Shattered Vows: An Arranged Marriage Standalone Romance (Tarnished Empire)

He wouldn’t be able to get on the board if his life depended on it, I was sure of it. I asked if he’d been paddleboarding or anything. He said he would be just fine.

I tried to hide my surprise when he emerged from his room wearing a gray t-shirt and board shorts. Of course he still looked much more put together than I did in my “excuse me while I kiss the sky” oversized t-shirt. It might have technically belonged to one of my guy friends rather than me. Either way, it hit just below mid thigh and was perfect for a quick car ride to the beach.

When we got there, I hurried from the car, desperate to get on the water. It’d been too long. “You know as a child, my father almost had to save me a few times out there. He used to say to be cautious. She’s beautiful but if you’re not careful, she’ll eat you alive.”

Bastian smirked. “Maybe he would have said the same to me about you.”

“What?” I squinted at him as we approached my food truck.

“Morina Bailey, you’re like the ocean. Pretty without trying, alluring without knowing. But I think you might be just as devastating. You could probably eat me alive.”

I laughed at his assessment, not sure I could take it as a compliment. Still, Bastian’s words warmed me even when I tried to ignore them.

I pulled my board from my abandoned truck, then rounded to the other side. “You can use Bradley’s spare board.”

I think part of him was a little irritated. “You store a board here for him?”

“I’m close to the water. I’ve stored for other people too.”

“Except, his is here routinely.”

I shrugged and slid the board from the hooks. “Sure. He usually surfs with me in the morning if I’m out.”

I hadn’t been though and it was just like Bradley not to reach out with questions. We had that lazy sort of friendship. He might not show for a week or I might not. This time, at least he’d had warning I’d be gone after making me the sign.

“Mo, you back?” My old friend, Jonah, ambled up, his worn body on display in his swim trunks. For a 70-year-old, he rocked his surf bod better than any of us could.

“Not to make smoothies, Jonah. Sorry. It’s going to be a few more weeks.”

He glared at Bastian. “You stole her from us?”

I chuckled. “Someone trashed the inside of my food truck actually.”

Bastian placed his hand on my back. When I glanced at him, he winked, his eyes full of determination suddenly.

A display was in order, I guess. “We’re also sort of dating,” I mumbled.

Jonah nodded. “Word gets around.” He shook out his shaggy gray hair. “Hope this man is good to you. And remember, I need to make sure I get more smoothies soon.” He patted my shoulder and walked on, undoubtedly chasing bigger waves down the beach.

“We’re going this way.” I pointed toward a smaller surf area. “I’ve never encountered rip tides here but don’t fight the water if you go under.”

His brow lifted. “Don’t fight the water?”

“Yes, the water can feel overwhelming when you fall. Never panic. I always say if you go with the flow under there, it’s a fun, safe sport.”

“And if I don’t do that?”

“Well, you can’t dominate the ocean, Bastian. And you can’t reason with it either. The ocean is the boss. Treat her that way.”

“Her?”

“Sure. Only a woman could handle all these men riding her and come out on top every single time, right?”

He laughed at my joke, but I believed it. The ocean would have been a beautiful woman if she was anything: one with power and depth and darkness that held secrets no one in the world could imagine. She took all the waste of the world and still came out looking stunning.

I pointed out at the sparkling horizon. “Did you know the Gulf of Mexico has 4,000 offshore oil and gas platforms and pipelines everywhere? So much drilling and pollution in that water. I think we’d all be better off without it. I want that. I mean, the whole town had to help clean up a spill a few years ago. It was hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil. How do you recover from something like that? The animals…it was just so bad.”

“I won’t argue that.” He stared out, and I glanced back at my food truck.

Bradley’s sign had already faded, the spray paint not holding up against the ocean air. “We have a love-hate relationship with the port and terminals. We make a living off it, but it ruins the beauty.”

“I think we can all work together to bring change to all that,” he murmured like he believed it.

I nodded. “Well, then, I guess I need to get the truck up and running again if this town is going to be thriving soon, right?”

He turned to me with a question in his stare, but something shifted in his gaze before he asked anything. “I’ll get a crew to clean it out and have security come when you want to work.”

“I don’t need security.”

“I think that’s the only way I’m going to let that happen, Morina.”

“Let it happen?” The statement rubbed me the wrong way, like someone stroking a cat from tail to head.

He watched a seagull flying by, white against the blue skies. “It’s a matter of safety, not control.”

With a sigh, I conceded, not sure I wanted to fight him on that front. I didn’t know how much it would cost him to have the food truck secured, but I wanted to make my small amount of money, and I missed my customers, the feel of the beach, and the smoothies too.

We walked to the edge of the water in silence, both probably unsure how to broach the subject of our marriage and the ridiculous measures we had to take so that these port shares could be easily transferred to Bastian.

Before our toes hit the water, I dropped the board near me and he followed suit. “So, Bradley might be a little bigger than you. The board will be fine though.”

