“She told you, huh?”

Dylan nodded. “And trust me, I could not feel like a bigger shit than I do right now.”

“Look,” Lucien sighed. “I can’t tell you what to do, and I won’t lie to Kara and Sophie for you. But find your own way to tell her over the coming weeks. I won’t push you. And in any case, I don’t think that brother of yours is likely to come back any time soon.”

Dylan nodded slowly. He recognised the wisdom of Lucien’s words, and appreciated the trust he’d bestowed by allowing him to dictate the pace. His idyll had to end, but he could choose how and when. It was a bittersweet privilege.

“Don’t underestimate Kara,” Lucien said, leaning back on his chair. “She might just surprise you.”

“She already does. Every single day.”

Lucien nodded, cradling his glass in his hands. He knew a woman like that too, and he recognised in Dylan the signs of a man falling hard.

“About the wedding…”

Dylan looked up, his troubled expression clearing a little at the change of subject.

“We’re keeping it low key,” Lucien said. “Just a handful of people, and I… I kind of wondered if you’d be my best man.”

Dylan was unaccustomed to hearing Lucien sound anything but ultra confident, making the trace of nerves behind his question all the more noticeable.

“I’d love to, man,” he said, feeling the tension leave his body as he reached out and shook Lucien’s hand, clasping it with both of his own. “I’d really love to.”

The bond of friendship between the two men deepened as Dylan added more vodka to their glasses. Maybe there was hope, after all. Lucien would have been within his rights to ask him to leave, but he’d chosen instead to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

“Thank you,” Dylan said. “Your faith in me means a lot.”

Lucien lifted a nonchalant shoulder. “Just don’t expect me to hug,” he said, pushing his chair back as he stood. “I like you, but this isn’t Brokeback Mountain.”

As Lucien walked away, Dylan couldn’t repress an inner smile, a feeling of warmth, despite the disagreeable events of the evening, as he gazed into his shot glass. He hadn’t only found a remarkable woman in Ibiza. He’d made a true friend.

At the villa, Kara and Sophie sat on the terrace beneath the shade of an umbrella, little needed now the evening had drawn in, an open bottle of chilled white wine on the table in front of them.

“Here in Ibiza? In a few weeks time?” Kara repeated Sophie’s words. “I was looking forward to a trip to the land of sexy Vikings.”

“Sorry. Blame my Viking. He wants to get married here.”

Kara shrugged with exaggerated resignation. “I’m probably not in the market for a Viking anyway,” she admitted.

“You’ve changed your tune,” Sophie grinned, topping up their wine glasses. “I take it that the divine Mr. Day is the reason for your change of heart?”

“God, Soph,” Kara said, feeling the flush of pleasure on her cheeks at the mention of him. “He really is divine. He’s like…  I don’t even know how to put it. He melts me.” Kara ignored Sophie’s knowing smile. “I mean it, I’ve never met anyone like him before. It’s like… he really gets me.”

“And does he?”  Sophie said, raising her eyebrows questioningly. “ Does he really get you?”

“Holy fuck. Yes. God, yes!” Kara laughed. “Does he ever.”

“Good. You deserve someone to make you feel like that,” Sophie said. “God knows, you’ve kissed your share of frogs.”

“You really think he might be my prince?”

“Any man who can make you blush like that gets my vote. I like him a lot Kara. I really do.”

Kara lay back and closed her eyes, a serene smile on her face.

Maybe it was time for her luck to change. Dylan Day was the first man she’d ever met who seemed to genuinely want her for who she was, without any hidden agendas, without any skeletons in his cupboards, without any secret girlfriends waiting to jump out on her if she let herself get in too deep.

Maybe. Maybe it would be okay.

Kara really wanted it to be okay.

She realised that she believed it could be.

It would be. Really.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“What shall we do with our night off, Sailor?” Kara twirled Dylan’s hair around her fingers, massaging his scalp as they lay baking on the deck of the Love Tug in the late afternoon sun.

Once a week, Sophie and Lucien gave them a precious night off together, and they did the same in return. Tonight was Kara and Dylan’s turn to play hooky, and she wanted to kick back and make the best of every moment. With each day that slid by beneath the warmth of the Ibizan sun, she became more aware of how little time they had until the end of summer. And she resolutely wasn’t thinking beyond that.

“Shall we take this little boat and sail off around the island?” she said.

Dylan rolled onto his side, his warm hand on her ribs as he looked down at her.

“Do you know how to sail this thing? Because lovely as it sounds, I don’t have the first idea.”

“Well that’s that plan scuppered,” Kara said. “Any more ideas?”

Dylan slid his hand down over her stomach, tracing his fingers along the edge of the triangle of her lime green bikini. “How ‘bout I help you get out of this and take you downstairs, show you who’s boss?”

Kara laughed. “Do you have handcuffs? Every good boss needs handcuffs.”

“No. You want me to get some?”

“I already have some, and I might just have to fetch them and show you who’s boss,” she grinned, catching his wrists and encircling them with her hands. He let her hold him down for a few seconds, his eyes lazily turned on. “I might bring my whip too,” she murmured, her chest against his as she slid her knee over his shorts-clad crotch.

“Will you wear black leather?” he asked, lifting his head to catch her kiss, letting his tongue flicker into her mouth.

“No." An amused glint lit her eyes. “You will.”

He laughed, rolling her over and pinioning her beneath him with ease.

“You crossed the line, English.” He restrained her wrists beside her head, his body deliciously heavy on hers. “You wear the leather, and I’ll take it off you.” He dipped his head and kissed her again, slow and easy this time, that world-class mouth of his stealing any argument that might have been in her. There were no two ways about it. She was wildly turned on by the idea of wearing leather for him and letting him take it off her.