Page 27 of Daring Wicked Love (Wicked Dade #2)

“Do you want to build a sandcastle with me?”

Peeking up from my laptop, I was met with a pair of blue eyes and a plastic spade.

The virtual meeting with the board didn’t go exactly as I anticipated, with them continuing to pressure me to replace Jaxon.

Their lack of understanding that I didn’t need my brother to keep Dade Diamonds alive was going to drive me to an early grave.

Since Jaxon left, there had been a couple of hiccups, I’d admit.

However, at least two of them were just a case of bad timing.

The issues at Impact Advertising and the $2.

5 million we lost in unseen advertising space due to the company being shut down were completely down to Kilroy being an idiotic batard .

Also, when the sponsorship with Icon Fashion Week had been snapped up by Reynolds Regality Jewels instead of us went down like a lead fucking balloon.

And not to mention the deal I’d struck with the Apex Saintz Formula One team for a two-year sponsorship was hanging by a thread after I rescheduled the meeting twice.

The first time was due to court, and the second was because I was in Nice.

The board was concerned that I was distracted as of late, and I was starting to unwillingly agree.

Their unspoken hints about me stepping down temporarily were as subtle as a grenade in a church.

“Your dad is working right now,” Orla said. “But I love building sandcastles.”

Penelope’s smile vanished in a blink, her gaze dropping to my laptop before she turned to Orla and handed her the plastic spade. “You start digging. I will go and get some water.”

When Orla suggested a day at the beach, Penelope skipped the entire way there from the villa. Especially when she realized I was joining them, despite having a mountain of work to do after the board meeting.

I reasoned with myself that I could go as long as I did some work while there.

Because the board was right, I was distracted, and it was costing the company.

Watching Penelope now, the same spring in her step long gone as she walked down to the shoreline.

I loathed myself for being the reason why.

“She’ll understand one day.” Orla shifted from her sun lounger to sit on the bottom of mine. “Everything you do is for her, I can see that, and one day she will too.”

If I get to keep her.

“I know,” I exhaled slowly. “It doesn’t make it any easier.”

Orla’s hand rested on my knee, her touch setting my skin ablaze. “Do what you need to do, I got this.” Softness crept into the corners of her eyes. “And when you are finished, come join us.”

Unable to stop myself, I placed my hand atop hers. “Thank you.”

“Just don’t take too long. I suck at building sandcastles.”

She moved away and joined Penelope, who now sat on the sand with her back to me.

The echo of her touch still lingered on my skin. As much as I told myself that the quicker I sorted out my emails and reached out to the manager of Apex Saintz, the quicker I could join them, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my two girls.

My two girls.

Non — Orla wasn’t mine, and she never would be.

It was a bitter, gigantic pill to swallow that threatened to choke me.

Orla could never truly be mine. Her heart wasn’t mine to steal and hoard away greedily for myself, not when I wasn’t sure I even had a heart to give her in return.

The beating organ in my chest was too blackened, too mangled to belong to anyone.

If Orla caught a glimpse of it — if she saw the real me, the untrusting, broken, and damaged man that I was, she’d run a mile.

And I wouldn’t blame her.

Everyone leaves in the end. My maman, hell, even my own brothers left too. It’s apparently the status quo in my life.

But I refused to let Penelope be another name on that list, not when I had a fighting chance to stop it.

After several phone calls with the owner of Apex Saintz and a few negotiations, including a five percent loss for Dade Diamonds , I was able to keep him from backing out of the deal altogether.

Once I informed the board, I closed my laptop for the day and strolled toward Penelope, giggling hysterically as Orla’s sandcastle met its demise and crumbled into a pile of wet sand.

“For crying out loud!” Orla exclaimed whilst smiling. “This sand is clearly the problem. I mean, why else do my castles not stand upright?”

Penelope tried to hide her laughter behind her sandy hands.

I dropped to my knees between the two of them. “Your sand is too wet.”

Orla’s eyebrows shot up.

“You need one part water to ninety-nine parts sand.”

“Gee whizz, when did you become a sandcastle expert?”

“The house I grew up in had a beach nearby,” I said, silencing the bittersweet memories of my childhood by gathering fresh sand into a bucket. “Most days after school, me and my…My maman spent the late afternoons on the beach.”

It had been twenty-seven years since she passed, and it still felt like a hot poker through the chest thinking about her.

Penelope fiddled with a couple grains of sand, her gaze refusing to meet mine. “Was your mama good at building sandcastles?”

My chest tightened, the long-locked away memories breaking free from their chained boxes. “Your mamie was the best at making them.” I grabbed the plastic spade and started to dig. “She was the one who taught me everything I know, including how to make a moat around the castle.”

“She sounds amazing.”

My throat constricted. “She was the best.”

Penelope chewed her bottom lip. “Do you miss her?”

Acid wreaked havoc at the back of my mouth. “Every single day.”

“I wish she were here to teach me how to build sandcastles.”

Me too, mon petit soleil .

“Everything your mamie taught me is right up here.” I tapped the side of my head. “And I would love to be the one to teach you.”

Finally, my daughter looked at me.

It didn’t matter how many times I stared into those saucer-wide blue eyes of hers. I struggled to understand how someone like me could create something so pure and good.

