Deception (16 page)

“And don’t worry. I’ll look after her,” Lucas said, putting his hand on Chelsea’s knee in what seemed to be a friendly move that could also be construed as something more. Chelsea’s thoughts weren’t giving me any reason to think the latter, so I quickly dismissed the idea.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay to do this?” I asked.

Lucas scowled at me. “What? Do you think your boyfriend is the only one who can do cool tricks?”

“I… um…” I stumbled for something to say.

“Kidding,” Lucas said with a laugh.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “Give her our best.”

Chelsea nodded. “Yep. Will do.”

Lucas turned to Chelsea. “Ready?”

“Uh huh,” she replied. A second later, they were gone.

“Right,” Dave said, rubbing his hands together. “We’re going to have to find out everything we can about your father starting with what your mother knows.”

“Does she have any pictures from when they were younger?” Anna asked.

“Or last known address? Any known friends or relatives?” Dave added.

“Mum must have known some things about him from when they were together, but from what she’s told me, they’ve been looking, or more so hiding me, from him for the last seventeen years. If they knew anything useful about him, then why is he still a problem? Wouldn’t they have already put an end to him?”

Dave rubbed his chin in deep thought. “Well, I still think it would be good if you could go over there sometime and work out what they know. Who knows, maybe we can all put our expertise together and nail this bastard.”

“If only,” I said, still not convinced he could be stopped.

“I think it’s worth a try,” Aiden said. “I mean, what do we have to lose?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Chapter 14

“Hey,” I said, nudging Aiden with my legs, which were draped over his. Anna and Dave had gone upstairs to bed, and we were lounging around, waiting to see if my mum would call before we left for the night.

“Yeah?” he said, gently rubbing my leg closest to him.

“I’ve still got to give you your birthday present.”

Aiden ran his hand up my thigh as he leaned down on top of me. “Really,” he whispered into my ear.

I swatted his arm. “
That’s
not your present.”

He laughed as he propped himself up on his elbow. “I know. I was just mucking around.”

“You’d better be.” After the night we’d had, doing the “horizontal dance,” as Chelsea would say, was so not on the priority list. But I was hoping that after I gave Aiden his surprise, it would be right back up there.

“So, what’s my surprise?”

“You’ll have to wait until the morning.”

“You know my birthday is today, don’t you?”

“Ah, yeah, kinda hard to forget,” I said, looking around at all the mess from the party.

“It’s usually customary to give the birthday boy his present on his actual birthday.”

I shrugged. “When have I ever been normal?”

He grinned. “Never.”

I smiled. “Exactly.”

Aiden sat up. “Do you want to wait any longer for your mum to call?”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t want us around her at the moment.”

“You’re not upset by that, are you?”

“No. She’s never really been one to show her emotions, so I think she would feel more comfortable being by herself without having us there watching her cry or do whatever it is she’s doing.” I sat up and crossed my legs. “Where were you thinking we could go tonight?”

“Not sure, but I don’t think we should stay here to decide. You never know if these walls have ears.”

“True,” I agreed. “So let’s go get our things and get out of here.”

We transported back to the hotel in Switzerland, where we had left our bags with the concierge. We had thought about taking our bags to England with us, but decided against it because that would make our bags vulnerable to Adam, who could put some sort of tracking device in there, defeating the purpose of us sleeping where we knew he couldn’t find us.

Once we had our bags in hand, Aiden told me about another place he knew where we could get a few hours of sleep while we waited for Chelsea to finish up at the hospital. Just as he was about to transport us to wherever he had planned, I swept us away to another destination.

“This is definitely not Tokyo,” he said, looking around. We were standing just outside a marina in Phuket. I’d found this place on one of my explorations of the island while we were staying in Thailand.

“Surprise,” I said.

A smile spread across his face, lighting up his green eyes under the morning sun.

“The only thing I could think you needed was timeout from all the craziness since I started to change. Because, let’s face it, you don’t need anything.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist, lifted me into the air, and kissed me. “Thank you,” he said, putting me back down.

