Not a Fairy Tale: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance (17 page)

“Yes, please do stop,” a voice intruded.

They shot apart.

Christian Taylor stood over them, hands on hips, feet planted wide. Beside him stood his new bride, a half-smile curving her mouth.

“You texted you were coming down here today, so we thought we’d join you.”

Dom rolled away from Nina, scowling. “That wasn’t an invitation.”

“No, but just as well we’re here. It looks like you two need supervision if you’re not going to end up in the tabloids for all the wrong reasons.”

“Are there any right reasons to be in the tabloids?” Dom rose and wiped off his hands, then helped his friend spread out another beach blanket beside theirs.

Christian shrugged. “Are we going to stand here talking all day, or are we going to hit the surf?”

Dom glanced at Nina and she nodded.

“Enjoy your book.” He stripped off his shirt, bent down to brush a kiss against her cheek, then picked up his longboard and headed for the water’s edge.

“Could be good for your reputation to be seen with a lovely, wholesome girl like Nina,” Christian said, catching him up. Which wasn’t hard since he’d slowed to a walk. The anti-inflammatories no longer seemed to be enough to keep the constant ache at bay.

“It’ll be a whole lot worse for her reputation to be seen with me,” Dom muttered.

No one cared what a stunt man did when he wasn’t in front of the camera. But the boyfriend of an A-list movie star…he’d certainly provided plenty of fodder for the tabloid gossips if they dug into his past.

He added a burst of speed and sprinted into the waves, gritting his teeth against the pain.

“Hi.” Nina forced warmth into her voice as she greeted Teresa.

The willowy blonde stretched out on the blanket beside her with the lithe elegance of a cat. “It’s good to see you again.”

Nina had always felt inferior in the other woman’s presence, but who wouldn’t? Not only was Teresa as flawlessly perfect as most models could only be after hours of a stylist’s attention and skilled airbrushing, but she was an aristocrat and heiress to boot.

Christian’s harsher critics suggested he’d only snagged such a prize bride because of his newly revealed royal bloodline. Nina knew better. She’d had the privilege of watching from the sidelines as Christian changed from philandering heart throb to a man with eyes for only one woman. Any woman would find that seductive.

Nina shaded her eyes and looked out to sea, her heart pulling tight as she searched anxiously for Dominic, only breathing again when she spotted him paddling out into deeper water. She watched as he stood on the board and surfed back in on the crest of a wave. He made it look effortless and graceful, while the beginners in the shallows fumbled and fell.

He knew what he was doing. He was a stunt man, for heaven’s sake. He could take care of himself. But as irrational as her fear was, it wouldn’t let go its tight hold on her stomach.

She forced her gaze away, instead pulling her copy of
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth
out of her bag, pleased to notice that Teresa had also brought out a romance novel, so she wouldn’t be expected to make conversation.

But her attention refused to stay on the page. At last, Dom strode out of the water, his board beneath his arm, water sluicing down his bare chest, his hair wet, and his board shorts plastered to his thighs. He was the most heart-stoppingly gorgeous man she’d ever seen.

She drank in the sight of him, trying to burn the memory into her brain. She would have to tell him soon that Gracie Carr had been offered the role in
Revelations
.

Dom planted the board in the sand and flopped down beside her on the blanket, splattering her with droplets. She squealed and he laughed, leaning in to kiss her. His lips were hot and wet, and tangy from the sea. She opened her mouth to him, and she could almost taste the adrenalin still pumping through him.

But when he pulled away, his adrenalin rush ebbing, she noticed the pinched look around his mouth, as if he were in pain. He rubbed his hip. She wasn’t sure he was even conscious of the movement, but he’d been doing it increasingly of late. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He flashed a smile, a little too bright, a little too offhand. “I just need a rest before I go back out there again.”

Christian didn’t need a rest. He sat astride his board far out, a dark speck against the glare of water, waiting for the next big wave to roll in.

Her eyes narrowed as she turned back to Dom. She wanted to push, to force him to open up to her and be honest, but she didn’t have that right, did she? She’d agreed to “casual” and casual lovers didn’t pry.

