“I got lost along the way. And it’s like you put me back on the right path.”
“I’ve gotten lost myself.”
“You’re like the sun in all the darkness surrounding my life.”
“And you’re my sunshine as well. You paid my rent,” I continued softly.
He tensed for a moment. “Yes.”
“And you kissed me. More than once.”
There it was. Finally, out in the open for all to see. The thing we were pretending never happened. I’d never forget how we were wrapped together on a moonlit shore.
His lips parted uncertainly as his eyes searched mine. “…yes.”
I stared up at him in honest curiosity, my face an open book. “Why?”
Without seeming to think about it, he reached down and stroked back a lock of my hair, twirling it between his fingers before smoothing it flat on the pillow.
“Rebecca…”
His face softened, and his eyes glowed as he remembered.
“How could I not kiss you?”
Chapter 10
We’d ended up going to sleep that morning sometime between five and six, so I felt no guilt when I stayed in bed until noon. After his startling confession, Marcus had walked me back to my room, kissed me, and left, leaving me to stew in his cryptic affections until sleep finally overtook me. I was still lazily stretching, gazing out at the afternoon sun, when there was a knock at the door.
“Just a minute,” I cried, racing to the mirror and doing my best to smash down my flyaway curls. Marcus might have somehow mastered cute bed-head, but me? I looked scary. After watching a renegade strand bounce cartoonishly back up three times after my efforts to stop it; I put my hair in a quick, stylish bun, one of those gigantic topknots that sat on top of your head. I then pulled open the door.
“Hi, Marcus.”
“Good morning.”
“I loved our movie marathon.”
“Me too. So what happens?”
I grinned. “They all get killed in the end, Marcus. Every single one of them. The escape doesn’t happen.”
For a split second he froze, but then he smiled easily. “Nah—my Rebecca doesn’t spoil endings, remember? She plays everything very close to the chest. And you look adorable, by the way.” He flashed a grin.
I shot him a smile. “So what’s on the docket for today? Sand-racing? Baton-twirling? What is it that our adoring public would like to see?”
“Actually,” he began, “I was thinking that after our long day yesterday wine-tasting and meeting the in-laws, maybe we’d just take it easy. Go out to one high society lunch but then come back here and chill?”
“Chill?” I raised my eyebrows doubtfully. “Are you just Googling words now to make you sound like one of the guys?”
He grinned and played along. “Give me a break, I heard it on the show last night.”
“Right.” I chuckled. “I’ll get dressed and meet you downstairs. How fancy are we talking about?” I called as he headed down the hall to his room.
“Fancy.”
* * *
Thanks to the well-stocked closet I found in my room, I could do fancy. After a painstaking deliberation, I ended up going with a little black lace number. While it had long sleeves and a modest neckline, it stopped a few inches below my thighs and the nude slip beneath it made it look like I’d simply spray-painted my body in lace. I swept up my curls off my shoulders and put on some dark red lipstick and a smoky eye.