“I’m glad you like,” I said with a smile. “Let’s go get us a boat.”

We picked up the key from the office for the catamaran I had organised while Aiden was off with Lucas before his party.

“You do know how to drive one of these things, don’t you?” I asked Aiden as we walked down the deserted pier towards the boat.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever driven a catamaran before, but it shouldn’t be that much different from our boat on the Goldie.”

He stepped up on board and held out his hand for me. I put my hand in his and stepped onto the boat.

“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” I said.

“How many does it sleep?”

“Eight, in four rooms.”

He laughed. “It would be pretty hard to fit that many rooms on a boat any smaller than this.”

“Okay, so I don’t know much about boats,” I admitted.

“You just liked the looks of it, didn’t you?” Aiden said, walking down the stairs.

“How did you guess?” I followed him down. “Holy crap,” I said, when I realised just how big and luxurious the interior was.

“Lucky for me, you’ve got good taste.” He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and touched his lips to my neck. “And I mean that in more ways than one.”

I turned around in his arms and ran my hands from his stomach up over his chest, and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Oh so modest, aren’t we?”

“You keep forgetting, I had access to that little mind of yours for over a year.” He pressed his index finger against my forehead, then brushed my lips as he dropped his hand back down. “I know what you think of me.”

“Little?”

“Well, it’s got to be smaller than mine, because my head’s bigger than yours,” he said, trying to recover.

I grinned. “In more ways than one.”

“Touché!”

“How about we get this boat out of the marina to someplace where we’ll have a bit more privacy?” I suggested, putting both of my hands on his chest.

He picked them up and brought them to his lips. “I’ll get us out of here, and you can pick us a room.”

I stood up on the balls of my feet and kissed him. “Don’t be too long.” I turned around and went in search for the best room on the boat.

After doing a quick check of the three other rooms, I decided on the last room on the right because it was the biggest. I dumped our bags into the wardrobe and changed into my bikini. My body had not seen sunlight in way too long and was desperate to become reacquainted with an old-time friend. I missed being able to laze around on the Gold Coast, soaking up the sun. I hoped being on the boat would give me a small taste of what life was once like.

I climbed the stairs and found we were no longer at the marina. Aiden was steering us through the giant rock islands made famous by the movie
The Beach
. Hundreds of tourists dotted the shoreline, gaping in awe, but they were also disappointed to find the beach was not as isolated as they had hoped.

I climbed the ladder to where Aiden stood. “I almost forgot how beautiful this place is,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.

He pulled me onto his lap, with my head resting against his arm that was still steering the boat. “I almost forgot how beautiful you look in one of those.” He tugged lightly at the string of my bikini top.

“I almost forgot how charming you are when you’re not worrying about my psycho father.”

His jaw clenched for a second. “Let’s make a deal. No talking about any psychopaths while we’re here in Thailand. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He lifted his arm, bringing me up into a sitting position. “Why don’t you grab a couple of towels and lay them out on the deck. I’ll be down there to join you soon.”

“Sounds good.” I kissed him softly on the lips, then jumped off his lap and went down to the stark-white deck.

I grabbed two towels and spread them out in the middle, then sat down cross-legged in the sun. It had just started to warm the breeze, and before long, the sun would be at full strength. Thankfully, my skin wouldn’t burn, so I wouldn’t have to get out of the sun too soon.

“Want something to drink?”
I asked Aiden.

“There’s drinks on board?”

“I’m not that stupid to organise a boat trip without anything to eat or drink on board.”

He laughed silently.
“I never said you were.”

“So, is that a yes?”

“That’s definitely a yes.”

I went down to the kitchen and opened the fridge, expecting to see the assortment of drinks and snacks I’d ordered, but there were none. “Crap,” I said under my breath. Guess I wouldn’t be using that boat hire company again.

