Читать книгу In Too Deep - Taryn Belle - Страница 11

WHEN ALEX’S HEAD broke the surface of the water, cold fear was still pumping through his veins. Just moments ago he had been quite certain he was about to draw his last breath. Ripping his mask off with shaking hands, the only thought in his mind was: he’d been a fucking fool to ever think he could do this. Quick on its heels, fueled by his extremely damaged ego, was the thought that he never wanted to face the person who’d been stuck with saving him. Given the choice between terror and humiliation, he chose a third option—outrage.

“What the hell happened down there?” he sputtered to Rusty after he’d yanked his regulator from his mouth. No, not his regulator, not even his rescuer’s—the device he’d just pulled from his mouth was the spare air supply that his own instructor had had to save him with. After Rusty finally got the memo that things had gone south with one of his students, he’d taken over the job and relieved Alex’s real rescuer so he or she could surface and save their own life. “You let me lose the group on my first dive? My fucking belt falls off?”

Beside him, Rusty yanked his mask down around his neck. “The important thing is that you’re all right,” he said soothingly, waving to his driver to pick them up. “Let’s get on the boat and I will explain.” The driver spun the boat in a semicircle and then backed up toward them, expertly placing the ladder within Alex’s reach. He grabbed on to it and heaved himself out of the ocean, feeling water gush down his legs as his wet suit drained. Four pairs of eyes—those of his fellow divers, comfortably seated on the benches—turned to look at him as he stumbled on deck. Great. Now he had an audience, as if he didn’t feel stupid enough. And he knew very well how he’d just sounded—like one of those pompous assholes that Alex himself hated, the ones who tried to blame everyone else for their failings. Still breathing heavily with exertion and adrenaline, Alex sat down on the bench and leaned his head forward with his elbows on his knees, trying to get himself together.

Rusty dropped down beside him. “Another diver got caught in fishing line, so I had to stop and cut him out. It happens sometimes.” When Alex didn’t respond, Rusty calmly went on. “You swam away from your buddy. Your belt slipping off was a piece of bad luck. I came for you as soon as I realized you were missing, but thankfully someone else got to you first.”

Alex shook his head with his eyes focused between his feet. He still didn’t understand what the hell he’d been thinking. He remembered gazing out at the sinkhole from the reef, and then an overwhelmingly optimistic feeling bubbling up in his chest. He would do more than get over his fear, he remembered thinking—he’d fucking obliterate it. And then he’d started swimming toward the sinkhole like he was under some goddamn spell or something. To say he was furious with himself was an understatement. He’d thought he could handle this, could conquer his lifelong fear, and instead he’d only succeeded in making it worse than ever.

“Nitrogen narcosis,” called out a female voice from behind him. “At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. Did you feel giddy and invincible?”

That voice—it was vaguely familiar. Alex lifted his head and slowly turned it to see a woman standing on the other dive boat, bobbing up and down with the waves in an opposing motion to his craft.

No.

It was her. Looking completely different from this morning—wet hair askance, a red rim around her eyes where her mask had imprinted on her now-pale skin, but those aqua irises—he could see them all the way from where he sat. There was no mistaking it: the goddess he had encountered on the road this morning, the hottest woman he’d laid eyes on since forever, was his rescuer.

Alex’s pulse kicked into high gear, making his ears ring. Now he truly wanted to die of humiliation. Everyone on both boats was staring at him now, including another large, protective-looking instructor at the woman’s side. As Alex looked at them, his memory of the recent events fell away, leaving only an intense visceral feeling in his body that was all too familiar. He felt the warm gush of water rushing out of his mouth, saw the crowd of kids staring at him, and his father’s furious face as he strode toward him. And then later—the sharp sting of his father’s slap across his five-year-old cheek. His father, the person who was supposed to care about him, had only enforced to Alex how badly he’d messed up.

Alex’s hands curled into fists on his thighs. He’d learned about nitrogen narcosis in his scuba lessons, but his understanding was that it only happened at depths below a hundred feet. Was she trying to help him save face? Or making fun of him? He knew he owed her his thanks for saving his life, but with his emotions running riot, he feared doing so might reduce him to tears. So instead, he jumped up and strode to the end of his boat, getting as far away from his rescuer as possible.

* * *

“Whoa,” Kiki said to Nicola as she watched her friend down her second tequila shot in five minutes. “That bad, huh?”

“That bad,” Nicola confirmed, sliding her glass across the bar for a refill.

“Care to talk about it?”

Nicola shrugged. “What can I say? I saved some Z-list celebrity today—risking my own life while I was at it, I might add—and he doesn’t even have the decency to thank me. I mean, sure, it’s part of my job description, but really? The way he was looking at me, it was like the whole thing was all my fault or something.”

Hands on her hips, Kiki shook her head in disbelief. It was one of the many things Nicola loved about her roommate—that she could always count on Kiki for a big validating reaction to her stories. “Jesus. Where does someone even get off?”

“I know, right?” Nicola said, lifting her third shot to her lips. “Maybe it’s a Moretta thing.” She threw the tequila back with a quick toss of her head, and then clunked her glass down on the counter. “Like as in, maybe I’m just not cut out for this place.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Kiki said, slinging her dish towel over her shoulder and leaning her elbows onto the bar to get in her friend’s face. Her pretty green eyes narrowed at Nicola. “You’ve only been here for four months. It’s been good for you. You are not bailing on this like...” She stopped.

“Like I usually do? It’s okay, Kiki, I know.”

“Okay. Good,” Kiki said, plucking a wineglass from the rack above her to fill an order.

