CHAPTER 9

The terrace gave way to a stone path that wound gently through the manicured garden I'd passed through on arrival. At night it looked different—softer, the edges of everything blurred and silvery, the white flowers almost glowing in the dark. Tiny lights were set into the ground along the path, guiding the way without breaking the quiet of it.

I followed the path without any particular destination in mind, just letting my feet take me wherever they wanted to go.

That was when I saw it.

An infinity pool, set into the hillside just below the main garden, positioned so that the edge appeared to dissolve directly into the darkness of the sea beyond. The water was lit from within, glowing a deep, luminous blue-green in the dark, perfectly still. It looked like something from a dream.

I started walking toward it.

And then I stopped.

There was someone already there.

He was standing at the far edge of the pool with his back to me, very still, looking out over the water. And even from a distance, even in the darkness, one thing was immediately obvious.

He was huge.

Not just tall, though he was certainly that—he had several inches on Rob, who was already not a short man. He was broad too, with the kind of build that took up space in a way that felt solid and real. His shoulders were wide and straight. He stood with a stillness that felt deliberate, like someone who was very comfortable in their own body and had nothing to prove.

I couldn't see his face. He hadn't turned around.

I should have gone back inside. I knew that. I was standing in someone's private garden in the middle of the night, staring at a stranger like some kind of creep. The sensible, normal thing to do was to quietly turn around and go back the way I came.

I was just about to do exactly that when he reached down and grabbed the hem of his shirt.

And pulled it off over his head.

I forgot about leaving.

His back was—there was really no other word for it—extraordinary. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, every muscle clearly defined even in the soft blue light from the pool. Strong and built and completely unselfconscious as he stood there, balling the shirt up in one hand.

I should have looked away.

I did not look away.

He reached for the waistband of his pants next and I snapped my eyes shut instinctively, my face suddenly very warm. I stood there in the dark with my eyes pressed closed, telling myself very firmly that I was going to turn around right now and walk back to the house.

Then I opened my eyes again.

I couldn't help it. I genuinely could not help it.

He had his back to me still, now wearing only a pair of dark briefs, and I had a full, unobstructed view of what I could only describe as the most perfect body I had ever seen in real life. His legs were thick and strong, the muscle in his thighs and calves visible even from here. His shoulders in the moonlight looked carved from something.

He walked forward to the edge of the pool and slipped into the water in one smooth, easy movement, barely making a sound. The water rose around him, glowing blue-green against his skin.

And then he began to swim.

He moved through the water with long, powerful strokes, completely at ease, turning his head to breathe in that practiced way of someone who had been swimming his whole life. The moonlight caught the water as it moved around him, lighting him up in silver and blue, and the little I could see of his face when he turned—the strong line of his jaw, the dark hair pushed back from his forehead—made my breath come slightly faster.

Something told me he would be handsome. More than handsome.

I was absolutely certain I should leave.

Instead, I looked around and spotted a large potted plant near the low stone wall that bordered the pool area. Before I fully understood what I was doing, I had crossed the path and crouched down behind it, hidden in the shadow, close enough now to actually hear the quiet sound of his body moving through the water.

I watched him swim.

His body moved through the pool with an ease and power that I found impossible to look away from. Back and forth, each turn at the wall effortless, each stroke smooth and certain. He wasn't exercising frantically. He wasn't racing. He moved through the water the way someone moved when they needed to think, when they needed to feel something solid and physical under all the weight of whatever was going on in their head.

I understood that feeling completely.

The moonlight caught his face again as he turned, and my heart did something strange and lurching in my chest.

Strong jaw. Dark brows. The kind of face that was almost aggressive in how well-made it was.

And something else. Something familiar in the line of it, something that tugged at the edge of my brain.

I leaned just slightly further out from behind the plant, trying to see better, and the heel of my sandal scraped against the stone path.

The sound wasn't loud. Barely anything.

But he stopped swimming immediately.

His head turned toward the darkness where I was hiding.

I pressed myself flat against the plant and stopped breathing entirely.

He stayed completely still in the water, his head turned in my direction. Just listening. Just waiting.

I didn't move. Didn't breathe. Didn't blink. I pressed myself as close to the plant as I could get and silently begged every muscle in my body to cooperate.

The seconds stretched out like taffy, slow and unbearable.

Then he turned away. His head dropped back and he pushed off the wall, resuming his slow, powerful strokes like nothing had happened.

I let out the breath I'd been holding in one long, shaky, silent exhale. My hand was pressed flat against my chest like I was trying to hold my heart in place.

This was insane. I was crouching behind a plant in the middle of the night, spying on a stranger swimming in a pool, nearly getting caught, and my heart was pounding like I'd just sprinted a mile. What was I doing? What had gotten into me today?

I needed to leave. Right now. Quietly and immediately and without looking back.

I shifted my weight slowly, carefully, easing my foot back so I could stand without making another sound. The stone path was uneven beneath my sandals and I moved with the kind of agonizing slowness I hadn't used since sneaking out of my apartment past a sleeping roommate in college.

I was almost upright.

Almost.

"You can come out, you know."

His voice stopped me cold.