Teresa seemed to have no such qualms. She leaned forward to look past Nina at Dom. “Is that still the injury from Paris bothering you?”

He shrugged, not looking at Nina.

A wave of anger, concern, and fear engulfed her. “You’re injured?” she demanded.

He didn’t answer.

“Should you even be training me?”

At that he looked up, but his face was a mask, shutting her out. “Training you hasn’t been that difficult. A lot of other people have done the grunt work.”

She held his gaze for a long moment, but he gave away nothing more. He’d taken her running almost every day. He’d taught her
jiu jitsu
and ridden horses and done things in bed that most ordinary men would find difficult. Surely he couldn’t do all that if he were injured?

But something nagged at her memory.

Dom looked away. “You want to use my board?” he asked Teresa.

Teresa rose.

“You surf?” Nina asked, unable to hide her surprise. The always-elegant blonde had never struck her as the athletic sort.

Teresa smiled, not a half-smile this time but a brilliant, wide smile. “Dom taught me when we were in the Caribbean filming the rest of
The
Pirate’s Revenge
. He’s an excellent teacher, isn’t he?”

Envy stirred. Nina hadn’t been involved in that leg of the shoot. For the first time since she’d started training with him, she felt like an outsider. There was so much she didn’t know about him, so many parts of his life she was excluded from.

A painful reminder that even though she’d met his friends and his family, and achieved a far greater intimacy with him than she ever had with Paul, she was nothing more than just another woman passing through the revolving door of his life. The blasted tears welled again and she had to blink them back.

“Of course the waves in Los Pajaros aren’t ideal for surfing, but it was a safe place to learn.” Teresa hefted the surfboard and sent them a backward wave as she headed down the beach to join her husband in the water.

“This is a good beginner beach,” Dom said, stretching out beside Nina.

Though he didn’t look at her, she shuddered. “No way are you teaching me to surf!”

“Why not? Until you’ve conquered the last of your fears, you won’t be ready to play Sonia.”

She wouldn’t be playing Sonia. And that wouldn’t change, even if she stopped being afraid. This would be a good time to tell him. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She still hadn’t quite come to terms with it herself.

Besides, she’d contracted him for one more week of training. Even if it was pointless, she wasn’t ready for it to end yet.

“I got through the water obstacle in that commando course,” she said instead.

“You got through it. But you were a mess when you came out the other side. That’s facing your fears, but not conquering them.”

“What do you know about fear? You’re not afraid of anything.” She bit her lip. She hadn’t meant for the words to spill out so full of emotion. What had gotten into her?

He caught her face and looked her in the eyes. “There are a lot of things I’m afraid of. Heights is one of them. But I’ve been conquering that fear since I was a kid. I refused to let my fear beat me. I’ve studied it and learned to control it. But here you sit on the beach on a glorious day and you won’t even get your feet wet in the water. That’s letting your fear control you.”

With his thumb he wiped away the lone tear that leaked down her cheek.

“Come with me into the water. I’ll keep you safe.”

She knew he would. But that wasn’t enough. He couldn’t stop the memories from rising up and choking her. She looked out at the ocean. “I can’t.” She tried to make light of it. “I’m from Iowa, remember. Not a lot of sea there.”

Dom frowned. “You told Jacob you grew up in Louisiana.”

She swallowed down the emotions that welled. They seemed unusually raw today, too close to the surface. “We moved away when I was 16.”

“When your father died.”

Did he really have to go into this
now
?

Try not to let the emotions show. She nodded.

“You’re in your mid-twenties now. Were you living there when Katrina hit?”

“Yes.” Damn. She hadn’t been able to hide the harsh abruptness of her tone. She definitely had his attention now.

“And you evacuated to Iowa?”

Slowly she shook her head. “We didn’t evacuate.”

His eyes widened as he took in the words. “You were there? You stayed through it all?”