Bastian’s eyes narrowed at my assessment. As I stared at him, his shadow engulfing me, I reassessed because Bastian was a whole head taller than me.

He slid off his T-shirt, the movement unhurried.

I didn’t look away. Instead, I sucked my bottom lip in between my teeth and stared like a hungry dog. He was muscles on top of muscles and abs over abs and that vein on his pelvic area that dipped under his swim trunks was much too distracting.

I’d had him before.

I knew how it all felt. How big he was and how well he maneuvered his size.

“Morina.” His voice was thick and full of gravel. He dragged a finger from my collarbone up to my chin, tipping it up so I could look at him. “You’re staring where you shouldn’t be, piccola ragazza. Don’t do that, love, unless you intend to do something about it.”

I stepped back and cleared my throat. The way I wanted to take him up on the offer wasn’t at all healthy. He and I both knew that. “Sorry. You’re normally in a suit and normally not so…” I waved at his abs. “So on display.”

“Only reason you’re looking?”

“Sure,” I said, moving on from the uncomfortable questioning. I’d been holed up in that penthouse for way too long. He was running around for work and probably still indulging in women. I couldn’t possibly bring a guy back.

It was a topic we’d have to discuss later.

The idea caused a fire in my stomach, hot and worthy of fury if I thought about it. Instead, I whipped my own shirt off, and when I looked back at him, he was staring exactly where he shouldn’t be too.

Good. I wasn’t the only one. I’d expected that and honestly hoped for it. I’d worn a smaller bikini and it was a bright coral instead of the normal black and white ones I wore.

I don’t know why I’d needed to get his attention that day, I just knew that I wanted him to look at me like I was attractive enough. Maybe it was the fact that I was all too aware of his beauty or that I wasn’t sure if I’d just been a girl in the right place at the right time that first night.

I wasn’t a diamond like most of the women I was sure he dated. I wore baggy clothes with the color fading. I didn’t do my nails, and I didn’t even try to act girly. I embraced astrology and the smell of damn oil in shakes for a living.

To most men, I was easy, not unique. I was there and willing, not rare and one of a kind. I was okay with that because they were the same for me. I didn’t want anything more or less from the men I’d hooked up with the past.

Now, I had five months left with a man I thought I actually enjoyed as a sort of friend. I know I enjoyed his crepes, that was for sure.

Standing at the edge of the water, I explained the basics of surfing. He didn’t seem to get it when I told him it was going to be difficult.

He smirked in my face like the cocky boss he thought he was here.

Oh, dear Bastian, your dick was big in other areas, but no one ruled the ocean.

So, I let him dive deeper and deeper into his cockiness until he tried his first wave.

He sputtered, coming up for air after being knocked off by the monster that was the sea.

Somehow, he still managed to look like Poseidon, all muscle and anger and ruthlessly glaring as water dripped from the strong lines on his face.

I can admit, I was a bit distracted by the six or eight pack of abs he was carrying and didn’t exactly give him a great lesson. Yet, he kept trying and trying. At one point, he popped up from the water with a scraped arm, his tattoos pouring blood.

“Jesus, you hit the floor?” I winced, realizing we were closer to a rock bed than I’d originally anticipated.

He shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“There are sharks,” I grumbled because the man didn’t seem to know when to quit.

“And you think out of all this water, a shark is going to pick me?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Isn’t that a myth?” He floated, leaning his arms on his board.

“Probably.” I sighed. “I think we need to call it.”

“Because you think I can’t do it.”

“You can’t right now.” I swam languidly around my board, flipping onto my back and letting the sun hit my skin as the water made me rise and fall. “You’ll get it if you keep practicing.”

“So, when should we practice again?”

I turned and stared at him. Glaring at the board as he trailed his big hands up and down it, I saw the look of a man not used to failing.

“I’ll bring you when you want.” I tugged his board close to mine, dragging him with it. “You did good, Bastian. You’ve outperformed more than most. The first time Bradley came out here, he said he was quitting and that it was a dumb sport.”

“And you?” He squinted into the sun as though wanting to catch every movement of my face.

I glanced away. “My dad was a good surfer. He had a little bit of Samoan and Haitian in him. He didn’t talk about his parents much, but I know they practically lived in the water. I took after him.”

“He teach you?”

“Teach is a strong word. We all just sort of came here to be. My mom and dad loved the beach and all three of us surfed for as long as I could remember until we didn’t anymore.”

“Okay,” he said softly. Bastian never pried. He didn’t ask questions about my family. I think it was because he didn’t want me to ask about his.

We tiptoed around our pasts because we didn’t really have a future, and so it wasn’t like our knowledge of the past mattered.

Still, for some reason, I almost told him. My heart wanted to.

I found myself struggling with that. It was the first time in a long while I didn’t go with the flow of my emotions. I pulled them back, completely scared of what might happen.

“Should we head in? The sun’s about to set.” I pointed up and started to swim back to the beach.

He followed without argument.