I picked you up at the airport when you first arrived. You had your hair in a high ponytail and you were carrying a backpack full of Hollywood tourist guides and movie-star tell-alls.”
“You offered to carry it.”
“And the weight of it nearly pulled my arm out of my socket,” he teased.
“Remember my first In-N-Out burger experience?”
“When you licked every bit of sauce off your fingers and then wiped what was left off the wrapper and licked that up, too?”
“Man, I loved those things. Grandfather almost never let me eat fast food.”
“How is the old guy?”
She smiled. “He’s fine. Still very protective.”
She supposed that was no wonder, considering the way Emily’s own parents had dragged her to another country, putting hers and Seth’s lives at risk as they tried to cover up their crimes. After getting Seth and Emily back home, her elderly grandfather had never stopped wanting to keep them safe from harm, especially Emily.
“You know what I remember most?” he said.
She almost hated to ask. “What?”
The pool? My birthday? The scene with Seth?
“I most remember holding your hand all day at Disneyland.”
She sucked in a breath, taken by surprise.
“Really?”
He gazed down at her, tenderness etched into his face. “Really. I’d never done that before. I’d had girlfriends, but I’d never just walked hand in hand through a theme park with anyone.”
The memory meant something to him, she could tell. His stare was intense, so filled with...what was it? Longing? A yearning for a time when life had been so simple that he could experience pure pleasure by holding a girl’s hand?
She had catalogued all the ways Rand’s life had changed since she’d known him, but she’d only ever tallied the positives. The fame, the money, the travel, the fun, the thrill of the game. She hadn’t considered the downsides. It would be impossible for Rand to go to a theme park and just enjoy himself now. Such simple pleasures were completely denied to people at his level of fame, and she had to wonder if the price he paid for such soaring success was one he regretted having to pay.
“That was a good day,” she said softly.
“So, are you going to talk to me now? Let me explain why I came here?”
“I think it’s pretty clear.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m not offended—not really. Surprised, I guess.”
“I just wanted to see you. I’ve never been able to forget the time we spent together, and the way things ended with us. I wanted to know how your life turned out.”
“You could have sent a thinking-of-you card.”
“Would you have replied?”
“Probably not.”
“So you see why I had to come.”
No, she didn’t. It was crazy to believe he’d come here, as he said, to finish what they’d started. He could have a different sex partner every day for a year—or ten—if he wanted to. Yet she couldn’t imagine anything else they’d started that long-ago summer that a man as rich, powerful and successful as Rand might be anxious to finish. It wasn’t as if their teenage summer fling constituted some big, unfinished business.
But maybe, like that simple day in a theme park with a girl, he was longing for a lifestyle he could no longer have. Maybe he wanted to grasp one last memory of the Rand he’d been before he’d become the sexiest athlete in the world.
Emily had never been one to hide from the truth of a situation or bury her head in the sand. Being here with Rand, being held by him, inhaling his essence, feeling the strength of him, was making her crazy and she needed to be sure of where she stood. So she had to ask him.
“Did you really come here planning to have sex with me?”
He gazed at her, not appearing shocked by the bluntness of her question. “Would it surprise you if I said yes?”
“Are you saying yes?”
“Yes.”
She froze, almost stumbling. He kept her upright, locked in his strong arms. Shaking her head hard, not sure whether she was having some kind of surreal dream, she asked, “Why me?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“There are a hundred more beautiful women in this room, much less in the entire world. You could have any of them. So, I repeat, why me?”
He was quiet for a moment, staring searchingly at her face, as if debating how to answer. Finally, he said, “Lots of reasons, but, I guess the most important one is that the curiosity has been eating at me since the last time I saw you.”
Curious about what sex would have been like between them? Well, it wasn’t the most flattering explanation—he hadn’t claimed to have been pining away from her for seven years—but she appreciated it. Because it was honest. And because, if pressed, she would have to admit she’d been just as curious, for just as long.
They’d come so close to being lovers once. Like a kid denied the one present she’d wanted every Christmas of her childhood, Emily had to wonder if the thing she hadn’t gotten might have been the greatest gift ever.
“Are you offended? Because you shouldn’t be. I didn’t come here assuming it would be easy to seduce you.”
“Does
