Chapter 8

Noah couldn’t stop eating the butter chicken. Problem was, Zara was standing there, all curvy and delicious and being so nice, and she was waiting for an answer.

“This is great food,” he said.

She cocked her hip and folded her arms. So he would not be telling her he’d found a pair of tickets to her show on opening night. At least not tonight.

“Fine,” he finally said. “I can cancel at the yacht club. But when do you think you’ll have time to teach me how to surf?” He lifted his eyebrows. “You work a lot, you know.”

“Some of us have bills to pay,” she shot back. “And the best time to surf is as the sun comes up.” She started toward the hallway again, and Noah wanted to call her back. “So be ready at five-thirty, okay?” She tossed him a grin over her shoulder as she reached the arched doorway.

“Zara?” he asked, not sure what to say to get her to stay. He only knew he didn’t want to eat alone.

She twisted back to him. “Yeah?”

“Did you…?” His mind blanked, something it literally had never done before. He always knew how to get a woman to come sit by him, smile at him, spend time with him. But Zara was so different in so many ways.

Everything he wanted to suggest required that they leave the mansion. Sit by the pool. Go on a walk. Grab breakfast after the surfing lessons. He couldn’t say any of those.

“Maybe we could watch a movie tonight,” he suggested, stuffing the last of his butter chicken and rice into his mouth. He watched her eyes widen, her surprise palpable. Honestly, he was a bit stunned he’d said the words too.

He was even more shocked when she said, “Yeah, all right. I just need to go change.” She gave him another smile and left the kitchen.

Noah’s heart started partying in his chest, and he worked to keep it in check. It was a movie. In the mansion. Still, he could make popcorn, and he jumped up from the counter, tossed his empty container in the trash and his fork in the sink, and started opening cupboards.

Surely his mother kept popcorn in this place. It took him several minutes, but he finally found some in the cupboard above the microwave. It was ninety-nine-percent fat free, but Noah had put butter on his grocery list, and he could spruce up this diet popcorn in no time.

Ten minutes later, with his sweet and salty popcorn in tow, he stepped out of the kitchen and almost ran Zara right over. “Oh, hey,” he said, stepping back. “I have popcorn, and there’s a mini-fridge outside the theater room. I’m sure there are drinks in there.”

She looked from him to the popcorn, her hair hanging over her shoulder. It was the first time he’d seen her with her hair down, and…he looked closer at her. She’d put on a bit of makeup too, her eyes pulling at him until he realized he was leaning forward.

“What kind of movies do you like?” she asked as he got himself moving toward the steps that went down into the basement.

“I’m flexible,” he said, which caused her to laugh.

“Is that so?” she asked from behind him. “Because I’ve seen you sandwich yourself in my backseat, and I gotta say, I don’t think you are.”

“Ha ha,” he said, elated that this conversation was going so well. “You know what I mean.”

“So, if I say I don’t want to watch something where everything explodes, you’d be okay with that?”

“Sure,” he said, reaching the bottom of the steps and appreciating the cooler temperatures down here. He hadn’t realized he was so dang hot. Had to be the popcorn, and he shifted the warm bowl from one hand to the other.

He glanced around. “Let’s see. Movies over there. Fridge here.” He stepped over to it, praying with everything in him that there would be something delicious to drink inside, and pulled open the door.

Jackpot. “Yep, there’s flavored lemonades in here. And a couple of sodas. Bottled water.”

“I’ll take water,” she said.

“No lemonade?” He tossed her a look out of the corner of his eye to find her examining the shelves holding the movies.

Their eyes met, and Noah felt like he’d been caught in an alien tractor beam. “There’s peach and strawberry,” he said, his voice almost robotic. “Raspberry. Mango.”

She grinned, her white teeth distracting him. “Fine. I’ll take the mango.” She looked back at the movies, breaking the connection between them. Noah felt like he was on a roller coaster, and he wondered if she had any inkling of the same.