Not wanting to go back upstairs empty handed, I transported to the kitchen in England and grabbed a few plastic bags. I stuffed one bag with soft drinks, beer, water, and juice, and the other with cheese, chips, crackers, and a few pieces of fruit. I also threw in some unidentifiable leftovers in plastic containers. I then transported back on board the boat and emptied the contents of the bags into the fridge, leaving out a couple of bottles of water.

I shoved the plastic bags into a drawer to hide the evidence. When I turned around to go back upstairs, I caught a glimpse of a figure as it disappeared. I had been busted. So much for this trip looking like it had been planned well in advance, which it hadn’t.

When I got upstairs, Aiden was already lying on a towel. I sat down on the other and handed him a bottle.

“I thought you said you were prepared,” he said, rolling onto his side to face me. He propped himself up with his arm and wore a cheeky grin that left me incapable of defending myself.

“I wanted this day to be perfect, but they forgot the food and drinks package I ordered.”

“It is perfect,” he said as he swept a piece of my hair behind my ear. “What made you think of this for my present?”

“Well, you were always saying I needed to take some time out and enjoy life, so I figured that must be something you wanted, as well. At first, I was thinking of sending you on a boys’ night out or a boys’ weekend trip away, but you probably would’ve said no to that ’cause you would be too worried to let me out of your sight,” I said, imitating how he would’ve said it. “And then I remembered seeing the boats sailing around Thailand’s waters, and well, you know the rest.”

“What about Chelsea?”

I knew his carefree attitude would have to come to an end. He was always so worried about how everyone else was doing that he hardly ever thought of himself. Which is why I had wanted to do this for him—give him a day at sea where he didn’t have to worry about anyone else for a change. “She’s with Lucas, and he did promise he would take care of her. He’s going to call when they’re finished at the hospital, and then I plan on bringing them both here.”

“Does Lucas know about the boat?”

I shook my head. “All he knows is that I planned to take you somewhere and I’m going to bring them to us after he calls.”

“And what about your mum?”

“Can you just quit worrying about everyone else and just be happy?”

“Thanks,” he said. He kissed me gently on the lips before pulling back. “I think this is definitely something we both needed.”

“I think
that
is something I need more of.” I put my arm around his neck and pulled his lips back down to mine. Chelsea and Lucas would be finished at the hospital in an hour or so, and I wanted to make the most of the time I had alone in the middle of the ocean with my man.

Chapter 15

I was drifting in and out of sleep when I noticed the sun was positioned directly above us. “Has Lucas called yet?” I asked Aiden, who had one arm draped over me from behind and the other under me as a pillow.

“I don’t think so. Why?” he said in a sleepy voice that matched mine.

“I’m pretty sure they should’ve been finished at the hospital by now,” I said, sitting up.

Aiden sat up, too. “Where’s your phone?” he asked, running his hand through his hair.

“Beside you.”

He turned around, picked up my phone, and pressed the button to see if we’d missed any calls. We hadn’t.

A sickly feeling washed over me. “They should’ve been done at least an hour ago.”

“Let me check my phone before you start thinking the worst,” Aiden said as he stood up. He went upstairs and grabbed his phone. “They haven’t called mine, either.”

The sickness in my stomach intensified. I knew something was wrong.

“The bandage change could’ve taken longer than normal,” he said, trying to ease my concerns. What had started off as a perfect getaway seemed, like everything else, to end badly.

He pressed the screen of his phone, then put it to his ear. I held my breath as I waited for a smile to come across Aiden’s face as someone answered. That smile never came. “I’ll try calling Chelsea,” he said, then put his phone to his ear again. And again, he got no answer.

I stood up and raced towards the stairs, but stopped short. Maybe I didn’t have time to change. “I’m going to go find them,” I said as Aiden came down the ladder.

As soon as he was by my side, I transported the two of us to Chelsea, not caring if anyone was around to see. Aiden could fix that.

We landed in the hospital and came face-to-face with a nurse hovering over Chelsea, who was lying on a hospital bed.