“You’ll show me?”

“Of course I will, mon petit soleil. You know I’d do anything for you.”

“Anything?”

“No matter what.” I reached across and stroked the apple of her rosy cheek. “You are and always will be my number one priority. Nothing will ever change that.”

She nearly knocked the breath out of my lungs when she lunged into my arms and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“I’ll go and get us some fresh water,” Orla said thickly. “We are going to make sure this sandcastle stays upright this time, whatever it takes.”

Off she went, bucket in hand, and a few tears she was unable to hide streaming down her cheeks.

I meant every damn word.

I’d sell my soul to the devil ten times over if it meant Penelope was happy.

I just wasn’t sure how much of my soul was left to give.

“What if there are jellyfish in there?”

“There’s no jellyfish.”

Orla looked between me and the ocean I was surrounded by. “I read on the internet that there are jellyfish in this ocean, and that a sting from them is deadly.”

“First off, their stings will hurt like a bitch, but they won’t kill you.” I chuckled. “Secondly, there are no jellyfish in here for you to worry about.”

“The internet does not lie.”

I rolled my eyes, no longer fighting back my grin. “Do I have to come over there and drag you in?”

“I’m perfectly fine right here, reading my book, thank you very much.”

After a day of building sandcastles that didn’t fall over and teaching Penelope the tricks my maman taught me as a boy, I truly didn’t want the day to end.

Penelope had made friends with a set of twins her own age and was keen on showing them everything I had taught her, leaving me and Orla alone.

When I stripped down to my bathing shorts, Orla tried to hide her hungry gaze behind her open book.

Unfortunately for her, I caught every sneaky glimpse she made over her pages.

Only because I, too, couldn’t take my eyes off her.

She was no longer wearing her sunshine yellow dress and was instead relaxing at the water’s edge in nothing but a bright pink polka-dotted bikini.

Only she was able to look mouthwatering in such vivid colors.

And the fact I knew exactly what delights lay under such thin material, made my cock stand to attention in the water.

“You can’t come all the way to the French Riviera and not swim in the ocean.” I wadded toward the shoreline.

“Yes, I can, and I will.” She turned a page of her book. “Now leave me alone, I’ve just hit the best part of the book.”

“You mean the book that you’re holding upside down?”

The heat flaming from her cheeks could have heated the whole of Ontario. Grey eyes went wide, her hands fumbling to quickly correct her book, while I walked out of the water toward her.

“Nice try, Pixie.” I pinched the book from her. “You’re getting in the water with me whether you like it or not.”

“No way,” she proclaimed, standing up. “Jellyfish kill approximately one hundred people per year, and I am not about to become a statistic.”

Before she uttered another word of protest, I grabbed her by the waist and picked her up with ease.

She screamed as I tossed her over my shoulder. Her hands slapped my back, her feet kicking helplessly in the air. “Put me down!”

Thankfully, those who remained on the beach in the dying sun paid us no attention.

“And only Box Jellyfish, which are native to Australia, kill people.” I carried her into the water. “You told me that swimming in the French Riviera was on your bucket list. So I refuse to let you leave here without ticking it off.”

Her fingernails lodged themselves into my back. “Why do you care so much?”

That was the billion-dollar question.

Why did I care?

Perhaps it was the way she was with my daughter, how Penelope was totally enamored with this pixie of a woman, and with each passing day, I was starting to understand exactly why.

And maybe it was because I was starting to enjoy being the reason she smiled, the reason she was happy, the reason she laughed, more than my brain cared to admit.

I declawed Orla from me as the water reached my waist. She quickly wrapped her legs around me, doing nothing to help my pulsing cock, and clung to me like a koala bear. “You’ll regret not doing it.”

“There’s always the next time,” she countered, nervously eyeing the water beneath us. “I’m only twenty-seven, I’ve got loads of time left to tick it off my list.”

“But you are here now.”

“Then I’ll come back one day in the future, preferably when I get over my fear of jellyfish.”

Green tinged the corners of my vision at the thought of her coming back here, back to this very spot with someone else.

“Look down. I am standing here waist-deep in the water, and there’s not a single jellyfish in sight.”

“What if they are hiding? Just waiting to sneak up on me and attack me!”

I inhaled her floral scent as she buried her face into the crook of my neck. “Orla, do you trust me?”

She pulled her head back. A line formed between her sculpted brows, her teeth chewing the corner of her lip as she brought her gaze to mine.

My smile faltered.

Trust me.

How could I ask her to trust me when I didn’t even trust myself around her?

Slowly, she nodded. “I trust you, Frederic.”

My lips brushed hers, the warmth of her breath intoxicating me in a second, before I submerged the two of us into the depths of the ocean.

She didn’t push away from me. Her legs tightened around my waist, her hands working their way into my hair, and beneath the surface of the water, she kept her soft lips firmly on mine.

Whatever breath remained in my lungs vanished as I kissed her back, my tongue tracing her seams and stealing away into her mouth.

Salty, warm bliss.

I’d be a dead man before I tired of kissing her.

My mind screamed that allowing myself to get close to her was walking us hand-in-hand down a path of ruin and heartache.

But I didn’t care. I willingly and selfishly kept walking, because maybe, just maybe, she was worth the pain.