He knew he was attractive, but did she find him…attractive? Could she possibly like him?

He slammed the fridge closed and turned away from her, the same way he wished he could turn away from his thoughts. He wasn’t a permanent resident of Getaway Bay, and he had no plans to become one. She lived here year-round.

He was a royal, albeit from a small island. Her family had strong cultural values he had no idea about. There was no way they could be together. And yet, Noah wanted to try.

It was the strangest thing, because Noah didn’t have to try to do a whole lot of anything, especially when it came to women.

“I can’t pick,” she said, sidling up beside him. He startled, getting a nose full of her unique smell. Almost like being at the swimming pool, but with a definite hint of something like a Hawaiian floral lei.

“So let’s play a game,” he said, turning away from her before he could do something stupid, like kiss her. “We close our eyes and pick. We each get a turn, and we have to pick one of them.”

Her eyes danced, and Noah felt that sparking attraction in every cell in his body. His hand moved toward hers, and he brushed his fingers against hers. “Deal?”

She settled her weight on her back leg, effectively putting more distance between them. “Deal.”

He set down the popcorn and drinks and clapped his hands together. “All right, then. Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He moved over in front of the shelves of movies. Knowing his mother, she’d probably had the maid organize them alphabetically.

“No peeking,” Zara said, jumping in front of him. She was tall, but not quite to the height of Noah. She grinned up at him and shook her head, her wavy hair swinging with the movement.

“Like you didn’t just stand over he and look through them all,” he said.

“Close your eyes and pick,” she said.

Noah snapped his eyes shut and lifted his hand, almost hoping Zara wouldn’t move out of the way. But he didn’t touch her, but the hard cases of the movies. He let his fingers trail along them, then moved them down, finally grabbing onto one, slim case and gripping it.

“This one.”

She snatched it from him and said, “All right. My turn.”

“Wait. What did I get?” He tried to see it, but she hid it behind her back. Her grin could easily be classified as flirtatious and playful, and Noah basked in the warmth of it.

“You’ll see. Now step aside.”

He complied, and she closed her eyes and plucked a case from the shelves too. She held both films in her hands and said, “Okay, we’ve got Sixth Sense or Sweet Home Alabama.” She looked up at him, and Noah honestly didn’t care what they watched. He didn’t think he’d even be able to pay attention.

“I’m not feeling very much like scary,” he said, thinking she’d like the romantic comedy better.

“Sweet Home Alabama it is,” she said, stuffing the other one back into a spot where it didn’t belong. He grinned at it, wondering if his mother would notice next time she visited this house. Probably.

Zara took the movie, grabbed her bottle of lemonade, and headed into the theater room. Noah followed, the popcorn and his drink back in his hands. He waited for her to choose one of the recliners right in the middle of the theater, and then he sat right beside her.

“This is sweet and salty popcorn,” he said. “It has sugar and salt, and it’s delicious.” He offered her the bowl, and she laughed lightly as she took a few pieces and popped them into her mouth.

A flicker of surprise flashed in her eyes, and she said, “Wow, this is really good.” She reached over and took another handful and handed him the movie. “I don’t know how to put this in.”

“I got it.” Noah busied himself with getting the movie going, and then he took his spot next to her again. The bowl of popcorn rested on the arms between them, and Noah really wanted to reach for a snack at the same time she did, but he didn’t.

Finally, he gave up, quit eating, and moved the popcorn bowl because Zara had stopped snacking too. His pulse thundered in the vein in his neck, and he reminded himself that he’d held a woman’s hand before.

Not this woman, he thought, but he employed all the bravery he could and slipped his hand over the armrests and delicately took hers.

She looked at him, but he steadfastly kept his eyes on the huge screen in front of them.

“Noah,” she said.

But he squeezed her fingers and said, “Sh. This is my favorite part.”

She giggled, squeezed his fingers back, and adjusted herself so he didn’t have to reach quite so far to hold her hand.

Noah grinned, this level of happiness something he’d never truly experienced before.