Nicola watched her friend, thinking how grateful she was to have her in her life. When Nicola first came to Moretta, it hadn’t been with the intention of staying here. After she’d been fired, she’d known exactly who to call in a fit of tears. Kiki had convinced her that a break from it all would do her good, so Nicola had packed a suitcase and flown to Moretta the following week. It wasn’t hard to fall in love with the place, and when she’d gone for a dive and mentioned to Rusty that she was an instructor herself, everything had started falling into place. Kiki needed a roommate, Nicola needed a place away from the spotlight where she could regain her sanity and still earn a living, and they both needed a friend. A few phone calls back to LA was all it took to wrap up her life there. She’d been sharing an apartment with a colleague back at home, and as luck would have it, her colleague had recently started making noise about wanting her boyfriend to move in. Whether her roommate was sincere or just using it as an excuse to kick Nicola out after the scandal, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter—Nicola asked her to put the remainder of her clothing and few personal items into storage, which she’d happily done. Nicola tried not to think too hard about the fact that it had taken less than a day to put an end to a ten-year chapter of her life, because something about it was downright depressing.

Nicola watched Kiki’s eyes following someone behind her. “Dev Stone just walked in,” Kiki said under her breath. “Just another day at the office.”

Nicola could have cared less, but she caught a glimpse of him in the reflection of the bar’s mirror all the same. Hair raked back, careless swagger, a gaggle of groupies in tow. Vomit-inducing. She was just about to say so when she caught sight of another face among the entourage: the diver she’d rescued.

Nicola groaned. This island was much too small, and the scene was so fucking typical that it made her stomach turn. “Don’t look now, but it’s Mr. Z-lister himself,” Nicola told Kiki. “I guess we’ve unearthed whose star he’s hitched his ride to. I have to get out of here.” She slid a twenty across the counter and stood up.

“Total asshole,” Kiki agreed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Never mind that he’s a hot asshole.”

Nicola rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t deny the twinge she felt in her nether regions at the memory of their brief encounter this morning. After everything that had happened, how was that even possible?

“Love you,” Nicola said to her friend, and then she was gone.

* * *

“You should try the lobster,” the woman beside Alex urged him, not even attempting to be subtle about pressing her breast against his arm as she leaned toward the dish. “It’s unreal.”

“Thanks, I’m good,” Alex responded dully, leaning away from her just as unsubtly.

Lobster. He’d seen a whole pod of them today on the dive. It had been amazing to see them all piled together with their antennae waving at him in slow motion—before it all went to shit and he decided he was Poseidon, king of the goddamn sea.

“Hey,” Dev said from across the table, the first word he’d spoken to Alex since they’d been seated. As he watched, the woman on Dev’s left reached for a platter of plantains and started refilling her master’s plate. Alex refrained from rolling his eyes. “How was the dive?”

“Fantastic!” Alex forced a smile, then glanced over his brother’s shoulder toward the adjacent bar to check for any new arrivals. He’d been doing this since they sat down in the restaurant an hour ago, just hoping she might walk in. Just hoping he’d have the chance to apologize and thank her the way he should have in the first place. But there was no one new—just the same lineup of bodies seated at the strawberry blonde’s bar that had been there since they arrived.

A sharp knife of regret twisted in Alex’s gut. He’d acted like a fool. Sure, he’d been furious and terrified, but how could he have let his pride get the best of him like that? He rubbed a hand over his stubbly face. “Hey, you know what?” he said to Dev, pushing his chair away from the table. “It’s been a long day, and I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you back at the house, okay?”

Dev looked taken aback. “Sure, man, whatever you want.”

Alex excused himself and looked around for their waiter. He knew his gazillionaire brother was accustomed to paying—even expected to pay—for everything all the time. Dev wouldn’t even check the bill when it arrived. But it was the principle of it that mattered to Alex. Just as he’d refused Dev’s offer of the private jet, he would pay for his own meals and any other expenses that arose when they were together. Letting his brother give him a free ride only enforced the shadow Alex had lived in his whole life—especially after Dev’s first album took over the charts when he was just twenty years old.

The waiter was nowhere to be seen. Sighing deeply, Alex made his way over to the bar and leaned forward on his elbows. The strawberry blonde bartender was inches away from him, but instead of offering him a drink, she picked up a bar mop and started slowly wiping down the already clean countertop.

Alex cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

“Oh.” She rocked back coolly on her heels. “Did you need something?”

“Just hoping to pay my bill. I can’t find my waiter.”

She tapped a button on the iPad that was sitting on the bar. “Table twelve? Mr. Stone has a credit card on file.”

Alex reached into the back pocket of his shorts and pulled out his wallet, then took out a hundred and laid it on the counter. “Then please just put this toward it,” he said. He was about to walk away when he caught himself and spun back toward her. “Hey,” he said, giving his fists two quick raps on the bar. “There’s a dive instructor that works at the scuba shack...blond hair, greenish eyes—”

“Male or female?” the bartender interrupted with a lift of her eyebrow.

“Female.” And hot as hell, he wanted to add.

“Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell,” she replied with an exaggerated upturn of her palms, then returned to her cleaning.

Alex stared at her. It was so obvious she was lying that it was almost funny—she wasn’t even trying to hide it. Which could only mean one thing: that she and his rescuer were friends, that his rescuer had already spilled the story and that somehow the bartender had figured out that he was the guy who’d made it all go down. God only knew what an asshole this woman must think he was.

“Listen,” he said. “I did something really stupid today, and I owe that woman a serious apology. I get it if you’re protecting her. But as her friend, think about this—would you rather she went to bed tonight feeling shitty, or feeling like a hero? Because she was my hero today, and I really need to tell her that.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow. You’re good.” She reached under the bar and slid a piece of paper across to him. “I’ll give her a note.”