Two if by Sea by Marie Carnay Page B

business. There were already singles resorts all over and a couple cruises, but nothing like the Stardust.” He waited for Daphne to catch up. “We started with a small cruise liner, a couple weeks a year. It took off like wildfire.”
    “And now you’ve got this?”
    “Yep. An enormous traveling party. We’ve got a cruise sailing almost every day of the year. We’ve branched out into all sorts of different themes. Employ a ton of staff. Everything pretty much runs itself.”
    “So why are you still involved? You could stop sailing and do something else.”
    Damon chewed on his lip. Had she hit a nerve? “Yeah, I could.”
    “Tony doesn’t want to?”
    Damon rubbed the back of his neck. “Tony’s complicated.”
    “And you aren’t?” Daphne didn’t know why she was pushing so hard. But something about the way Damon skirted around the truth bugged her. She wanted to know more about him. She wanted to get inside his head and figure out whether there was more to him than a fly-by-night player.
    “I could settle down.”
    Daphne blinked. Not what she’d expected. “You mean get married?”
    Damon fidgeted with the rope. “I don’t know. Tony and I…we’ve been…”
    “You wouldn’t want to leave him.”
    Damon caught her eye. “I don’t know what he’d do alone.” With a sad smile, he took off, climbing ahead of her up the rock wall.
    Wow . She’d never pegged him as the sentimental sort. The way he and Tony had taken control the night before…The things they did to her body. The way they lit her up and made her beg for it…
    She hadn’t given him enough credit. Here she’d been so focused on herself and her own feelings, she’d assumed the man didn’t have any of his own. Especially not ones that ran so deep.
    His shoulders flexed and his toes gripped a rock a few feet above her. Yesterday all she’d seen was a hot body and a big ego. A man out to prove himself between the sheets. Today?
    He’d opened her eyes. There was someone real underneath that bravado. Someone she wanted to know a hell of a lot better. She grabbed the next fingerhold and hoisted herself up in the air.
    He wanted to race to the top to hide his feelings? She’d beat him to it.
    Up and up she climbed, always a few feet behind Damon’s muscled form. Damn it. She pushed harder, reached higher. A quicker lunge with her back leg. A better grip with her fingers. By the time the top of the wall came into view, she’d gained on him.
    A few feet more and shit! Her foot slipped, her fingers gave way and Daphne let out a shriek.
    Damon’s hand wrapped around her wrist and caught her. “Easy. You’re safe. The harness will protect you.”
    Her heart hammered inside her chest and she nodded through gulps of air. He was right. She hung suspended off the wall, not falling. As her breathing slowed, she looked up at him. “Then why are you holding me?”
    Damon smirked. “I didn’t want to wait for you to climb up here again. Come on, we’re at the top.”
    He hauled her up until she could grab ahold of the lip of the wall. Damon climbed onto the platform and pulled Daphne up beside him.
    What had looked like thin air from below, was actually a large landing and an elevator bay. Daphne gripped her thighs and bent over to catch her breath. “We’re taking that back down, right?”
    Damon grinned. “Not yet. First, you’re coming with me.”
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DAMON
    Her opinion of him shouldn’t matter. But something about the way Daphne had dismissed his future bothered Damon. It wasn’t that she was wrong—the woman had him and Tony nailed. But he’d never seen it from someone else’s eyes.
    He’d never seen the pity.
    After shedding the climbing gear and sending it back down the wall, Damon led Daphne to a secret door. Tucked into the corner, it blended in with the rock face and practically disappeared.
    He pushed it open and ushered her inside.
    “What is this place?” Daphne stepped in and spun in a slow circle.
    Damon