For the first time Chase felt an actual flicker of annoyance. She’d dragged everything out here; obviously she’d intended to paint something. So why wasn’t she doing it? Was she afraid? More likely a perfectionist. And, damn it, he knew now that life was too short to wait for the perfect moment, or even an OK moment. Sometimes you just had to wade into the mire and do it. Live while you could.
Pushing away his drink, he rose from his stool and headed over to Miss Fussy.
Millie did not enjoy feeling like a fool. And it felt foolish and, worse, pathetic, sitting here on a gorgeous beach staring at a blank canvas when she’d obviously come to paint.
She just didn’t want to any more.
It had been a stupid idea anyway, the kind of thing you read about in self-help books or women’s magazines. She’d read one on the plane to St Julian’s, something about being kind to yourself. Whatever. The article had described how a woman had taken up gardening after her divorce and had ended up starting her own landscaping business. Lived her dream after years of marital unhappiness. Inspirational. Impossible. Millie turned away from the canvas.
And found herself staring straight at a man’s muscled six-pack abs. She looked up and saw a dark-haired Adonis smiling down at her.
‘I’ve heard about watching paint dry, but this is ridiculous.’
Perfect, a smart ass. Millie rose from her stool so she was nearly eye-level. ‘As you can see, there’s no paint.’
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Inspiration,’ she answered and gave him a pointed look. ‘I’m not finding any here.’
If she’d been trying to offend or at least annoy him, she’d failed. He just laughed, slow and easy, and gave her a thorough once-over with his dark bedroom eyes.
Millie stood taut and still, starting to get angry. She hated guys like this one: gorgeous, flirtatious, and utterly arrogant. Three strikes against him, as far as she was concerned.
His gaze finally travelled up to her face, and she was surprised and discomfited to see a flicker of what almost looked like sympathy there. ‘So really,’ he asked, dropping the flirt, ‘why haven’t you painted anything?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Obviously. But I’m curious. I’ve been watching you from the bar for nearly an hour. You spent a long time on the setup, but you’ve been staring into space for thirty minutes.’
‘What are you, some kind of stalker?’
‘Nope. Just bored out of my mind.’
She stared at him; tried to figure him out. She’d taken him for a cheap charmer but there was something strangely sincere about the way he spoke. Like he really was curious. And really bored.
Something in the way he waited with those dark eyes and that little half-smile made her answer reluctantly, ‘I just couldn’t do it.’
‘It’s been a while?’
‘Something like that.’ She reached over and started to pack up the paints. No point pretending anything was going to happen today. Or any day. Her painting days were long gone.
He picked up her easel and collapsed it in one neat movement before handing it back. ‘May I buy you a drink?’
She liked the ‘may’, but she still shook her head. ‘No thanks.’ She hadn’t had a drink alone with a man in two years. Hadn’t done anything in two years but breathe and work and try to survive. This guy wasn’t about to make her change her ways.
‘You sure?’
She turned to him and folded her arms as she surveyed him. He really was annoyingly attractive: warm brown eyes, short dark hair, a chiseled jaw and those nice abs. His board shorts rode low on his hips, and his legs were long and powerful. ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘are you even asking? I’d bet a hundred bucks I’m not your usual type.’ Just like he wasn’t hers.
‘Typecast me already?’
‘Easily.’
His mouth quirked slightly. ‘Well, you’re right, you’re not my usual type. Way too tall and, you know—’ he gestured around her face, making Millie stiffen ‘—severe. What’s with the hair?’
‘The hair?’ Instinctively and shamefully she reached up to touch her bobbed hair. ‘What about it?’
‘It’s scary. Like, Morticia Addams scary.’
‘Morticia Addams? Of the Addams Family? She had long hair.’ She could not believe they were discussing her hair, and in relation to a television show.
‘Did she? Well, maybe I’m thinking of someone else. Somebody with hair like yours. Really sharp-cut.’ He made a chopping motion along his own jaw.
‘You’re being ridiculous. And offensive.’ Yet strangely she found herself smiling. She liked his honesty.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘So, dinner?’
‘I thought it was a drink.’
‘Based on the fact that you’re still talking to me, I upped the ante.’
She laughed, reluctant, rusty, yet still a laugh. This annoying, arrogant, attractive man amused her somehow. When was the last time she’d actually laughed, had felt like laughing? And she was on holiday—admittedly enforced, but she had a whole week to kill. Seven days was looking like a long time from here. Why not amuse herself? Why not prove she really was moving on, just like her boss Jack had urged her to do? She gave a little decisive nod. ‘OK, to the drink only.’
‘Are you haggling?’
Interest flared; deals she could do. ‘What’s your counter offer?’
He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping slowly over her once more. And she reacted to that gaze, a painful mix of attraction and alarm. Dread and desire. Hot and cold. A welter of emotions that penetrated her numbness, made her feel.
‘Drink, dinner, and a walk on the beach.’
Awareness pulsed with an electric jolt low in her belly. ‘You were supposed to offer something less, not more.’
His slow, wicked smile curled her toes—and other parts of her person, parts that hadn’t curled in a long time. ‘I know.’
She hesitated. She should back off, tell him to forget it, yet somehow now that felt like failure. She could handle him. She needed to be able to handle him.
‘Fine.’ She was agreeing because it was a challenge, not because she wanted to. She liked to set herself little challenges, tests of emotional and physical endurance: I can jog three miles in eighteen-and-a-half minutes and not even be out of breath. I can look at this photo album for half an hour and not cry.
Smiling, he reached for the canvas she clutched to her chest. ‘Let me carry that for you.’
‘Chivalrous
