: Chapter 26

For the second night in a row, my dinner tastes as though it’s been sprinkled with fairy dust and dipped in flavors newly fallen from the heavens.

It’s a simple charcuterie picnic, with cheeses and prosciutto and capicola, grapes and figs, honeycomb and cornichons, crackers and dipping sauces.

But it tastes better for watching Begonia enjoy it.

Correction.

It tastes better for helping a very naked Begonia enjoy it.

“What kind of cheese is this?” she asks, leaning over to hold a cube to my mouth.

I eat it off her fingers and chew slowly while she watches me. “No idea. I need another.”

I’d swear her smile blossoms from the depths of her soul. It’s so wide, uninhibited, and joyful—so very Begonia. “Mr. Rutherford, are you trying to get me to feed you again?”

I offer her a fig, which she eats off my fingers. “What good is it to have a Greek painting brought to life if she doesn’t let me lie with my head in her lap and feed me grapes off the vine?”

“I am not a Greek painting.”

“Correct. You’re much lovelier.”

She scoots closer, her bare chest brushing mine as we recline on the blanket in the comfortable summer evening, and she dangles another cube of cheese over my lips. “You may have another sample, but not until you tell me if you’ve ever camped.”

“Like this?”

“No, like in a tent in the woods, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire and telling ghost stories until you can’t sleep because every raccoon or squirrel sounds like the claw coming to get you.”

“Not recently.”

She laughs, free and easy, and I tug her closer to kiss that sweet mouth.

I can’t remember the last time I felt free to laugh about the little things.

Or the last time I wanted to.

But she makes me want to smile. And laugh. And sleep outdoors in the light of the moon, wrapped in a blanket with a woman who’s asked for so very little and given so very much.

“You’ve slept outdoors often?” I ask her.

“When I was little, Hyacinth and I used to sleep wherever we got tired when we were running around our Dad’s camp all summer long. We woke up once in a canoe.”

“On the water?”

“I swore a blood oath to Hy that I’d never, ever, ever reveal more details than that.”

I chuckle. “And did you weave your secrets into friendship bracelets?”

“We did! And we made candles and tie-dyed T-shirts and that’s the first place I ever used a pottery wheel.”

“At your father’s camp?”

She feeds me a bite of prosciutto as she nods. “He had the most adorable art hut. Every summer after Mom and Dad divorced, we’d spend it out at Camp Funshine. And the minute Mom let us out of the car, Hy would race for the archery range or the ropes course, and I’d dash off in the other direction for the art hut.”

Camp Funshine. Of course. It couldn’t have been named anything else. “You miss it?”

“Dad gave so many kids the best memories of their summers, and we met so many kids from all over the world. There was this girl I met from—oh my gosh, you know what? I can’t start, because if I start telling you about all of the people I met there, I would literally never stop.”

I smile. That’s pure Begonia. “Have you been back as an adult?”

“No. The people who bought it when Dad declared bankruptcy just wanted the land. And the lake. And the stables. It’s—it’s not what it used to be.”

There’s a sadness in her voice that makes me want to slay dragons. Begonia Fairchild was not born to be sad. She was born to make instant best friends at summer sleepaway camp, to leap head-first into any adventure that comes her way, and to lie here with me, naked beneath the summer moon, eating a charcuterie picnic while I wonder what on earth I could ever offer this magical creature to entice her to stay as long as possible.

Somehow in the past two weeks, she’s gone from the world’s largest inconvenience to my reminder that the world is a place of joy.

“Your father declared bankruptcy.” The words leave my mouth, and I cringe.

But Begonia laughs, as if she understands where I was going. “Yes. It wasn’t pleasant, but he survived. I mean, not long, but it wasn’t… It wasn’t bankruptcy that killed him. That was an accident.”

“You weren’t terrified at all when I threatened to sue you.”

Her cheeky grin flashes in the moonlight. “I would’ve been sad if you’d followed through and I had to raise funds by putting my great-grandma Eileen’s old dildo collection on eBay to afford my own legal fees, but yes, I know I would’ve survived.”

“I’m quite the asshole.”

“Hayes. You found a total stranger making a disaster of your house.”

I grunt and reach for a grape to feed her. “That turned out far better than I expected.”

“And look at us now,” she agrees.

Look at us now, indeed. “Do you still enjoy camping?”

“I used to, but then—well, then I grew up and did what I thought grown-ups should do, which is dumb, isn’t it? Why can’t grown-ups have fun too?”

“Are you not having fun tonight, Begonia?”

She wriggles against me, making my cock go harder than it has any right to be given how thoroughly I climaxed not fifteen minutes ago.

And because I’ve been spending so much time around Begonia, I have an irrational desire to high-five myself for it.

She’s not rich. Newly divorced. With her entire plans for her time off thrown into disarray through no fault of her own.

Yet she’s the most joyful woman I’ve ever met, as if she believes the world is made of rainbows and that each experience, from waking up in the morning to having a picnic on the beach, is to be savored.

She’s the sun, and I’ve become a single blade of grass basking in her presence.

She tips the cheese into my mouth, and then she’s talking again, her voice washing over me. “I’m having the best time. Do you know what? Summer camp should be a thing for grown-ups too. We should get to play and have fun and let someone else make us cafeteria food after we spend the morning canoeing and swimming and horseback riding, and then get to have grown-up time afterwards.”

“You’ve just described Rutherford family reunions, but without the horrors of cafeteria food, and I honestly don’t want to know which of my relatives are engaging in grown-up time.”

“Did you go to summer camp as a kid? The traditional kind where you sleep away from your parents for a week or more at a time?”

I offer her a bite of brie brushed with honey. “Every summer from six to sixteen, but it was crew—rowing—camp, or lacrosse camp, or math camp, or college application prep camp.”

“Did you shoot bows and arrows?”

“No.”

“Paddleboard on the lake?”

“No.”

“Eat s’mores around the campfire?”

“We had crème brûlée and chocolate lava cakes catered by Michelin-level chefs while we sat around getting lectures about how to apply for college.”

She gasps. “Had you never had a s’more before our campfire picnic in Maine?”

I crack a grin. Can’t help it. “How many Razzle Dazzle films have you seen, bluebell?”

“At least four hundred thirty-seven. I was watching them before Jonas started getting starring roles. I miss the days when Hank Houseman was your main lead. He was too old for me to be attracted to, but I couldn’t help myself. Just shew.”

I roll and pin her beneath me. “How many of those four hundred thirty-seven Razzle Dazzle films had campfire scenes?”

She purses her lips, and it’s nearly impossible to not kiss them.

But I want the reward.

I want to watch the light dawn.

It is never disappointing.

And when her eyes go round and her lips part, and then she throws her head back and laughs—that is everything.

“Are you telling me lies?” she asks. “College application prep camp? You are! You’re making that up, and you’ve had s’mores, and you did go to traditional summer sleepaway camp.”

“I believe it’s called teasing when done in the midst of flirting.”

“You are the most adorable flirter ever.”

“Adorable?”

She nods solemnly. “So adorable.”

I grunt.

Her eyes twinkle and that smile flashes over her face, and she’s done it again.

One more point to Begonia for bringing a ray of sunshine into the darkness.

Many more, and I will not recover when she leaves.

“Maybe I should show you adorable.” I tilt my lips to her neck, and her squeal turns into a soft sigh.

“More,” she whispers.

More.

I’ve always wanted more too, but my more was always solitude, a good biography, an afternoon to work on calculus problems for fun, sometimes cheesecake, sometimes a game of chess with Uncle Antonio or my father.

Now, I want more Begonia.

And I intend to have her as often as I can until this summer is over.