Excerpt...

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Some people believe that with time you can become accustomed to just about anything. Time had done nothing to make me at all comfortable with this level of opulence. If anything, every day brought more evidence that I was a figurative and literal foreigner in a foreign land, an imposter. Alice wasn’t meant to live in Wonderland after all. At some point she had to return to reality…didn’t she?

   

On our way to Sardinia, we stopped in Corsica, dropping anchor just outside the Bay of Calvi. We were not alone in this; a number of megayachts were parked outside the bay because they were so large they would’ve run aground. The vista was a feast for the senses. The red and gold craggy Corsican landscape jutted out and embraced the bay, the crystalline water a patchwork of blues and greens resembling spilled jewels glistening in the sunlight.

 

I whiled away the morning on the deck of the yacht, seeking refuge from the blistering sun under the shade of the enormous canopy of a lounge chair. The sirocco kicked up, a blast of dry, hot air carrying with it the sweet scent of North Africa. For the first time since we’d left Geneva, I let myself relax, closed my eyes and surrendered to the serenade of the wind.

 

The Mediterranean sun was not a friend to my pale skin, which hadn’t seen a bathing suit in more than a decade. As I finished slathering every square inch of my body with zinc sunscreen, Sebastian emerged from below deck with his red swim trunks hanging dangerously low on his hips. He stretched his arms overhead and bent his head left and right, the motion causing his trunks to drop low enough that I could see…well, you get the picture.

 

“See anything you like?” he drawled, wiggling his eyebrows. His sense of humor was returning in small increments, more and more of it the farther we traveled from Geneva. That alone made the trip worthwhile. I see the bite marks I left on your hipbone...though I kept that to myself.

 

“Yes––and so will the captain and the crew if you don’t pull up your trunks. The remark only earned me another mischievous smirk. He was about to dive in when I said, “Let me put some sunscreen on you.” Beneath the constellation of freckles that had sprouted up on his shoulders practically overnight, the skin was turning a little pink. When I held up a bottle of waterproof fifty, he wrinkled his nose at it, and shook his head.

 

“I’m not a delicate china doll like you,” he replied in a low, sexy voice and dropped a quick kiss on my pursed lips. Delicate…hmmm. I dug a finger right into the newly pink skin at the top of his shoulder blade and he winced, shying away from the pressure.

 

“Right, my pretty pink rose. Guess who’s going to be looking for the bottle of aloe tonight.” I finally got some on him––even though I had to suffer through more complaints and assurances of his manliness.

 

Already having given up all pretense of reading a novel, I slipped on the Victoria Beckham sunglasses which Sebastian had purchased on the sly––the sunglasses which I had refused to let him buy after almost swallowing my tongue when I saw the price––and watched him do laps up and down the length of the boat.

 

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him…my very own merman. His skin gilded, sunlight glistening off the curved planes of his slick muscles, the graceful motion of his arms as they arced and sliced through ultramarine waves. I used to roll my eyes at the silly romantic novels the other girls at school would read. Now I was writing odes in my mind to the man’s gluteus. Oh how low the mighty had fallen.

 

“Come in,” he yelled, motioning with his arm.

 

“I prefer the view from here.”

 

The merman’s smile was wide and bright, lighting up his

whole face. 

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