She nodded. “My parents both worked in emergency services. They couldn’t leave and they didn’t want to leave. And my mother didn’t want me and Jess travelling out of state with strangers. She didn’t want to split up the family.” The irony. “So we stayed. It wasn’t supposed to be so bad. My mother took us to work with her. At least the hospital had generators in the basement. It should have been a safe place.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“There aren’t words to describe what it was like, and I didn’t even have it so bad. So many people had it a lot worse.”

He said nothing, just waited. Would it be rude to say “
I don’t want to talk about it anymore
”? Probably. And it would throw up that wall between them again. She was growing tired of that damned wall.

“The basement flooded and the generators failed. It was stinking hot and there was so little food and drinking water. And the smell…” she choked, as the familiar foul smell overwhelmed her, the memory so tangible she could have been back there.

Four days of that water everywhere. Water that smelled of death.

She coughed on the taste in her mouth. “I need a drink.”

She rose and moved to the cooler box set in the shade. She dug her hands into the ice, tempted to rub a handful of ice chips across the back of her neck. Instead, she took out two bottles of water and returned to the beach blanket. Dom hadn’t moved.

“You never told me,” he said, taking the icy bottle she held out to him.

She shrugged. “It didn’t come up.”

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

She no longer cared if it was rude. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Talking is good for you. You can’t keep it bottled up inside.”

Wanna bet? She’d got through the last ten years by bottling it up, by hiding it behind the wall she’d built around her heart to keep the rest of the world out. “Do you talk like this with all the women you sleep with?” she joked.

“No, this is a first. But I’m up for the challenge if you are.”

She couldn’t remember when last she’d spoken about those days to anyone. Perhaps never. Her family didn’t talk about things like this. Alexanders didn’t need counseling. They gave it to other people. Alexanders were strong and brave and fearless.

Everything she wasn’t.

“Tell me about it.” He didn’t sound morbidly curious, like most of the people she’d met. He sounded concerned.

And he was probably right. She needed to talk about it.

“Sitting around doing nothing was even worse. My sister is very much like my parents. She volunteered to work on the wards. I…” Nina swallowed a mouthful of cold water as she fought for control. “I’m not a hero. I’m not good with sickness and suffering. I spent most of my time in the maternity ward, helping with the babies. Until…with the power out, even the babies were vulnerable. One died.”

A baby whose mother had a difficult birth. A baby Nina had cuddled and helped to feed. She shook her head. Some memories were better suppressed.

“We lived in Mandeville, in a regular suburb with nice houses and friendly neighbors. I hear it’s like that again. I read somewhere it’s one of the Top 100 places to live in the country now. But when we finally managed to get home, there was nothing left for us. The storm surge had done so much damage the house couldn’t be saved. We were homeless. After a couple of weeks living in a shelter, we moved to live with my Gran in Iowa.”

“How did your father die?”

She shrugged and stared out to sea. “We’re not really sure. They never found his body. He probably drowned and was washed out to sea.” She pressed the cold bottle to her temple. “He was part of a search and rescue team. Though he worked on the frontline, we weren’t worried for him. My father was Superman. Danger never fazed him. But he always put other people’s wellbeing over his own safety. It’s a family trait.” She pressed her mouth into a tight line. A trait that had somehow skipped over her and she was glad. Her family might think her selfish for the way she lived her life, but she was okay with that.

“When we couldn’t reach him for days, I was afraid. I had this terrible sense of foreboding. My mother told me I was being foolish. He was just busy and communications were down.”

But she hadn’t been foolish. She’d been right.

She breathed out a heavy sigh, releasing tension she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying with her. “Katrina polarized everything for my family.” At last she dragged her gaze away from the waves and looked at him. “When my mother finally accepted he was gone, she decided that losing everything, the house, all our possessions, even the dog…” Nina hiccuped. “She decided it was a sign that she needed to help other people who’d been through what we’d been through. When the insurance money paid out, Mom didn’t buy a new home. She left me and Jess with Gran, joined the Red Cross and that’s where she’s been ever since: travelling from one disaster zone to another. Jess only stayed at home as long as it took her to graduate. Then she left, too. She and her husband work for FEMA these days. Also saving the world and being heroic.”